Dec 17, 2010
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Flan Imposible (Impossible Chocolate Flan)

This recipe is excerpted from My Sweet Mexico by Fany Gerson. Copyright © 2010 by Fany Gerson. Excerpted by permission of Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc.
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Flan Imposible (Impossible Chocolate Flan) Enlarge Image Credit: Ed Anderson
This dessert, also called chocoflan, gets its name from a magical thing that occurs in the oven. You cover the mold with some cajeta, pour in the chocolate cake batter, pour a layer of flan on top, and cover it lightly. It goes into the oven in a bigger dish with some hot water, and when you check whether it's done a little while later, you find that the flan is hidden somewhere and all you see is chocolate cake! You wait for it to cool, unmold it, and there is the flan! This is a sticky, rich, sweet dessert that is not for the faint of heart. Although you can make it in individual ramekins, there is something quite exciting about slicing a full-size one. It never ceases to amaze me.

1 cup cajeta, homemade or store-bought

FOR THE CAKE
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch processed
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
½ cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 egg, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

FOR THE FLAN
1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk
1 (14-ounce) can condensed milk
4 eggs
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup coarsely chopped, toasted pecans or walnuts, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease the bottom and sides of an 8-inch cake pan.

Pour the cajeta over the bottom and sides of the cake pan using a brush or the back of a spoon (you can heat the cajeta very slightly in the microwave so that it is easier to spread).

Make the cake: combine the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl and whisk until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, vegetable oil, egg, and vanilla. Add to the flour mixture, whisking until thoroughly combined. Pour the cake batter into the pan and set aside.

Make the flan: combine the evaporated milk, condensed milk, eggs, vanilla, and salt in a blender and blend until there are no visible lumps. Pour gently over the cake batter.

Cover loosely with foil, place in a large baking dish, and fill the baking dish with hot water so that it comes halfway up the sides. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 50 minutes.

Remove the cake pan from the baking dish and allow to cool for at least 4 hours or refrigerate overnight. To unmold, lightly pass a warm knife around the edge, place a plate or dish on top, and carefully but rapidly flip over. Garnish with the toasted nuts. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Ratings & Reviews (8)

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What is cajeta? Where do you buy it or how do you make it?
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@Marilynne, cajeta is Mexican caramel sauce. Rick Bayless, one of our contributing editors, has a great recipe that uses goat milk on his website: http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/view?recipeID=242

But if you want to make things easy on yourself, we recommend purchasing some from Fat Toad Farm. http://www.fattoadfarm.com/goats-milk-caramel/

In a pinch, store-bought dulce de leche would be a fine substitute.

Hope that helps!

Ganda
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You can substitute dulce de leche as well. The Rick Bayless cajeta recipe is great. I couldn't find cajeta at my local market so I used Rick's recipe. Originally, cajeta is made with goat milk. I used 1/2 goat milk and 1/2 whole milk (cow). It's still a little "goaty" and some people may not like that flavor. Next time, I'll use all whole milk.
I've given up trying to make great flan. Now I just order from Flan King (www.flan-king.com) They have a number of great flavors including chocolate and marble. They even have a heart shaped flan for Valentine's day. If anyone wants to try it there's a discount code for 10% off - GS3255
I'd like to know what kind of 8-inch cake pan they used, because I only got half of my flan poured in to the pan before it started overflowing. There's no way there's going to be a beautiful flan layer on top, assuming I can even get it out of the pan in one piece.
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baking it right now. I only had a 9" cake pan it was filled right to the top
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definitely a 9" pan, it also rises so be sure to spray a little pam on the foil. mine rose up and stuck to it. I guess i like flan made with basically eggs and milk. this was cloyingly sweet, the cake a little dry, which surprised me.
I like chocolate cake and i like flan. just not this one. the Spanish flan
posted here is excellent.
The 8" pan is either a typo, or the writers need to specify the depth of the pan they used, because cajeta, cake and flan cannot fit in the pan. Go with Ozz54 and use a 9" pan. It's also a pain to get out, even though I buttered the bottoms and sides of the pan really well. Either place it in a pan of warm water once you take it out of the fridge, or wait for it to completely cool on the counter and then unmold. Refrigeration hardened the caramel too much for the quick and easy flip out the recipe makes it seem like. I had mine sitting upside down for three hours, and still had to use the blowtorch and put a pan of steaming hot water on top of the inverted pan in order to be able to wiggle it out.

The recipe itself was okay, the cake wasn't super chocolatey which I liked since I'm not a huge chocolate fan.
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