Magic Flan Cake (Chocoflan)
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This Magic Flan Cake is a delicious dessert with both a chocolate cake and flan layer. The magic happens as it bakes, the chocolate layer floats to the top and the flan to the bottom.
It’s time for another magic cake recipe. If you’ve never experimented with whipping one of these up, believe me you’re in for a treat. Not only is this magic flan cake completely delicious and drool worthy, chock full of chocolate and caramel, but it’s also the 8th wonder of the man made world.
Magic Flan Cake or Chocoflan
In all the baking that I’ve done over the years, I have to say this is my favorite cake that I have ever made. That’s saying a lot, but I absolutely love flan, and when paired together with a delicious layer of chocolate cake, you have magic. Although the ingredient list seems long, and it does take a while for this cake to bake, it’s all worth it in the end. Trust me!
Ingredient Notes
Chocolate Cake
- Caramel sauce – Store bought or you can make your own, here’s a simple 1 ingredient caramel sauce recipe.
- Flour – All purpose is all we need for this cake today.
- Cocoa powder – We want this chocolate cake to be rich, complex, and oh so chocolatey.
- Spices – We need a bit of cinnamon to spice up our chocolate cake.
- Baking powder – The leavening agent in our cake, to ensure volume and texture.
- Seasoning – All baked goods need a bit of salt, without it your cake will taste bland.
- Chocolate – Bittersweet baking chocolate chopped up.
- Butter – Unsalted as to control the salt content of our dish.
- Buttermilk – This ingredient will ensure our cake is tender, full of dimension and complexity.
- Sugar – I used white granulated sugar today.
- Eggs – 2 eggs to ensure our cake turns out exactly the way we want it to.
- Vanilla – Secret flavor weapon.
Flan
- Condensed milk – Just one can of the stuff, believe me every good flan needs it.
- Milk – We’re using whole fat milk, I recommend keeping this ingredient as high fat as possible.
- Cream cheese – Keep at room temperature so that it blends easily.
- Eggs – We’re using both whole eggs and egg yolks, we’re using a lot of eggs for this recipe so be sure to stock up.
- Vanilla – Just a bit of vanilla extract to flavor our flan.
How To Make Magic Flan Cake (Chocoflan)
- Preheat oven: Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Prep the pan: Spray an angel food cake pan or a 12 cup bundt pan (without a removable bottom) with cooking spray generously. Pour the caramel sauce evenly over the bottom of the pan.
- Combine the dry ingredients: In a medium bowl combine the flour, cocoa, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and mix; set aside. In a microwave safe bowl and the chocolate and butter and microwave in 30 seconds intervals until chocolate is melted and it’s smooth. Mine took about 1 minute and 30 seconds.
- Combine the wet ingredients: Add buttermilk, sugar, eggs and vanilla to the melted chocolate and whisk until it’s smooth. Pour chocolate mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk until it well incorporated and smooth. Pour the chocolate batter evenly over the caramel in the cake pan.
- Prepare the flan: To make the flan simply add all the flan ingredients to a blender and process on low until smooth. Be careful, there’s a lot of batter here, so you want to make sure you do this on low otherwise it might explode all over. Pour the flan batter over the chocolate in the pan
- Bake the cake: Place the cake pan in a large roasting pan and place it in the oven. Add enough hot water to the roasting pan to reach halfway up the sides of the pan. Careful so you don’t burn yourself. Bake the cake for about 1 hour and 30 minutes, mine took about 1 hour and 40 minutes, or until you insert a toothpick in the cake and it comes out clean.
- Finish the magic cake: Cool the cake in the pan for about 15 minutes then carefully invert onto a cake platter. Cool completely at room temperature then chill for at least 4 hours before slicing and serving.
FAQs & Expert Tips
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Magic Flan Cake?
This magic flan cake is also known as chocoflan. The magic in this cake is that when you make the cake, the chocolate batter is at the bottom, and as it bakes, it floats to the top and the flan settles on the bottom.
What Pan Should I Use?
Please note to use an angel food cake pan without a removable bottom or a 12 cup bundt pan.
Find The Cake A Little Too Eggy For Your Liking?
Some of you may come and say to me that you loved it but it was too eggy. Well did you see how many eggs go into this cake? 12 eggs in total! It will be EGGY! It’s a flan cake! It’s an eggy custard. Just saying! But if you love flan and you love chocolate cake, then oh boy this magic flan cake is for you.
No Buttermilk?
If you don’t have buttermilk, you can make your own using 2 cups of regular milk, and 2 tbsp of either lemon juice or white vinegar. Let it stand for 15 minutes before incorporating.
Can I Make This Gluten Free?
You can substitute the flour used in the chocolate cake today for whichever brand of gluten free flour you prefer, but be sure that you include xanthan gum in the dry ingredients of this recipe in that case. Use 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum for this recipe.
Tips
- You do need to make a water bath bath for baking this cake, so you’ll need a large roasting pan, one that’s large enough so that your cake pan fits in it. You need to pour enough water so that it’s half way up the sides of the pan.
- The flan cake requires a long baking time, I baked mine for about 1 hour and 40 minutes, you will want to do the toothpick test to make sure it’s done. Each oven is different, so it may take more or less time for you.
- Traditional flan cake does not include cream cheese, but it will make the flan cake layer much creamier.
Leftovers
In the fridge this chocoflan will last up to 5 days, just be sure it’s stored in an airtight container.
Freezing
This chocoflan can also be frozen! In the freezer it’ll keep for up to a month due to the flan portion of the dessert. When thawing you’ll want to remove it from the freezer and allow to come to temperature in the fridge for a few hours, then remove it and allow to come up to room temperature right on the counter.
More Great Recipes To Try
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Magic Flan Cake (Chocoflan)
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake
- ½ cup caramel sauce
- ⅔ cup all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 4 ounce bittersweet chocolate (chopped)
- 6 tablespoon butter (unsalted)
- ½ cup buttermilk
- ½ cup sugar (granulated)
- 2 eggs (room temperature)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Flan
- 28 ounce condensed milk (sweetened)
- 2½ cups whole milk (room temperature)
- 6 ounce cream cheese (room temperature)
- 6 large eggs (room temperature)
- 4 large egg yolks (room temperature)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Before You Begin! If you make this, please leave a review and rating letting us know how you liked this recipe! This helps our business thrive & continue providing free recipes.
Instructions
- Preheat oven: Preheat oven to 350°F.Prep the pan: Spray an angel food cake pan or a 12 cup bundt pan (without a removable bottom) with cooking spray generously. Pour the caramel sauce evenly over the bottom of the pan.
- Combine the dry ingredients: In a medium bowl combine the flour, cocoa, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and mix; set aside. In a microwave safe bowl and the chocolate and butter and microwave in 30 seconds intervals until chocolate is melted and it's smooth. Mine took about 1 minute and 30 seconds.
- Combine the wet ingredients: Add buttermilk, sugar, eggs and vanilla to the melted chocolate and whisk until it's smooth. Pour chocolate mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk until it well incorporated and smooth. Pour the chocolate batter evenly over the caramel in the cake pan.
- Prepare the flan: To make the flan simply add all the flan ingredients to a blender and process on low until smooth. Be careful, there's a lot of batter here, so you want to make sure you do this on low otherwise it might explode all over. Pour the flan batter over the chocolate in the pan.
- Bake the cake: Place the cake pan in a large roasting pan and place it in the oven. Add enough hot water to the roasting pan to reach halfway up the sides of the pan. Careful so you don't burn yourself. Bake the cake for about 1 hour and 30 minutes, mine took about 1 hour and 40 minutes, or until you insert a toothpick in the cake and it comes out clean.
- Finish the cake: Cool the cake in the pan for about 15 minutes then carefully invert onto a cake platter. Cool completely at room temperature then chill for at least 4 hours before slicing and serving.
Notes
- You do need to make a water bath bath for baking this cake, so you’ll need a large roasting pan, one that’s large enough so that your cake pan fits in it. You need to pour enough water so that it’s half way up the sides of the pan.
- The flan cake requires a long baking time, I baked mine for about 1 hour and 40 minutes, you will want to do the toothpick test to make sure it’s done. Each oven is different, so it may take more or less time for you.
- Traditional flan cake does not include cream cheese, but it will make the flan cake layer much creamier.
- In the fridge this cake will last up to 5 days, just be sure it’s stored in an airtight container.
- This chocoflan can also be frozen! In the freezer it’ll keep for up to a month due to the flan portion of the dessert. When thawing you’ll want to remove it from the freezer and allow to come to temperature in the fridge for a few hours, then remove it and allow to come up to room temperature right on the counter.
Nutrition Information
Notice: Nutrition is auto-calculated for your convenience. Where relevant, we recommend using your own nutrition calculations.
Could this be made in mini bundt pans (large cupcake size)? And if so what would be the cooking time.
Yes you can, not sure about the exact baking time since I haven’t tried it. I would guess around an hour, but just make sure you watch it and do the toothpick test to make sure the chocolate cake is done.
Could you use a Bundt pan?
Yes!
Hi, Will this recipe work if I use fat free condensed milk for the caramel sauce and/or flan? Thanks so much.
Yes, I actually did, here’s the recipe on how to turn it into caramel sauce: https://www.jocooks.com/recipes/1-ingredient-caramel-sauce/
AKA “chocoflan”
I had this Flan Cake at a party I went to last year! It was heavenly! Thank you for the recipe!
Feel like a real pastry chef at home.
this is actually called a choco flan!
Over the years I’ve made this cake many times and it is always a hit. I would like to share a tip: After flipping the cake, If it sticks just place a very hot, wet towel over the pan for a few minutes and it will release. Not only is the cake easy and good, everyone thinks you are an amazing cook.
Do not use the two piece pan 😢 I made it into a gluten free/ refined sugar free version and I could tell it was going to be so good until the two layer of my pan floated apart in my water bath. Sooooo sad.
I’m sorry. I read the recipe wrong. It’s 4 large egg yolks and 6 large whole eggs.
How many eggs are in the flan? The recipe says 4 large eggs and 6 large eggs.
This is nearly identical to the recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. Sorry, but I think you should be giving them the credit or at least a mention. Not authentically your recipe :/
My recipe source is already cited below the recipe.
Baked at 45 min twice turned out fabulous i must have a fast oven
hi. i want try this recipe – will other flan recipe work for this magic flan? because i have a separate recipe for the flan. can i combine it with the chocolate cake recipe and will it still work? thank you.
Can you use the convection oven or just the stander oven?
Either will work but you may have to adjust the time and temperatures. Consult your convection booklet re: adjustments to be made