Sugar Rush in Smoke

An emotional cook is all astir and mixed up

We walked back from Faun Restaurant in the rain, wind and cold when I got an idea for the flan recipe, that is, an idea as to why it wasn’t working here in Germany. Alex has given me no complaints about me experimenting with this obsession on a regular basis. I made us some coffee to warm us up and got to work.

The egg yolks in Germany are much smaller than in the U.S. You get one type of egg, usually brown, at the local grocery stores. In the U.S. you can pick brown or white in medium, large, x-large, even jumbo, if I remember correctly. I may have used the x-large eggs for the flan recipe when I lived in the States. So I’ve doubled the amount of egg yolk. I got to the sugar caramelization part, spooned in sugar in the sauce pan, turned on the stove and walked into the living room to look up a measurement when I got distracted.

Alex was watching “The Pianist” and this movie always makes me emotional. I was in the living room only for a few minutes when I turned around and saw smoke coming from the kitchen. I ran toward the smoke Alex followed behind and closed the kitchen door behind me. carbon catastropheHoly Cow sugar smoke burns the back of your throat and makes your eyes water. I opened the kitchen window stuck the pot on the sill and got out of the kitchen and found more smoke throughout the entire apartment. A few more minutes on the burner, the sugar would have surly started a fire.

I felt so crummy that I allowed that to happen, but Alex stayed calm told me it was alright. We were definitely lucky. I got out a another pot and made a second attempt at the caramel, never leaving its side. Just from the baking results, I think this might be finally a good batch of flan (for my expectations). I’ll find out from Alex if the reviews will be a scorcher )

Household Hints: Cleaning Burnt Pans