Tocino De Cielo - Spanish Custard - "'heaven's Little Pig"

Photo: Catherine

Ingredients

Tocino del Cielo

(Egg yolk custard)

3/4 cup white sugar

1 1/2 cups water

6 egg yolks

1 whole egg

1 tablespoon vanilla

For the syrup:

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup brown sugar

Preparation

Separate 6 egg yolks from the whites (keep the egg whites for a nice healthy scrambled egg breakfast the next morning). Whisk the yolks and whole egg together.

In a saucepan, boil water and sugar in until soft-ball stage (235F deg), then set aside to cool (a little bit, other wise the yolks could curdle a bit due to being cooked from the high heat of the syrup.)

In another saucepan, boil the brown sugar in water until caramelized. Use this syrup to line the tin molds you'll be using. Whisk the egg yolks and the 1 whole egg together, then stir in the cooled syrup. Strain the mixture before spooning into the molds. Arrange the molds in a bain marie where the water comes halfway up the molds then let it cook in the oven for 4o-50 minutes or until it's set. (In smaller molds may take only 20 minutues, I cooked mine for 30-40 minutes and they came out a bit dense since I had used small molds!)

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for a bit before un-molding. When ready, slide a clean knife around the edges to loosen it up. (Then Refrigerate over night, to de-mold place mold in very hot water for a few seconds to loosen up the sugar.) Slowly turn it over on individual plates or paper cups, letting the syrup drizzle over the tocino del cielos.

Highly recommended to leave these over night in the fridge, even if it sets up sooner, the Tocino needs time for the flavors to mellow and meld. Too soon and it tastes like eating sugared Yolks!! :-p

Place your ad here
Loading...

About

Tocino de Cielo.
It's name can be translated in many forms; "Bacon of Heaven", "Pigs of Heaven" or "Heaven's little pig". I had never heard of this dessert in all my years living in Spain, so when I saw it on the menu at the current restaurant where I work I thought it was just a name of another flan dish.

Turns out....

Very similar in appearance to a flan and has nothing to do with bacon at all, it's a lactose free custard.
Simple sugar syrup beat in to an egg yolk mixture, poured over more sugar syrup, and baked in a Banyo Marie. Cooled and popped out of it's mold. :)

These little piggies are still in the over and they smell "heavenly". I found a number of recipes on the Internet, however, very few where very convincing, till I came across this very lovely, well written, blog Gypsy Soul. Who, I found, had the best recipe to offer. Gyspy Soul's Tocino de Cielo