Editor’s note: This is the sixth post in our Flan Week celebration in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. Today is the turn of  Ericka, our The Culture of Food regular contributor and author of Nibbles and Feasts. Ericka shares with us a story and recipe of a traditional and easy flan de cajeta from Mexico . We hope you’ve been enjoying Flan Week and come back for the last recipe {Fat-Free Flan?!} tomorrow.

The smell of simmering cajeta at my grandmother’s house signified two things: Autumn had arrived, and obleas.  We would spend endless nights watching telenovelas and assembling cajeta and obleas (wafers) into little sandwiches of delight.  Wrapping them in cellophane and tying them with blue ribbons to sell at her convenience for 20 centavos. Cajeta is my greatest indulgence because it  sparks my greatest memories of spending time with my grandmother in her kitchen. Being flan week, I could not pass up the opportunity to celebrate than with none other than Flan de Cajeta.

Easy Flan de Cajeta Recipe

Ingredients:

For caramel
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water

For Flan:
¾ cup cajeta (preferably goat’s milk caramel)
2 ½ cups half-and-half
1 strip of lime zest (about 1” wide)
1 vanilla bean
3 whole large eggs
4 egg yolks

Directions for Caramel:
In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring sugar and water to boil.  Swirl or stir slowly until sugar has dissolved and the caramel has turned into an amber color.  Watch for darkening of color but be carful not to burn.

Immediately pour caramel in flan ramekins and swirl to coat bottom and a bit of the sides.

Directions for Flan:
Preheat oven to 350F

In medium sauce pan, put cajeta, half-n-half, and lime zest.  Split vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape seeds into pan.  Simmer and stir until smooth.

In a separate mixing bowl, wisk together eggs and yolks.  Slowly add to cajeta mixture and stir slowly.  Remove from heat and pass through a strainer.  Carefully ladle mixture into ramekins.

In a hot water bath, bake for 30-40 minutes until edges are set.  Center should still be a bit wobbly.

Remove from water and let cool for at least 30 minutes, flan should continue to set.  Unmold before serving.

Makes 6-8 flans

Ericka Sánchez–Proudly born in Torreón, Coahuila Mexico, Ericka arrived in the United States in 1982 to El Paso, Texas. Her love of food began in her mom’s kitchen but flourished in a food photography studio where she assisted in food styling/design and photo shoots.Now a wife and a mom to a 2-year old toddler, Ericka launched her bilingual blog Nibbles & Feasts in 2010 as a guide to satiating food cravings through recipes and to share her restaurant recommendations and food events in Los Angeles. You can read all of Ericka´s recipes here.

My husband, my girl and I all have a very sweet tooth.  Our weekend breakfasts usually consist of pancakes, waffles or crepes that my girl and I make together.  It’s become a bit of a special routine.  The one thing that is always present in our sweet breakfasts, thanks to my husband’s obsession with it, is Mexican cajeta; similar to dulce de leche, but made with goat’s milk instead of cow’s milk.  I’m sure when my daughter is older and away from home, she will feel nostalgia for cajeta since it’s such a part of her life.  Our favorite way to eat it is inside a freshly made crepe stuffed with strawberries.

Since I like to keep it simple and easy when I cook, I use whole wheat or buttermilk pancake mixes to make crepes.  All you have to do is add 1/4 to 1/2 cup more water to the mix to thin it out and you will get crepes.  I also make sure I keep a can of PAM cooking spray in the Butter flavor because it is the best way I’ve found to grease the pan for an even and good-tasting crepe.  Crepes need to cook at a heat of 400 or above, so butter usually burns up too quickly and chars the crepe.  Oil just makes a huge mess because of the high heat and doesn’t taste as good as  butter does for crepes.  A quick spray of PAM Butter greases it just fine and is easy to use.

Here’s how Camila and I make our favorite Crepas de Cajeta with Strawberries together:

Ingredients

• Your preferred pancake mix + ingredients requested on their instructions (most likely one egg and water)
• PAM cooking spray in Butter flavor
• Cajeta to taste.  You can find it at most large supermarkets in the Latin foods section, or make it yourself.  You can also substitute it with dulce de leche (my husband wouldn’t go for that one!)
• Fresh strawberries
• A dash of milk

To Make

Prepare the crepe mix as indicated on the box, but add 1/4-1/2 cup more water to thin out the mix;  it should be smooth and liquid.

The size of your crepes will depend on the size of the pan you use.

Spray the pan evenly with a quick one-second shot of PAM Butter flavor spray and place it on the high heat setting. Ideally, it should be at around 400 degrees.

Using a ladel or a measuring cup, pour 1/4 of a cup (or less, depending on the size of your pan) to fill a large sauteé pan.  The trick to a good crepe is to swirl the mix around to cover the entire surface of the pan as soon as you pour it in.  Don’t worry if it’s not a perfect circle because it won’t be noticeable once the crepe is closed.

Heat on one side for about 30 seconds until the edges start to crisp. Flip to the other side until done.  Since they are thin, they are ready quickly.

Remove and place on a dish.  I suggest you make all the crepes before continuing onto the next steps.

One by one, grab the crepes and place in the middle 2-3 sliced strawberries and pour over them approximately 3 tablespoons of cajeta.  Fold from each side and place the folded ends underneath.

Place a small saucepan over medium heat and  pour a 1/4 cup of cajeta and a dash of milk.  Stir until dissolved to create a cajeta sauce to pour over the crepes.

While sharing this recipe with you, I’ve also given you a tip of how I use PAM cooking spray to help me make consistently great-tasting and good-looking crepes.  We invite you to also share your tips for how PAM Helps You Pull it Off and enter PAM’s Top Tips contest {Update: This contest is now closed} for a chance to win $5,000 cash, a dinner party with Venezuelan-native celebrity chef George Duran and more. All you have to do is go here and submit a video, photo or blog entry with your cooking, grilling or all-around creative household tip on how to use PAM.  ¡Buena Suerte!

Disclosure:  This post is part of a sponsored series to help promote PAM’s Top Tip Contest.  We also received PAM products and promotional material from ConAgra to assist in preparing the posts.  All opinions (and the cajeta love!) are all our own.

Photo by Cris Lata

The use of cajeta in our house borders on the obsessive. It’s probably the only item with which we actually stock up our pantry. Es casi un pecado if my husband doesn’t have some for his pancakes.

What?  You never thought of pouring some deliciously sweet, caramely cajeta over your pancakes?  How about in your coffee?  On a bagel?  Spread on toast? Stuffed in crepes?  Sprinkled over baked apples? As a topping for ice cream?  Waffles?  Churros con cajeta?

Cajeta is the name for a very sweet, caramel-like syrup prepared from goat’s milk in México. Many countries in Latin America have similar milk-based sweet spreads that go by the names of dulce de leche (Argentina, Uruguay..), arequipe (Colombia) and manjar blanco (Perú). The big difference is that, in México, cajeta is prepared with goat’s milk. This gives it a more complex depth and rich flavor. But in the end, it’s basically a sweet concoction made up of slowly heated milk with tons of sugar.

As you can imagine, Camila has already happily adopted this taste from her dad’s country.  This is one tradition we won’t have a problem easing her into!

Just finding cajeta bottles to stock our pantry is a cultural adventure for us.  Living in Los Angeles we have our good share of  Latin food markets to choose from.  We’ve grown fond of La Guadalupana Market on Sunset Blvd., in Echo Park, where we can always find a variety of cajeta, Salvadorean cream and Gansito snack cakes for the hubby and be greeted by a virgen in a well maintained altar at the front door.  The walk back to the car is filled with the smells of tacos, hot dogs wrapped in bacon, corn, churros, pupusas and gorditas frying in oil.  Ah, nothing like food to fill your soul with warm nostalgia!

Of course, I could avoid this cultural expedition by preparing my own cajeta at home. I will still find an excuse to head over to La Guadalupana, but considering the amount of cajeta that is consumed at my house, I prefer to make it with a recipe I found that has only natural ingredients and none of the nasty corn syrup that’s added to the commercial brands.

Maybe you just can’t find cajeta in your city and making it is your only option. You can also order it online.  But, it’s truly really simple to make. You do need, however, about an hour’s worth of patience and time to constantly stir the pot.

The recipe I use is from celebrity Chef Rick Bayless’ excellent cookbook “Mexico One Plate at a Time”.

Homemade Cajeta Recipe:

• 2 quarts of goat’s milk  (if you have a hard time finding goat´s milk in nature foods stores, then you can substitute with cow´s milk or half goat´s/half cow´s)

• 2 cups of sugar

• 1 cinnamon stick

• 1 vanilla bean split open or 1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract

• 1 teaspoon of baking soda, dissolved in one tablespoon water

For the complete recipe head over to My Mexican Recipes blog.

Now that you have some exquisite homemade cajeta, try using it to make:

Photo by Daniel Cristan (México)

1.  Flan de cajeta

2.  Helado de cajeta

3.  Buttered Crepes with Cajeta

4.  Cajeta Pound Cake

5.  Apple and Cajeta Crisp

6.  Café con Cajeta–Our amiga bloguera, Lisa Renata, so shares my family’s passion for cajeta that she even named her blog My Family::Sabor Cajeta

She emailed me her recipe for some very sweet café con cajeta to share with you:

You brew your favorite coffee (I like mine decaf), add what ever amount of Cajeta you like (I normally squeeze away, about 3 teaspoons full, maybe more), then you can either add sweetened condensed milk like La Lechera (also to taste) or your favorite creamer. Mix away and disfruta!!

I have to admit my all-time favorite way to eat cajeta is by the spoonful!

Do you share my cajeta (or dulce de leche, arequipe, etc…) obsession? How do you like to eat it?