Quick Coconut Flans

This one is for my lovely colleague Laura, whose birthday it is today and she loves all things coconut! It is a handy Lockdown recipe as most of the ingredients are long life, but you wouldn’t guess it from the flavour. They are lovely and light, perfect served with a minted fresh fruit salad.

Ingredients: makes 6 small flans

80 g dessicated coconut
250 g unsweetened evaporated milk
300 ml tinned coconut milk (I suggest putting the tin somewhere warm (airing cupboard?) for a few minutes and shaking well before opening it and decanting out as the cream naturally separates to the top if left at room temperature)
2 eggs
50 g caster sugar (and 6 extra teaspoons of sugar if brulee-ing the tops)
Optional fresh fruit (strawberries, raspberries, pineapple, or mango) and mint leaves to garnish

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 °C.

2. Break eggs in a bowl, whisk in the sugar, before adding the coconut, coconut milk and evaporated milk.

3. Pour into ramekins and bake for 25 minutes.

4. When they come out leave to cool. I then like to brulee the tops of them so they have a lovely crunchy caramel coating, but you don’t have to do this.

5. If browning the tops, scatter a teaspoon of sugar on the top of each flan and blowtorch or flash briefly under a very hot grill. These are tasty both at room temperature or cold out of the fridge.