Chocoflan

I saw Marcela Valladolid on Mexican Made Easy from Food Network make this cake and knew that it would be on my to-do list.  I have been looking for an excuse to make it and that reason came up this past week at school.  We had a Multicultural Art and Food Fair. All of my students brought a dish or snack so we could sample food from a different culture.  It turned out to be a wonderful day with all of the kids trying new things and finding something they wanted to eat again.   I made this cake and it was a huge hit. 

 I love flan and I love chocolate cake so how about putting them together?  It could not have been easier!  I made it even easier by using a cake mix instead of making the cake from scratch.  The kids don't know any better.  :) 

This recipe is sorta magical.  All I could think while I was making it was, "This will never work.  This will never work."  First of all, I put a bunch of caramel sauce in my pan.  I just knew that it would stick and ruin both my cake AND pan.  Then, when I put the flan batter on top of the cake batter it looked like this.

How in the world is it going to turned into this layered cake I saw on Food Network???  Well, it actually did separate AND the cake and flan switched places.  Yes, switched places.  The flan ended up on the bottom and the cake on top.  Don't ask me how that happened because I have NO idea. 

I realized I made a mistake after the cake had been in the oven for almost an hour.  I forgot to cover it with foil like the recipe instructed.  I continued cooking it without the foil because it was too late to change anything.  Even with all of the questions and issues I had with the cake, it ended up coming out of the pan perfectly after cooking it for one hour. 

Ingredients:

12-cup capacity Bundt pan
Softened butter, to coat pan
1/4 cup cajeta or caramel sauce

For the cake:

Devil's food cake mix prepared as directed.

For the flan:

1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

For garnish:

1/4 cup cajeta or caramel sauce
1/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Directions

Put an oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

Coat a Bundt pan with a little butter, then coat the bottom with 1/4 cup cajeta and put it in a large roasting pan. (The roasting pan will serve as a water bath during baking.)

For the flan: In a blender, combine the evaporated milk, condensed milk, cream cheese, eggs and vanilla. Blend on high for 30 seconds.

Scoop the prepared cake batter into the prepared Bundt pan and spreading evenly. Slowly pour the flan mixture over the cake batter. Cover with foil and add about 1-inch of hot water to the roasting pan.

Carefully slide the pan into the oven, and bake 1 hour, until the surface of the cake is firm to the touch, or an inserted toothpick comes out clean. When cake is done, remove from the water bath and cool completely to room temperature, about 1 hour.

Invert a large, rimmed serving platter over the Bundt pan, grasp tightly together, giggle a little and flip over. Remove the pan and scrape any remaining cajeta from the pan onto the cake, garnish with chopped pecans and serve.