Flancocho
The holidays are coming up, which means it’s Flancocho season!
I teamed up with Familia Kitchen and Angela’s Dominican Cake Mix to share with you this half flan, half cake, flancocho is the choco-creamy dessert of our Latinx dreams.
Update Oct. 2023: Unfortunately, Angela’s chocolate cake mix has been discontinued, use your favorite chocolate cake mix instead)
This double-duty delish dessert marries two of our all-time favorites and it is an instant classic we’ll be making for Thanksgiving and again for Christmas. That’s how good it is.
To celebrate this dessert, Familia Kitchen, asked me to to bake my first-ever flancocho.
The resulting recipe is predictably delicious and authentic, which is intentionally created to make cake baking really simple. Check out the video link below to see my step-by-step process. You will be surprised by how easy it is!
Read my full interview with Familia Kitchen where I discuss how it was making this Flancocho recipe for the first time.
Flancocho
Equipment
- Stand mixer
- bundt cake pan
Ingredients
Caramel topping
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup water
Chocolate cake
- 1/2 box chocolate cake mix (Angela's Dominican chocolate cake mix has been discontinued)
- 6 eggs
- 16 oz unsalted butter
- 1 cup pineapple juice
- 1/2 cup corn oil
Flan
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 5 large eggs
- 1 12 oz can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 12 oz can evaporated milk
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp rum
Instructions
Caramel Topping
- Grease the bundt pan thoroughly.
- Caramelize Sugar: Heat the sugaring in a skillet over medium-high heat. Stir the sugar constantly. It will first start to clump and once it begins getting hot enough it will start to turn a golden brown and melt into a caramel. Continually stir until all the sugar has been liquefied and there are no more clumps left in the skillet. Do not leave the stove. Your caramel can go from perfect to burnt in the blink of an eye!
- Now, be careful with this next step. You are going to pour the 1/2 cup of water over the melted sugar. It will probably splash, so you need to be careful and maintain your distance, as well as make sure to do this slowly. Once you’ve poured the water over the caramel syrup, you will notice that the caramel will have hardened up. Bring mixture back to the heat, and keep stirring with your spatula until all the sugar has re-melted. Once the syrup is smooth and with a deep amber color, you can remove from the oven. It’s supposed to be a very thin and light syrup.
- Pour into bottom of Bundt Pan immediately. When pouring the caramel into the cake pan, make sure that it is spread evenly across the bottom of the entire pan. Very carefully rotate the pan so that the caramel will also partially cover the sides of the cake pan as well. The caramel is extremely hot and can cause severe burns if you get it on yourself, so make sure to always handle it very carefully. Keep rotating the caramel until it cools and hardens to the point that it no longer moves around.
- Set the cake pan aside and allow the caramel to cool and harden.
Prepare the Chocolate Cake
- Prepare Cake Batter: Make the cake mix according to the box instructions. You will only be using half of the cake batter for this recipe. Save the other half to bake another cake or cupcakes.
Prepare Flan Mixture
- Add the eggs, sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, rum and vanilla extract to a blender or mix well by hand until fully mixed.
Assembling and Baking the Flancocho
- Pour the flan mixture into the bundt pan and spread it out evenly over the hardened caramel.
- Then, add the chocolate cake batter on top of the flan.
To Bake the Flancocho
- Set oven temperature to 350 degrees.
- Use a water bath and bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes from the time you start baking 50 minutes in check on it. A large turkey roasting pan is recommended. But any large pan will do, as long as you are able to add water to it, up to the middle of the height of the bundt pan.
- Insert a toothpick in the cake to make sure it comes to clean, which means it’s done baking. If not, keep baking until toothpick comes out clean.
- You can use the other half of the cake batter to make another Flancocho, cupcakes, or a mini bundt cake. Freeze in a large ziploc bag.
Unmold and Serve
- After baking your Flan Cake, let it cool down. Then transfer the bundt pan to the fridge, where you will let your Flan Cake rest for at least 3-4 hours, preferably overnight.
- Once ready to unmold, remove the Flancocho from the fridge.
- Using the same pan where you had your water bath in, pour hot water and place the bundt pan in the hot water. This will help the caramel loosen from the bottom by melting it slightly.
- Give the bundt pan a little jiggle, and if the cake jiggles around, you are good to go. Otherwise, place it back over the hot water.
- Flip flancocho over, over its serving dish while giving it a little jiggle. Be prepared to be amazed!