A portmanteau of chocolate cake and flan, chocoflan is often referred to by bakers as “pastel imposible.” It’s easy to see why: The Mexican dessert is composed of layers that mysteriously switch places as it cooks, but simple science can explain the seemingly impossible feat. The dish starts with a roasty homemade caramel set in the bottom of a cake pan. Next, you’ll whip up a rich chocolate cake recipe by hand and spread it over the caramel before pouring a liquid flan mixture over the top and popping the pan in the oven. The transformation happens when the baking powder in the chocolate cake batter is heated, creating thousands of little air bubbles. Like a balloon, the now-airy cake layer rises while the thickening flan layer sinks.
To make our chocoflan recipe even more magical, we added cream cheese and condensed milk to the velvety-rich custard and used oil in the cake, not butter, to keep its texture soft even when fridge-cold (this also means you don’t have to wait for anything to come to room temperature before getting started). We also opted to bake our version in a loaf pan instead of the more traditional Bundt pan because it fits more easily in a baking dish or large roasting pan (necessary for the water bath) and makes the process much more seamless.
No one part of this dessert is particularly complicated, but a careful reading of all the steps will aid in your success. Your reward is a layered loaf that jiggles when you unmold it onto a serving plate, revealing a flan cake crowned with a gloriously dark caramel sauce that glistens like some kind of sorcery.