For the open pie dessert, see Flan

Flan

Crème caramel , flan , or caramel custard is a custard dessert with a layer of soft caramel on top, as opposed to crème brûlée, which is custard with a hard caramel top...

.

For the Japanese style cartoon, made by Takara Tomy

Takara Tomy

is a Japanese toy, children's merchandise and entertainment company created from the March 2006 merger of two companies:  Tomy and long-time rival, Takara...

, see Giga pudding

Giga pudding

Giga Pudding is a dessert creation kit manufactured by the Japanese toy company Takara Tomy first released in 2008. The product itself comes with all the ingredients required, and a large bucket to prepare in and create a twenty serving crème caramel meant to be shared...

.

Crème caramel (kʁɛm kaʀa'mel), flan (flɑ̃), or caramel custard is a custard

Custard

Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on a cooked mixture of milk or cream and egg yolk. Depending on how much egg or thickener is used, custard may vary in consistency from a thin pouring sauce , to a thick pastry cream used to fill éclairs. The most common custards are used as...

 dessert

Dessert

In cultures around the world, dessert is a course that typically comes at the end of a meal, usually consisting of sweet food. The word comes from the French language as dessert and this from Old French desservir, "to clear the table" and "to serve." Common Western desserts include cakes, biscuits,...

 with a layer of soft caramel

Caramel

Caramel is a beige to dark-brown confection made by heating any of a variety of sugars. It is used as a flavoring in puddings and desserts, as a filling in bonbons, and as a topping for ice cream, custard and coffee....

 on top, as opposed to crème brûlée

Crème brûlée

Crème brûlée , also known as burnt cream, crema catalana, or Trinity cream is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a contrasting layer of hard caramel...

, which is custard with a hard caramel top. The dish is eaten throughout the world.

Crème caramel used to be ubiquitous in European restaurants; food historian Alan Davidson

Alan Davidson (food writer)

Alan Eaton Davidson was a British diplomat and historian best known for his writing and editing on food and gastronomy. He was the author of the 900-page, encyclopedic The Oxford Companion to Food .The son of a Scottish tax inspector, Davidson was born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland...

 remarks:
Both crème caramel (French 'caramel custard') and flan (ultimately from Old German flado meaning 'cake') are French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 names, but flan has come to have different meanings in different regions.

In Spanish-speaking countries

Hispanophone

Hispanophone or Hispanosphere denotes Spanish language speakers and the Spanish-speaking world. The word derives from the Latin political name of the Iberian Peninsula, Hispania, which comprised basically the territory of the modern states of Spain and Portugal.Hispanophones are estimated at...

 and in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, flan refers to crème caramel.