Moveable Feast: Brazil

Last weekend we celebrated the foods of Brazil at the Summer 2013 edition of Moveable Feast. This cuisine is unfamiliar to me but as I researched I came across a recipe for Quindim (pronounced keen-deem) or Brazilian Coconut Flan. I was intrigued and liked that they could be made as little bite-size versions using a mini-muffin tin.

Unlike most other Brazilian desserts, this one didn’t call for sweetened condensed milk. But don’t let that fool you, it still had a rich base of egg yolks, sugar, and coconut milk. Unsweetened coconut (I don’t have fresh), a little butter, and a little vanilla are all I needed to round out the ingredients.

Once all the ingredients were incorporated I poured the batter into a mini-muffin tin. I buttered and sugared the pan using some coconut sugar I got in Hawaii to enhance the coconut flavor. This recipe made exactly 24 mini flan.

The muffin tin goes into a bain-marie in the oven to bake. I used a jelly roll pan since the muffin tin was so shallow. It was a little tricky not getting water spilled everywhere but otherwise it worked really well.

For larger molds the baking time is 45 – 60 minutes. I started at 15 minutes and then checked the quindim every few minutes. When I finally removed them from the oven they were firm and just slightly golden brown. In my oven it was somewhere between 20-25 minutes.

As with many things I try for the first time, I wasn’t sure that the quindim would come out properly. The batter was very pale and didn’t look at all like the rich yellow I saw in the pictures. I wondered if it had to do with the eggs that I used. But when they came out of the molds, they were beautiful. The grated coconut floats to to top of the flan and when they’re turned out they act as a crust.

It’s a beautiful little dessert, a perfectly sized sweet treat after a big meal.

I printed the recipe and didn’t include the URL reference so my apologies that I cannot give due credit to the original author of the recipe. I searched as I wrote this entry and cannot find the original reference. If anyone has it, please let me know. Until I can find it and give proper credit, here’s the recipe I followed:

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