Full Plant Based Tone post
Flan holds a special place in my heart and tastebuds thanks to many sweet childhood memories of enjoying this velvety custard with my abuelita, Gigi. When I was a child Gigi, my mom, and I shared a special bonding ritual – taste testing every kind of flan we could get our hands on! We’d scour local restaurants trying creamy slices topped with glossy caramel, comparing the flavors and textures to decide on a winner. During grocery trips together, we’d eagerly grab flan cups and cans to judge which brand did it best.
When Gigi passed in 2018, I felt a distinct absence of flan in my life during the holidays when I longed for her company the most. I missed our fun flavor debates, analyzing aromas, and discussing amounts of caramel. Going on taste test adventures just wasn’t the same without my flan partner-in-crime. It also became a struggle when I became Vegan back in 2019 because there were no plant based flans I could find!
Last year, I set out on a mission to recreate Gigi’s favorite flan to satisfy my craving and honor our memories. It took testing a few vegan recipes, but I finally crafted a silky dairy-free custard just like she used to love, with simple whole-food ingredients like coconut milk, silken tofu, and agar agar powder (a plant based gelatin). As I gently unmolded the finished flan from its caramel-lined dish, memories of Gigi flooded back. With the first sweet bite of my tender homemade flan topped with a glistening glaze of bittersweet caramel, I felt closer than ever to my grandmother and our cherished flan tradition. Though she’s no longer here to share a dish with me, I feel comfort keeping our ritual alive, one sweet, nostalgic bite at a time.
* I try to use the best quality ingredients for my recipes because I remember having my cultural classics and seeing the ingredients list not knowing what most of it was. Even in everyday foods like canned coconut milk or your favorite sauce, there are some sketchy ingredients in today’s foods. I made it a mission to not only make traditional cultural recipes vegan but to eliminate many of the additives and toxins filled within these staples. Helping people become happier, healthier, and more free without missing out on family traditions.
These are the ingredients I used for Coconut Milk, Condensed Coconut Milk, and Agar Agar Powder. I also will list the Pyrex dish I like to use for convenience! Hope this helps!
You can watch a quick reel on how-to here!