CubaPLUS Magazine

The smells and tastes of childhood are rarely forgotten and this summer, hotter than usual, I remember my mother’s homemade sweets. Accustomed to her delicious rice pudding and flan, I asked her one day why the flan she gave me that day didn’t taste like the ones she used to make.

She replied that the flan was pumpkin flan and not egg flan, which is why I called it &fake flan", even though the fake was as delicious as the real one. In fact, the &fake" flan is much more beneficial than the &real" one. The pumpkin has many antioxidant vitamins such as A, C and E.

The first one is a great natural antioxidant, essential for the organism, benefiting mucous membranes, eyes and skin. Varied research has shown that products rich in vitamin A help the body to be more protected against lung cancer.

It also has many complex B vitamins, such as thiamine, pyridoxine, niacin, folic acid and pantothenic acid, not to mention its high content of minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium and copper.

Pumpkin is a food that is becoming more and more accepted in our menus, and this is largely due to its nutritional properties, so I recommend that you involve this versatile vegetable more in your meals.

Pumpkin flan

Ingredients
1 1/5 lb pumpkin
1 can condensed milk
2 cups of water
1 piece of cinnamon stick
frac14; teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cornstarch
frac34; cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation
Peel the pumpkin and sauté until tender. Mix the condensed milk with the water. Boil half of the water and milk mixture with cinnamon and salt. Mix the rest with the cornstarch, sugar and pumpkin reduced to puree. Add the hot milk and pass it all two or three times through a fine strainer. Cook, stirring until it thickens. Pour into a mold coated with caramel and let it cool well until it sets before taking it out.

Makes eight servings. If you wish to use fresh milk instead of condensed milk, use three cups of milk, cut out the water and increase the amount of sugar to two cups. If you do not have cornstarch, you can make it with flour.

Increase the amount of flour in relation to the cornstarch indicated. This recipe, for example, is made with 12 tablespoons of flour.