The perfect custard cake Caramel First, place the sugar and water in a thick bottomed pan.

For about half a cup o f caramel, use 1 cup of white sugar and 1/4 cup of water. Just place them in the pan don t stir. Turn the heat to high and bring the water and sugar to the boil without stirring . Then, lower the heat to medium-high and continue boiling. After about 8 minutes, the mixture will start to brown. If the mixture along the edges of the pan brown much faster, swirl the pan to even out the coloring. Con tinue boiling until the liquid is the color of amber. The caramelized sugar is of perfect pouring consistency at this stage. Use it at once. If you re glazing leche flan with it, pour it into the mold immediately. Ca ramelized sugar hardens fast within a minute, you will no longer be able to pour it. You can t keep it on the stove either, even over very low heat, because if yo u continue to subject it to heat, it will go on cooking and turn dark. And a few seconds after that? That s called burnt sugar already. custard For the custard : 6 eggs (yolks and whites) 1 c. of sweetened condensed milk 1 c. of skim milk (the ready-to-drink kind) 1/4 c. of white sugar 1/4 tsp. of finely grated lemon rind Place all the ingredients for the custard in a bowl. Mix until the sugar is com pletely dissolved. Do not beat as you do not want air bubbles in the mixture. P lace a strainer (you can use a piece of muslin) over the baking pan and pour in the custard mixture. cake For the cake : 3 egg yolks 1/4 c. minus 1 tbsp. of white sugar 3/4 c. of cake flour 1/2 tsp. of baking powder 1/4 c. of skim milk 3 egg whites 1/4 c. minus 1 tbsp. of white sugar (no, this is not a typo s of the same amount of sugar) Sift together the cake flour and baking powder. Place the 1/4 c. minus 1 tbsp. of sugar and egg yolks in a bowl. Beat until smoo th and lemon colored. Add the flour mixture and milk alternately, mixing after each addition. After all the flour and milk have been added, mix until the batt er is smooth. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the second 1/4 c. minus 1 tbsp. of sugar little by little while beating continuously. Conti nue beating until the egg white mixture is stiff. Now you mix the egg yolk and egg white mixtures together. Remember that the reas

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on you beat the egg white to stiff peaks is to create all those tiny air bubbles . It is these bubbles that will give volume and the light texture to your cake. Work carefully so as not to break them. Add half of the egg white mixture to the egg yolk mixture and, using a rubber sc raper and the cut and fold technique, blend the two mixtures together. Remember to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Then, add this blended mixture to the remaining half of the egg white mixture, a nd continue cutting and folding until the mixture is well blended and the color is even. Again, remember to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. No streaks of white nor yellow should be visible. Pour the cake batter over the custard. Unless you overworked the mixtures and th e tiny bubble burst, the cake batter should float on the custard. Using a spatul a, smoothen the top of the batter carefully. It doesn t have to be perfectly smoot h. This is an upside-down cake and so the top becomes the bottom, and out of vie w, when you serve the cake. Just make sure that all the sides are sealed with th e cake batter so that the custard does not boil over it during baking. Place the cake pan in a larger pan half-filled with hot (not boiling) water. Bak e in a preheated 350oF oven for 50 minutes to an hour. After 50 minutes, insert a toothpick at the center of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is done. If not, bake a few minutes longer, testing every five minutes or so. The top is nicely browned. It s tempting to invert and serve the cake at this point BUT DON T! The custard is still soft and you ll ruin the cake if you try and serve it at thi s stage. Cool the cake COMPLETELY. Place it on the counter with a screen cover. After an hour or two, you can continue cooling it in the fridge if you re really i n a hurry to serve it. When the cake has cooled, take a plate that can hold the cake and place it upsid e down on top of the baking pan. With one hand under the baking pan and the othe r hand on top of the plate, invert the cake onto the plate. I advise you to do t his over the sink because there is always a chance that the caramel will spill.