U

flan

noun, plural flans [flanz, flahnz; for 2 also French flahn] /flænz, flɑnz; for 2 also French flɑ̃/; Spanish fla·nes [flah-nes] /ˈflɑ nɛs/ for 1.

Spanish Cookery. a dessert of sweetened egg custard with a caramel topping.
an open, tartlike pastry, the shell of which is baked in a bottomless band of metal (flan ring) on a baking sheet, removed from the ring and filled with custard, cream, fruit, etc.
a piece of metal shaped ready to form a coin, but not yet stamped by the die.
the metal of which a coin is made, as distinct from its design.

noun

an open pastry or sponge tart filled with fruit or a savoury mixture
a piece of metal ready to receive the die or stamp in the production of coins; shaped blank; planchet

“open tart,” 1846, from French flan “custard tart, cheesecake,” from Old French flaon (12c.), from Medieval Latin flado, probably a Germanic borrowing (cf. Frankish *flado, Old High German flado “offering cake,” Middle High German vlade “a broad, thin cake,” Dutch vla “baked custard”), from Proto-Germanic *flatho(n), akin to words for “flat” and probably from PIE root *plat- “to spread” (see place). Borrowed earlier as flawn (c.1300), from Old French.