Is there such thing as an "Impossible" Cake aka the Chocoflan? The chocoflan is basically a chocolate cake with a flan layer on top. The moniker is ascribed to the fact that, how can the cake, when inverted, turn out to be on the bottom, when the cake and flan mixture were mixed together and baked together at the same time? Magic, right?
Previously, I made flan just by itself: http://cookingbanana.blogspot.com/2013/08/flan.html.
It was delicious, silky, and creamy all at once. Having succeeded in making flan, I wanted a new challenge. The mission impossible.
It was time to challenge myself on the actual date of my cousin's birthday. I was the designated cake chef, and I was running late. OH MY GOSH. Literally, it was 12 noon, and we were leaving for dinner at 4 PM. Was it possible to make a cake that I had never prepared before so soon?
Adding to the challenge, I wanted to make a green tea cake with flan. I knew my dessert devourers' palate was green tea, not chocolate. I couldn't find a recipe to appease my and my guests' appetite, so I decided to combine my knowledge of making green tea cake and flan, and hoped that the buoyancy principles did not only apply to chocolate but also green tea cake.
Most definitely, possible.
First steps:
1. Oil the fluted pan that you will bake the cake in. (Yes, you will need a fluted pan so that you can invert the cake later.)
2. Make the caramel. Medium heat the white sugar until melted. Be careful not to boil it too much, as the sugar easily burns.
3. Immediately remove from heat when melted and pour into prepared fluted pan.
4. While the caramel cools and hardens, make the Green Tea Cake layer next.
Ingredients for the Green Tea Cake layer:
Group A:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cake flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp green tea powder
Group B:
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 cup oil
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup plain yogurt (or substitute 1 tbsp vinegar + 1 cup milk)
How to Make the Green Tea Cake layer:
1. Sift together Group A in a mixer.
2. Beat in Group B into Group A.
3. Pour cake batter into the fluted pan.
4. Set aside while making the Flan layer next.
Ingredients for the Flan layer:
3 eggs
1 can condensed milk
1 can evaporated milk
1 tbsp vanilla
How to Make the Flan layer:
1. Beat all the ingredients- eggs, condensed & evaporated milks, and vanilla- until incorporated.
2. Pour the flan mixture into the fluted pan that already contains the Green Tea Cake layer and caramel. (Now here's the impossible part to this: the cake and flan mixtures are infused together for the moment, but after it gets baked in the oven, it separates into two distinct layers, inverted!!)
How to Bake the Cake:
1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
2. Prepare a hot water bath by pouring hot (not boiling) water into a larger pan that can hold the fluted pan.
3. Place the fluted pan into the hot water bath.
4. Cover the fluted pan with aluminum foil.
5. Bake for approximately 1 hour.
6. Take the cake out of the oven and let it cool.
7. Run a knife along the edges of the cake to ease in letting the cake out, and invert the cake onto a larger plate.
The result:
Two distinct layers- top: flan, bottom: cake.
How possible is that?!
