our first recipe riff of fall
pyschocandy flan + some thoughts on furthering your own education
hey hi helllllo!
Welcome back for another installment of recipe riffin’- a lil series where I remind you that you have free will and can use it when you bake. Which also serves as a little bit of a BTS to how I bake at home.
Sometimes, I feel like a bit of a broken record and I kinda have to be (I don’t quite like repeating myself lol) but but but, something I’ve realized in sharing more and more of my recipes on the internet is that there is a revolving door of folks finding their way here. Right, in the past 30 days 2,156 new baddies have joined us here on bake chats (ok wow thank you hii!!!) But, that’s 2,156 people who haven’t heard me yap about how you can use an infused milk to bring new flavor to an old dish. So, like, damn now I gotta say it again. Which is fine!! right?? I can’t expect everyone to go back through every post to find when and where I’ve said this before.
Today’s recipe riff is taking my goat milk flan recipe (which, is I mean that’s basically my classic flan recipe with goat milk and orange juice in place of whole milk with some spices… so yeah). But, taking that recipe and infusing it with August Uncommon Pyschocandy tea for the most decadent butterscotchy flavor. I talk about this blend every year the second labor day hits and it’s just such an insane flavor. I don’t say you need to try anything all that often, but you need this tea for fall. It’s incredible.
Let’s get to it
xx
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OK so, there’s a little bit of a trend on TikTok right now where people are making monthly personal curriculums for a variety of subjects, just for the sake of learning and feeding their own curiosity. I LOVE it. love it. I’ve thought about going “back to school” to take random courses just to further my own education. So, this movement is totally my jam.
That being said, I need you to start thinking about your baking journey as your own set of culinary curricula. No pastry school needed. Much like school, you need to look at your education as having prerequisite courses that set the foundation for more more advanced studies aka baking projects. Where things that you learn earlier on, carry with you and can be applied to loftier baking projects down the line.
Someone commented on a video of mine once and said my content wasn’t educational because I didn’t lay you the exact scientific break down of everything I did. Now, hate comments don’t get to me. But, this shit sent me into a tailspin because what do you MEAN. I’ve got lotsa thoughts ok. I’ll only bore ya with a few but I think we’ve lost the art of learning with out being directly being taught. To pick up on the things said in passing. But, that’s maybe also a little different from the point of making your own curriculum.
Reeling it back- stop trying to get all your information from one source. I’d actually hate it if all your knowledge on baking came from just me. Look at the creators whose content you consume as different teachers and apply what you learn from all of them to your own baking. Like, obviously I’ll teach ya what I know but you might need to fill in some of the gaps on your own. Either with knowledge other creators have to share or with your own independent research. Pastry school is expensive- google is free.
The things you learn form your prereq teachers will carry with you and apply to more advanced levels of baking down the line. Baking after all is just a bunch of technical building blocks stacked on top of one and other. So, when I tell you that you can infuse the milk and the cream of this recipe with pyschocandy tea, you’ll take that as I can infuse the milk and cream of other recipes with this tea too. It’s not something that is just tied to this one recipe. Infusing is the technique and it’s just being applied to different liquids in different recipes- ya get it?
There are two creators who I especially love as your intro to the science of baking and ingredient function, who I highly recommend as your prereq teachers:
I can also be heavily quoted as saying “you don’t need the recipe for every single thing you see on the internet”. Put this shit on my tombstone bro. Because you don’t!! You just need a jumping off point. Like, if I shared this flan and said this is my flan recipe but infused with tea. You don’t need my flan recipe, you just need one you like. Infusing the liquid of my flan also applies to infusing the liquids in your flan- ya know? If someone says “Oh I made a vanilla cake, with raspberry jam and vanilla custard.” If you want that you don’t need to berate them for their recipes. You just gotta find recipes for each component and slap them all together.
All that being said, when it comes to working with tea for flavor inspiration I like to tackle it from two different angles. Number one being the most obvious and straight forward- by infusing the liquids and then using that in the recipe. Especially when the liquid is the star of the recipe. Like, in the case of flan, when the recipe is 50ish% milk/cream. That infused flavor is really gonna shine.
The other way I like to go about it is using the components of the blend for overall inspo- kinda in the same vein as the perfume cakes. Taking the notes of the tea blend and using those to flavor each piece of a larger recipe. If we’re sticking with Pyschocandy and cake, the notes would be: south african rooibos, dried pumpkin, turkish apple, caramel, sweet blackberry leaf, Madagascar vanilla, and pumpkin. This could look like:
Brown butter pumpkin cake layers
Blackberry tea leaf soak
Rooibos infused caramel custard
Stewed & spiced apples
Vanilla bean swiss buttercream
And on the flip just using the tea blend, could just be:
Vanilla cake
Pyschocandy infused custard
Caramel Italian meringue buttercream
Creativity is all about how you choose to work with that’s presented to you after all.
Though, the thing about infusing the liquid portion of your recipe is that, whatever you infuse with will take on some of the liquid as it hydrates. The level of hydration/liquid loss will vary depending on what you’re working with. I’ll typically opt to start with 25% more liquid to account for weight lost during steeping- then reweigh to make sure I have the right amount of liquid for the recipe. If it comes in under that’s needed then I just top off with a splash more of the unflavored liquid.
PYSCHOCANDY FLAN
Annoyingly the flan is a three day process. But, in a very chill way. I really do prefer a long cold steep for delicate teas into milks so you only bring out the best notes and flavors. You can choose to speed things along with a shorter steep time for the tea into warmed milk. But, you’ll need to ensure you cool your tea back down before using it. Your custard should be cold going into the oven, if it’s warmed up it will bake faster which can result in over baking.
TOOLS:
Mixing bowls
Can opener
Whisk
Fine mesh sieve
Rubber spatula
9” cake round
A vessel large enough to hold the 9” cake pan, I use a 12” cake pan but you can use a large roasting pan too.
INGREDIENTS:
400 grams whole milk
440 grams heavy cream
3 tablespoons (20 grams) of psychocandy tea, or the tea of your choosing
150 grams granulated sugar
1-14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
140 grams egg yolks (approx 7 large egg yolks)
150 grams eggs (approx 3 large eggs)
1 teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt
DIRECTIONS:
DAY 1:
In a small saucepan gently heat the 400 grams of whole milk and 440 grams of heavy cream over low-medium heat. Just hot enough to take the chill off the dairy.
To the gently warmed dairy add 3 tablespoons of Pyschocandy tea. Giving a quick swirl to evenly saturate all the tea leaves. Pour into a heat safe container and store in the fridge overnight to infuse.
DAY 2:
Preheat the oven to 275F.
Prep the 9” cake pan for the flan. Add about half of the 150 grams of granulated sugar to a saucepan over medium heat to make a dry caramel. The sugar will begin to melt, swirl the pan as needed to ensure it all melts evenly. Once the first addition of sugar is melted add in the rest. Cook the sugar until it starts to smoke ever so slightly and reaches a deep amber color.
Carefully pour the caramel into your 9” cake pan and using oven mitts to hold the pan, swirl the caramel about to evenly coat the bottom and sides of the pan. Set aside.
Strain the infused milk through a fine mesh sieve. Making sure to press as much as the liquid from the tea leaves as possible, that’s where all the flavor lives after all. Reweigh, you should be left with roughly 760-770 grams of tea infused milk.
In a large bowl combine the 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk, 150 grams whole eggs, 140 grams yolks and 1 teaspoon of salt. Whisking until homogenous.
To the egg mixture add in the infused milk from earlier. Whisking until evenly combined. Being sure not to whisk to vigorously as we do not want to introduce a ton of air.
Strain the custard into the caramel lined cake pan. A layer of foam will rise to the top after a moment, I like to spoon this off to ensure a super silky smooth texture throughout, otherwise it can bake up as a little crust.
Place the cake pan into a second vessel and create a water bath by filling the vessel with hot water. It is best to place the vessel and flan in the oven before adding the water. Much easier to maneuver, trust me.
Bake for 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours. Bake times vary based on your oven. You’ll know the flan is done when it juuust has a slight wobble in the center. It should move in a cohesive way like jello and not ripple like water.
Remove the flan from the water bath and allow to cool to room temp before wrapping and storing in the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours, but preferably overnight.
DAY 3:
Carefully run a small paring knife around the edge of the flan to release it. Place a plate over top of the flan, you’ll find a plate with a decent lip on it will be best for catching all of the caramel run off. Invert the flan and remove the cake pan.
At times flan may be stubborn to release but just give her a little time and gravity to come loose. Otherwise you run the risk of your flan tearing/breaking from and force used to get her out.
ENJOY!
Till next time bake chat baddies <333
