Flancocho

I was never very good at Spanish in high school but I decided to give it another go and have been taking a community ed class in Spanish. It is still just as hard as I remember. Time will tell if I manage to learn enough Spanish to be valuable but I am having some fun in the class. Last week we had a lot of fun since we had a pot luck to celebrate Spanish heritage month.

I was one of the last ones to get to pick an item to bring so I was thrilled when desert was still available. I signed right up but was not sure what I was going to bring. My first thought was Tres Leches. The only deserts I really knew were tres leches and flan. After doing some research on the internet I found something called Flancocho which is a layer of cake and a layer of flan with the caramelized sugar on top. It said it was a Puerto Rican desert so I thought that it might be kind of cool to make since my teacher is from Puerto Rico.

The hard part turned out to be finding a good recipe. Most recipes were in Spanish and they varied a lot. Seems the traditional way to make it is on the stove in a double boiler, but there were also recipes that bake it using a water bath. Some recipes put a cooked cake in the raw flan then cook it, some crumble a cake into the flan and then cook it, and some put the raw cake batter on the raw flan and cook it. I saw cooking times anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. Anyway, I combined what I thought would work with the equipment I had and I think it came out pretty good.

The cake was super moist and the flan was good and creamy with the caramel sugar on top. The teacher went back for seconds and I got a few compliments in class so I was not the only one who thought it was good. The teacher said she was not used to the flan with the cake so it must just be from certain regions or something.

Here is what I came up with:

Flancocho

Serves 12-15

Ingredients

For the caramel

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water

For the flan layer

• 1 12 ounce can evaporated milk
• 1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• 5 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened

For the cake layer

• 1 yellow cake mix and ingredients for mix

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees and place rack in middle of oven.
2. Heat some water (about 8-10 cups) to boiling to use for the water bath.
3. Mix the sugar and water together in a small microwave safe bowl. Heat in microwave on high until a light golden color (5-6 minutes). Do not allow it to get to dark or it will taste bitter. You can also heat on the stove. If you heat on the stove do not add the water. As soon as the caramel is cook pour it into a bundt pan and tip to coat all the sides as much as possible. It will start to harden immediately.
4. In a medium bowl or standing mixer, mix all of the ingredients for the flan until well mixed, about 2 minutes.
5. In another medium bowl prepare the cake mix as directed on the box.
6. Pour the flan mixture into the bundt pan on top of the caramel. Pour the cake batter on top of the flan mixture (Don't worry - it will float).
7. Place the bundt pan into a roasting pan or cake pan to use for the water bath - use the smallest tall sided pan you have that will fit the bundt pan. Pour the boiling water into the outer pan to go up the side of the bundt pan several inches.
8. Place in the oven and cooking until a toothpick inserted in the cake layer comes out clean (60-70 minutes).
9. Allow the cake to cool on the stove for about 15 minutes. Loosen the sides of the cake with a knife and allow to cool to room temperature. Flip the cake onto a deep serving platter. Cool in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or overnight.