Leche Flan con Cream Cheese

Dessert

If you think the Leche Flan you've been consuming all these years is rich, this recipe will surely make you reconsider.  The creator is Celia Fisher and was shared by +Chef Ron Bilaro.  After my first attempt, the following recipe has some minor fine-tuning.  It is a wee bit more dense than your regular leche flan, practically like a cheesecake.  Who can say no to that??!? Definitely not my family.

Celia Fisher, the creator of this crazy good recipe.

Ingredients & Process (for a 9 1/2 inch baking tin; sorry, we want our custards big & thick so I don't use the typical, dainty llanera)

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
• Make the caramel in a small pot by gently heating 1/3 cup water, 1 cup brown sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. This would take about 6 minutes until sugar is melted and golden brown. Per the original recipe, you can prepare the caramel directly on the pan.  Unfortunately, cack hands and induction cooktops don't go safely together :p
• Pour the caramel onto the pan.  Submerge the bottom of the pan on ice water to stop the cooking process ie, you don't want the sugar to harden.
  
• You can do the following in a blender or if you're lazy to set up and wash too many things, just bring out your hand blender. In a big bowl with spout, hand-blend the following.  Make sure there are no cream cheese clumps hiding in the mixture. Believe me, the cream cheese is tricky.

1. 5 eggs - room temperature
2. 1 can evaporated milk
3. 1 can condensed milk 
4. 4 oz cream cheese (that would be half a tub)
5. 1 teaspoon cinnamon
6. 2 tablespoons vanilla

• Carefully pour mixture into the pan.  That's why you need a spout on your bowl because you don't want the caramel and custard to mix - you want them as separate layers.
• Cover pan with tin foil and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes in a bain marie.
• When done, dispose of tin foil and chill flan in the refrigerator to set.
• Run the dull side of a thin knife around the edge before inverting on serving plate.