Mini egg pudding with spun sugar nest

If there is one dessert that I absolutely adore is caramel flan or egg pudding. The pudding also has many versions and is versatile enough to take on many flavours.

It is a simple dessert. There is nothing fanciful about it. Dress it up with spun sugar decorations or simple fruit. I just love it as is; plain with the caramel syrup. It is silky, rich, and decadent.

Flan is one of those fancy desserts that looks intimidating to make, but it’s actually quite simple. The trickiest part is the caramel. Keep a watchful eye and pull it off the heat when it's dark amber and just starting to smell like burnt sugar.

Be sure to have ramekins or other similar cookware for individual servings. Or use a soufflé dish, cake pan, or loaf pan to make just one big flan. Regardless of the choice of dish, it must comfortably fit into larger baking pans for a bain-marie.

Coming to the spun sugar nest, well that is a different ball game altogether! Spun sugar is simply thin strands of melted sugar that have been formed into a ball, nest, ribbon, or whatever. To get the strands you have to melt the sugar, let it cool a tiny bit, then use a spun sugar whisk or fork to pick up the sugar syrup and fling it around. Once it reaches the cool air it starts to harden, creating thin strands of gold.