Pumpkin Flan for the Royal Foodie Joust (and HONEY GIVE-AWAY!)

We have never participated in the Royal Foodie Joust before, so I figured it was about time! It is a monthly event put on by Jenn, the Leftover Queen, where she provides some basic ingredients and you have to be creative. This month's challenge was inspired by Halloween and the dish had to include an orange squash (pumpkin or other) and a dark beer. Fun!!! I immediately thought of a custard type dish like crème brûlée or flan. Flan won out as I don't have the right equipment for crème brûlée....boo.

This dessert was sort of a disaster in the beginning...but overall turned out pretty awesome! Mainly a disaster because I had invited over a few of my classmates for "tasty pumpkin flan with Guinness caramel" on Sunday and didn't look at the recipe until noon on Sunday...oops. I briefly panicked when I read that it needed to chill for 6 hours and thought about cancelling. But, how could i cancel on flan??? How!!! Andrew ran to the store and got the ingredients we needed and we got to work. He made the flan part (super easy, just toss everything into the kitchen aid) and I worked on the caramel. The recipe called for 2/3 cups sugar and 1/4 cup water. I figured I could just substitute the water for Guinness and call it a day. Wrong.

The "caramel" foamed and was weird and then when I finally thought it looked sort of right it hardened as soon as I poured it in the pan. Needless to say, it did not coat the bottom. I tried again with water and sugar and it looked great until all the water evaporated and it was just one big gloppy mess in the bottom of our brand new all clad sauce pan. I again panicked and threw in enough water to redissolve the sugar. I poured it all in the bottom of the pan, poured on the flan mixture and crossed my fingers. After that I texted my friends and telling them to come later in the evening and hoped that the freezer would do a good job at setting up the flan.

And you know what? It worked! The flan turned out to be super super yummy, the caramel on the bottom was perfect and it set up great! Success! I also made a Guinness syrup to pour over the top. It was pretty, but a little bitter...the flan was better without. Oh well...
ALSO!!! This week we are doing a give away to a lucky blog reader. Up for grabs is a jar of raw honey from the bees at my school. You can read more about the arboretum where they live here. To enter to win, please leave a comment and I will draw randomly! The drawing will take place on November 14th.

Pumpkin Flan
recipe from Gourmet

1 1/3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
2 cups canned pumpkin puree
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
2 cups heavy cream

In a small skillet combine 2/3 cup of the sugar with 1/4 cup water and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring and washing down any sugar crystals clinging to the sides with a brush dipped in cold water until the sugar is dissolved. Cook the syrup, swirling the skillet, until it is a deep caramel, pour it into a warm 2-quart glass loaf pan, tilting the pan to coat the bottom evenly, and let the caramel harden.

In a bowl beat the eggs with the remaining 2/3 cup sugar, beat in the pumpkin puree, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and cream, and pour the custard into the loaf pan. Set the loaf pan in a deep baking pan, add enough hot water to the baking pan to reach halfway up the sides of the loaf pan, and bake the flan in the middle of a preheated moderate oven (350 degrees F) for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the flan cool and chill it, covered, overnight. Run a thin knife around the edge of the loaf pan, invert a platter over the pan, and invert the flan onto the platter. Serve the flan, cut into slices, with the cinnamon whipped cream.