Whenever I think of Tales of Graces f I am reminded of many long weekends marathoning with friends. My friend Harry would drive over from Austin to spend the weekend and play. This was also the first time my friend Rene played a Tales of game with a group. It has been a long while since my husband and I have sat down to play a Tales of game. On occasion, I have turned on one of our game to look at all the food items but nothing beyond that. This all changes next week with the release of Tales of Zestiria. I’ve avoided all spoilers and can not wait to sink all my time into the game. I am sad that Harry won’t be joining us this time around. He has been living on the west coast for the past few years so a commute to us for the weekend isn’t really a reasonable option.
Earlier this month, I began drafting up which recipe from the Tales of series I would be recreating. There are so many to choose from! Spoiler alert: this won’t be the last one you see either. After much internal debate, I decide to take a stab at the chocolate pudding. The first thing I realized is pudding isn’t the word I would use to describe the image in game. In Japan, pudding typically refers to flan more so than what we describe as pudding here in the states. It was time to refer back to my mother’s flan recipe. The big addition here is the chocolate. I decided to use caramel chocolate sauce on the top and a creamy chocolate custard. I’d recommend baking these the morning before you are serving them to give them enough time to rest in the refrigerator.
Required Equipment: sauce pan, bowl, 6 ramekins, deep baking pan
Results: 6 flans
Ingredients:
Chocolate Caramel Sauce:
½ cup sugar
3 tbsp water
2 tbsp butter
¼ cup heavy cream
½ tsp salt
2 ounce bittersweet chocolate
Custard
4 eggs
1 (14 oz) can condensed milk
1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk
2 tbsp vanilla extract
4 oz dark chocolate, melted and cooled
Preheat your oven to 325°F. Start by preparing the chocolate caramel sauce. In a deep sauce pan, over medium-high heat, combine the water and sugar. Whisk to combine and allow it to heat up.
As you whisk the sugar it will begin to clump up. Keep heating the mixture and it will return to a liquid form.
After all the sugar pieces have returned to golden brown liquid remove it from the heat. Carefully pour the heavy cream into the sauce pan. It will bubble as you add the cream. Whisk it carefully and return it to the heat. Add the salt and butter. I recommend adding the butter in small chunks at a time.
Finally add the chocolate and whisk until well combined.
Pour a thin layer of the chocolate caramel sauce into each of the ramekins. You might end up with extra depending on the size of your ramekins. This sauce is totally delicious to use by itself or on top of ice cream. Just keep it refrigerated and heat up again before serving.
In a small bowl combine the chocolate, condensed milk, evaporated milk and vanilla extract. Add the four eggs and whisk together.
Carefully pour the custard mixture into each of the ramekins. Place the ramekins in a deep baking pan and fill the baking pan with water until about half way. Put the baking sheet into the oven and bake for 45 minutes to an hour (the custard should be firm). Allow the flans to cool completely and then place in the refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving.
I highly recommend serving these flans in the ramekin as is. The chocolate caramel on the bottom likes to stick to the ramekin when you try taking them out. Serving them in the ramekins themselves allows you to scoop out everything as you eat it.
