The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘They lick the plate clean’
‘The Flan Lady’ keeps dessert lovers coming back for more
BRANFORD >> Johanna Torres is a professional in the health care management field, but at this time of year just before Easter, she takes vacation time, cranks up the salsa music, orders take-out for the family to free up her kitchen and bakes flan for her customers.
Torres, assistant director of practice management at Yale University, and also known as “The Flan Lady,” makes 18 varieties of the dessert in her tiny home kitchen, then personally delivers each order.
“I have a lot of passion for it,” Torres said. “It’s just the thought of families together enjoying something I made. It’s touching.”
Holidays are busy in her sweet side business.
Torres, who is Puerto Rican, grew up in New Haven eating flan baked by her mother but didn’t make it herself because it looked so complicated.
Then, 19 years ago, she was visiting her then-father-in-law in Puerto Rico when his wife said she was going to “whip up” some flan. Torres thought, “Whip up?”
She did indeed whip it up — and the flan was great, she said. Torres got the recipe and once home, made the dessert and the family loved it.
She started bringing a flan to every family event and to work, where she used coworkers as taste-testers for various flavors. People told Torres she should start selling them, so she had cards made up and began charging $10 per flan.
When she began the business nine years ago, she sold 25 9-inch flans at Christmas, compared to 75 this Christmas.
Today, her prices vary between $15 to $25 per flan, with most in the $18 range, and the flavors: pumpkin, chocolate, coconut, mango, passion fruit, coffee, guava, pineapple, coquito with rum. Each 9-inch round serves 8 to 10 people.
Flan is a dessert made of ingredients that include evaporated milk, condensed milk, eggs, vanilla, cream cheese, sugar. While the dish has its roots in the Roman Empire, where eggs were abundant when chickens were domesticated, the dish made its way to Spain, becoming popular in Latin countries.
A graduate of Career High school, Torres earned an undergraduate degree in healthcare management and a master’s degree in leadership from Albertus Magnus College.
Her credentials in flan- making are word of mouth.
Marla Peele of Derby, who met Torres at work, said her “entire family” now looks forward to her bringing Torres’ flan to holiday gatherings.
“Nothing compares to the flan she makes . ... It’s really creamy and has a unique flavor,” Peele said, adding that while there are leftovers for most desserts, “they lick the plate clean” on Torres’ flan.
Ana Gonzalez, a good customer who recently moved to Florida, said they are working on ways to have Torres’ flan shipped to the Sunshine State.
“I absolutely love it. She’s incorporated so many flavors and it has a nice consistency,” Gonzalez said. “Hopefully, one of them will get out here.”
Torres said her flan is firmer than most because she uses fewer eggs, but the main ingredient she believes sets hers apart is the “love” she puts into them.
“Every year, I’m getting more orders,” she said. “If you think about it, I’m not even making a profit . ... It’s fulfilling to me.”
Torres said she has a goal to eventually sell to restaurants, grocery stores and, in her ultimate scenario, open a flan shop where people can buy a whole pie or get a slice with coffee.
She’s always coming up with new flavors and specialties such as a chocolate strawberry flan for Valentine’s Day and an eggnog, coconut flavor that was such a hit at Christmas people are ordering it for Easter. For St. Patrick’s Day, she made a green flan. Her most unique flan, Torres said, is a pineapple, coconut cream cheese that tastes like a pina colada.
“I’ll try anything,” she said.
Her home kitchen where the magic takes place is tiny, but immaculate and she doesn’t buy her products in bulk. Her oven holds six 9-inch flans at a time.
“I think some people try to take shortcuts. That is not a true flan,” she said. “I’m not looking for shortcuts.”
To contact Torres, email her at jotorry@aol.com or visit her The Flan Lady LLC Facebook page, where among the posts are, “Keep Calm and Eat Flan.”