Edward Buddha Hands, Part One – Crème Caramel

Buddha’s hand is one of the absolute strangest fruits that I have ever seen.  If somehow a lemon and a cuttlefish were able to mate, and produce an offspring…and that offspring mated with Medusa, the offspring of THAT encounter would probably look an awful lot like Buddha’s hand.  I would like to send a special “Thank You” to Luke and Sarah for gifting me with a Buddha’s hand. 

The only usable part of the fruit, in my opinion, is the zest, and there is a whole lot of it, so I will be putting up a number of posts about this unusually fruit.  Today’s post will focus on a dish that definitely falls in my top 5 desserts list, crème caramel.  PLEASE NOTE – Buddha’s hand is not an easily accessible fruit, so all Buddha’s hand based recipes that I post can easily be made with the zest of any citrus fruit.

Despite the extra-terrestrial appearance of the fruit, it smells pretty heavenly.  Buddha’s hand smells like lemon zest perfumed with the sweet aroma of orange blossoms.  It is similar to the scent of Meyer lemons, but doesn’t have the “cleaning product” scent that Meyer lemons often emit.  The zest is powerful, so a little goes a long way.  In this recipe, I am going to pair the flavor of the Buddha’s hand zest with caramel.  Citrus and caramel are actually very good friends.

 

Ingredients -

 

¾ C sugar

¼ C water

⅛ tsp. cream of tartar, or a squeeze of lemon

2 C whole milk

1 heaping tsp. Buddha’s hand zest

3 whole eggs

3 egg yolks

Pinch salt

 

Crème caramel, a.k.a. flan, is a delicious dish and an awesome display of food chemistry.  If you like custard and caramel, then you will adore this dish.  The final product is satiny custard sitting in a pool of the most delicious caramel.  How can that be bad?  In this recipe we will make one large crème caramel, but you can just as easily divide the caramel and custard into 4 large ramekins if you would like to make individual crème caramels.  Be sure to keep an eye on them in the oven if you opt for this change in procedure, because they will not require the same cooking time as the large crème caramel.

 

The first thing that we have to do is make the caramel.  Making caramel is a tricky art to master, but once you get it under your belt it’s like riding a bike.  Add the water, cream of tartar, and ½ C of the sugar to a small saucepan and put over medium-high heat.  You can give it a quick stir at this point to help the sugar dissolve, but frankly I think it is totally unnecessary.  Once the sugar has dissolved YOU CAN NO LONGER PUT ANYTHING INTO THE POT!  This means no spoons of any kind.  Do not disturb the caramel.  The sugar and water mixture is very unstable when cooked at high temperatures, so messing with it can cause the dissolved sugar to come out of solution and crystallize.  The cream of tartar that was added helps stabilize the solution because it lowers the pH, so do not worry about the sugar coming out of solution…it should not happen.  Lemon juice will do the same thing.  Boil the solution until you begin to see tinges of color appear.  At this point, swirl the caramel around every once in a while and keep cooking until it becomes a deep amber color.  Remove from the heat and pour immediately into an 8 inch soufflé dish or cake pan.  Tilt and turn the dish until the caramel has covered the bottom of the dish.  It will set up now and become quite hard, but this is supposed to happen, so fear not.  To clean the saucepan that has the caramel in it, fill it up with water and bring it to a boil in order to dissolve the remaining caramel.

 

To make the custard, combine the milk and Buddha’s hand zest in a small saucepan and bring to a near-boil.  Remove from heat.  Combine the eggs, egg yolks, remaining ¼ C sugar, and salt in a heatproof bowl and whisk vigorously for a couple of minutes in order to completely break up the eggs and beat a little air into them.  Pour the hot milk mixture into the beaten eggs in a slow, steady stream, whisking all the while.  You can strain the milk before doing this to remove the zest, if you prefer…I didn’t do it and I regret that choice.  My custard came out very well, but it isn’t 100% smooth when there are little bits of zest in it. 

 

 

Pour the custard into the dish with the caramel and bake in a water bath for 50 minutes at 325°F.  The video below will show you what the finished product should look like when done baking.

 

 

After allowing the flan to cool for a few minutes, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold, at least 4 hours.  Most people run a knife along the edge of the flan and then invert it onto a serving dish.  Since I was only making this for myself, I left it as is and simply scoop out a serving each time I want some.  I rather prefer this because it really allows the custard to bathe in the caramel. 

 

This dish just could not get any better.  The eggs, egg yolks, and solids in the milk create soft, smooth, creamy custard, while the water in the milk mixes with the intense caramel to form a pool of burnt sugar bliss.  The zest from the Buddha’s hand adds a delicious citrus perfume and really pairs well with the intensity of the caramel.  All in all, this is a real winner of a dessert.