Filipino Leche Flan

🥛 5-ingredient Leche Flan

For this Filipino leche flan recipe, you only need five simple ingredients that you can easily find in any grocery store:

• Eggs - This is an egg custard dessert, so not surprisingly, you need a LOT of egg yolks. You'll need a straight dozen - 12 egg yolks - to be exact. Save the egg whites and use them for a meringue either in this Taisan Filipino cake loaf, or these Mini Pavlova Cakes!
• Condensed milk AND evaporated milk - This Filipino egg custard dessert gets its creaminess thanks to sweetened condensed milk AND evaporated milk. The sweetened condensed milk contains a bit of sugar, whereas the evaporated milk does not. So, the evaporated milk is used here to add creaminess without additional sweetness.
• Sugar - Some granulated sugar adds the official sweetness to this dish, and creates that caramelized top. Read the step-by-step instructions below to learn how to melt sugar for flan.
• Vanilla - Use pure vanilla extract, which gives flan that classic bakery aroma and rich vanilla custardy flavor.

✅ Step-by-step instructions

Exact measurements of ingredients and instructions are in the printable recipe card toward the bottom of this post. Here are some helpful tips to guide you as you make this recipe.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease 6 high-sided ramekins with butter and line the bottoms with parchment paper. See the photos below for examples of two different shapes of ramekins I've used that work for this recipe. Set the ramekins aside.

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, evaporated milk, condensed milk, and vanilla extract until smooth. Set aside.

2. In a heavy bottom pot over medium heat, whisk together the light brown sugar and water and cook until the sugar has dissolved. Then lower the heat and continue whisking until the mixture has thickened slightly and is a golden brown.

3. Working quickly, use a spoon to divide even amounts of the melted brown sugar between 6 ramekins, which we're using as the leche flan containers for this recipe. Gently tilt ramekins from side to side to coat the entire bottom with melted sugar. Allow the sugar to set and slightly harden, which takes just a couple of minutes.

4. Pour the egg yolk milk mixture through a sieve evenly into each ramekin.

5. Place the ramekins onto a rimmed baking sheet, then pour in boiling water into the baking sheet just about ¾" to 1" deep.

6. Carefully place the baking sheet into the middle oven rack and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, just until the custard centers are set and no longer very jiggly.

7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool at room temperature, then refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, just until the leche flans are chilled, or up to overnight.

8. Serve in ramekins. Or, run a thin butter knife along the side edges or each ramekin to loosen the edges and then carefully flip ramekins over plates and serve on plates.

👩🏻‍🍳 Recipe FAQs

🍽 What to serve with this Filipino dessert

This custard dessert is a delicious way to finish up a Filipino feast. Start with some Pandesal (Filipino bread rolls), Lumpia (Filipino egg rolls), and Filipino Macaroni Salad.

Main dishes like Caldereta and Instant Pot Chicken Adobo are nice preludes to desserts like this leche flan.

If you want to make more Filipino desserts, try these colorful and yummy Ube White Chocolate Chip Cookies or Turon, Filipino banana lumpia.

🍳 Kitchen tools and equipment

For this Filipino Leche Flan recipe, you just need a few basic kitchen tools:

• Llanera or Ramekins - Leche flan is traditionally made in oval mold leche flan pans known as Llaneras. You can also use 6 heatproof, 6-ounce ramekins for this recipe. Make sure you do not get low-sided, shallow ramekins; the custard needs ramekins with medium to high sides.
  
  Alternatively, you can use an 8-inch round cake pan. Be sure to grease the ramekins or cake pan well with butter and/or line with parchment paper to make the leche flan lift easier from the ramekins. I tend to grease the ramekins AND add a layer of parchment paper to ensure the dessert doesn't stick.

• Mixing bowl - Use a large mixing bowl to mix the eggs, milks, and sugar.
• Heavy bottom pot - A heavy bottom pot like a Dutch oven will work to make the caramel.
• Wooden spoon - You'll need a wooden spoon or a heatproof silicone spatula to make the caramel.
• Sieve - You'll need a sieve to pour the custard through into the ramekins, to ensure you have smooth custard.