Chocoflan Recipe

About This Chocoflan Recipe

This chocoflan recipe is a delicious bundt cake recipe made from two layers: dulce de leche flan, super-moist cinnamon chocolate cake. My favorite part about this bundt cake is that it uses unique and fun techniques.

Chocoflan is also known as “El Pastel Magico” (The Magic Cake) or “El Pastel Imposible” (The Impossible Cake) because of this unique technique.

Learn more in this post’s FAQ section below as to why the two batters swap places during the baking process!

For more unique and delicious bundt cake recipes, check out Hummingbird High‘s bundt cake recipe collection! I especially recommend My Best Banana Bundt Cake Recipe and this Kentucky Bourbon Butter Cake.

@hummingbirdhigh chocoflan is my new favorite #dessert! #baking #bakingrecipe #cincodemayo ♬ Paradise – Ikson

Some Quick Ingredient Recommendations

My Favorite Dulce De Leche

You can often buy 13-ounce cans of dulce de leche at most international or Latin American supermarkets. My favorite brand of dulce de leche to buy is Nestle La Lechera Dulce De Leche. Some Target stores even carry it for half the price of what you can get online!

The Best Nonstick Baking Spray

My favorite nonstick baking spray is this Bak-Klene ZT Nonstick Baking Spray that I get from Williams-Sonoma. It’s often used in professional bakeries. However, I’ve noticed it’s been out of stock a LOT (although you can still find it at professional restaurant retailers like Webstaurant.com).

So if that’s the case, stick with my second favorite: Baker’s Joy. The good news is that Baker’s Joy can be found in the baking aisles of most major supermarkets, too!

What Other Chocoflan Recipes Don’t Tell You (a.k.a. All My Secrets For Success)

• Boil the water for the chocoflan’s water bath. You need to bake the chocoflan in a water bath made of very hot water. I like to multitask by boiling the water as I prep the rest of the ingredients. Just be sure to cover the water with a lid when done to prevent it from losing too much heat!
  
  You need to pour enough water into the roasting pan until water reaches halfway up the sides of the bundt pan. My roasting pan needed about 2 quarts of water. You may need more or less, depending on both your bundt pan and roasting pan.
  
  
• When making the flan batter, make sure both the cream cheese and eggs are at room temperature. If they’re cold, the flan batter might come out lumpy!
  
  
• Only prep the bundt pan with cooking spray right before filling it with the batter. Most cake recipes instruct you to prep their baking pans first. However, it’s better to grease a bundt pan right before filling with batter. That’s because bundt pans require a LOT more grease than traditional cake pans. And all that grease has a tendency to slide down the sides of the pan and pool at the bottom. But by greasing the bundt pan immediately before filling it, you avoid that issue entirely!
  
  
• Unmold the flan with a second water bath. Once you’re ready to serve the chocoflan, you’ll need to steam it in a water bath. Doing so will ensure that it comes out of the bundt pan whole.
  
  The recipe also instructs you to place a damp kitchen towel over the chocoflan. This towel will act like a “lid” for the chocoflan, helping steam it out.

Troubleshooting A Stuck Chocoflan

Help! My chocoflan got stuck in the pan. What did I do wrong?

Let’s chat about all the potential reasons why your cake got stuck:

Reason #1: You used a cooking spray instead of a baking spray.

In the Ingredients section above, I talked about the importance of using a nonstick baking spray as opposed to a nonstick cooking spray. Nonstick baking sprays contain flour in them. This flour goes a long way in preventing the chocoflan from getting stuck in the pan.

So if you used a cooking spray instead of a baking spray, you’re already at a major disadvantage. Furthermore, not all cooking sprays are created equal. Butter, coconut oil, and shortening based cooking sprays don’t work as well. Nonstick cooking sprays made from fats that are liquid at room temperature (like canola oil, vegetable oil, and so on) fare slightly better. However, they still won’t work as well as a nonstick baking spray.

Reason #2: You sprayed your bundt pan at the wrong time.

Most cake recipes instruct you to grease the baking pans in the first step of the recipe. After greasing the pans, the recipe instructs you to then make the cake batter. While this method works for almost every other cake recipe, it won’t work for a bundt cake.

A good bundt cake recipe will instruct you to grease the pan right before filling it. Why? Like I said above—you will need to grease your bundt pan with a LOT of cooking spray. So much that, if the pan sits for any more than a few seconds, all that cooking spray will slide down the pan’s sides and create big pools of oil at the bottom of the pan. Not only is this gross, but it also increases the likelihood of your cake getting stuck in the pan since all that oil is no longer coating the pan’s sides.

Reason #3: There was something wrong with your bundt pan.

Finally, let’s talk about your bundt pan. I also discussed the importance of using a nonstick bundt pan up top. But nonstick pans with scratched up surfaces don’t work as well as newer ones with smooth surfaces. Furthermore, if you don’t clean and maintain your nonstick pans properly, they have a tendency to accumulate grime and residue that can act like glue. Gross, right?

So the next time you make a bundt cake, test your bundt pan for grime. What does that mean? Run your fingers through all its nooks and crannies. If your pan is perfectly clean, your fingers should have no whatsoever. If they come off feeling (even just a little bit) greasy, wash your pan (preferably with a liquid grease dissolver like Dawn Dish Power Dissolver) and dry it thoroughly before using it in a bundt cake recipe.

Finally, bundt pan size matters. This chocoflan recipe makes about 10-cups of batter, perfect for a 10-cup capacity bundt pan. Baking the cake in a bundt pan with a smaller OR larger capacity will make it more likely for the cake to get stuck in its pan.

Is there anything I can do to get it out?

If you followed the recipe as written and steamed the chocoflan to unmold it, this shouldn’t be an issue for you.

But if you did and it’s still stuck, don’t panic! Instead, try the following tricks below to unstick the chocoflan:

1. First, unstick the edges of the chocoflan with a flexible offset spatula and give it a few jiggles.

Use a flexible offset spatula (one whose blade is made out of plastic or silicone, NOT metal) and run it around the edges of the pan and its center tube. Note that doing so only works for more “forgiving” bundt cake pan designs like the one I recommended for beginners. If you used a more elaborate pan with sharp edges and lots of nooks and crannies, you might accidentally ruin its design!

Nordic Ware also recommends (gently) shaking the cake in its pan side to side a few times in all directions. Doing so helps release the surface of the cake from its pan. You can also use a wooden spoon to tap the top and sides of the inverted cake to help release it.

2. Freeze the chocoflan.

Freeze the chocoflan uncovered for 1 to 2 hours, then try to invert it again. In theory, freezing the cake will help release the chocoflan from its greased sides and prevent you from damaging its design when you try and invert it.

However, don’t try this trick if you used butter, coconut oil, or shortening (all of which I specifically recommended against in this recipe) to grease your pan. Freezing solidifies those fats and will cause the cake to stick in the pan even more!