On the last Cooking School segment, Martha Stewart and Sarah Carey made custards. I would have made the creme brulee, but oddly I just don’t have a blow torch sitting around. So I decided to go with the flan. I have never made flan or creme brulee, so this was a new experience for me.

First I cooked the sugar and water. This was simple – and I kept wiping down the sides of the pan with water. It turned the right color. When I poured it in the ramekins, I had the same problem Martha had on the show – it cooled very quickly and I could not get the bottom of each covered evenly.

Then I moved on to make the custard. I whisked the eggs and egg yolks and cooked the milk and sugar. I tempered the eggs, then added the rest of the milk. I strained it and poured it into ramekins. I added the water bath and cooked for about 35 minutes. They came out perfectly.

One small problem. Martha says to remove them from the water bath using tongs. They kept slipping out of the tongs and I almost got them wet, which would have been not so wonderful. Mr. MarthaandMe came riding to the rescue and got them out, but did manage to burn himself with the hot water in the process.

I let them cool on a rack, then chilled them. They came out of the ramekins nicely without a lot of trouble, and looked really pretty on the plates with the syrup on them. There was just one teeny tiny problem. They tasted really, really awful. As in edible. The custard was just gross  – no flavor to it. The syrup had a slightly burned taste. It was simply horrendous, so they all got dumped down the drain. So much for flan.