This is the best simple and easy pumpkin spice flan you'll ever taste! This recipe is easy to follow. Pumpkin flan is incredibly smooth and creamy with a thin caramel sauce.

an individual serving of pumpkin flan topped with whipped cream and a cherry

I like flan a lot.

A lot lot.

I know I have many favorite desserts, but flan really is one of my favorites.

I love the creamy sweet custard and the slightly bitter sugary syrup and the dark brown top.

Flan is just amazing, way better than cake or pie.

I have cut and roasted two of the twelve large pumpkins we bought a couple of weeks ago. We've had roasted pumpkin seeds (twice), pumpkin pie pancakes, pumpkin pie overnight oats, pumpkin dump cake, a disappointing pumpkin custard, and now an amazing pumpkin flan.

As impressive as flan is, you might think it's hard to make.

It isn't.

The hardest part of this flan is melting the sugar at the beginning, but even that isn't difficult. You make this flan in a 9- or 10-inch cake pan. I used a non-stick metal one.

The key is to use a pan that you can heat on the stove top. Otherwise, I don't know how you'd melt the sugar in the first step.

Before you get started, make sure the cake pan fits into one of your roasting pans.

I may have had to drag out every roasting pan in my cabinet trying to find one that the cake pan would fit into.

While the cake pan was full to the top with pumpkiny milk mixture.

One last thing.

Canned pumpkin is thick. If you're using fresh pumpkin and it's too thin, you'll want to cook it down some.

Put two cups of pumpkin purée in a saucepan and simmer it until some of the water cooks off and the pumpkin thickens up. If the pumpkin is too thin, the flan will be runny.

How to Make the Best Pumpkin Spice Flan

Preheat the oven to 350º.
Heat a kettle of water. You'll need it later.
Prepare the caramel sauce. Spread ½ cup sugar over the bottom of a 9-inch round metal cake pan. Heat over medium heat until all the sugar is melted and turning light brown. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. You will hear it crack as it cools. That's totally normal.
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Heat the milk. In a small pot, heat the milk and remaining ½ cup sugar over medium heat, stirring frequently. When the mixture is hot and frothy, turn off the heat. This will take a bit of time as the milk mixture will have to boil to get frothy.
Prepare the custard. Using a stand mixer or electric mixer, blend the remaining ingredients. Slowly add the hot milk using a low speed. When it's well blended, pour the mixture over the now-cooled caramelized sugar in the cake pan.
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Get ready to bake. Place the cake pan into a roasting pan. Pour the hot water from the kettle into the roasting pan about an inch deep. Put the whole thing in the oven and bake for 60-70 minutes, until a knife stuck in the center comes out clean. The flan will still be jiggly at this point, so don't mistake its being jiggly as a sign that it's not done.
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Set flan to cool. Remove the cake pan from the water and set it to cool on a wire rack. When it's no longer warm, cover and chill in the refrigerator.
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Serving the flan. To serve, loosen the edges and invert the flan onto a serving platter or large plate. All of the wonderful syrup from the bottom of the pan will pour out overtop of the flan.
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