Crème caramel

Crème caramel

A row of crèmes caramel
Alternative names	Flan, caramel custard
Course	Dessert
Place of origin	Spain, France
Serving temperature	Cold or warm
Main ingredients	Eggs
Variations	Crème brûlée, crema catalana
Other information	Popular throughout: Western Europe Latin America North America Bangladesh Kuwait Egypt Philippines Vietnam India Malaysia Japan Taiwan

Crème caramel (French: [kʁɛm kaʁaˈmɛl]), flan, or caramel pudding is a custard dessert with a layer of soft caramel on top, as opposed to crème brûlée, which is pudding with a hard caramel top. The dish is eaten throughout the world.

Crème caramel used to be ubiquitous in European restaurants; food historian Alan Davidson remarks:

In the later part of the 20th century crème caramel occupied an excessively large amount of territory in European restaurant dessert menus. This was probably due to the convenience, for restaurateurs, of being able to prepare a lot in advance and keep them until needed.

Both crème caramel (French 'caramel pudding') and flan are French names, but flan has come to have different meanings in different regions.

In Spanish-speaking countries and in North America, flan refers to crème caramel. This was originally a Spanish usage, but the dish is now best known in the United States in a Latin American context. Elsewhere, including in Britain, a flan is a type of tart somewhat like a quiche.

The Modern English word flan comes from French flan, from Old French flaon, in turn from Medieval Latin fladonem, derived from the Old High German flado, a sort of flat cake, probably from an Indo-European root for 'flat' or 'broad'. The North American sense of flan as crème caramel was borrowed from Latin American Spanish.