Spiced Pumpkin Chocoflan
Servings: 20
Calories:
Ingredients
For the Bundt Pan
- ⅓ cup (100 g) Dulce de Leche or Cajeta
For the Flan
- 14 ounce (397 g) can Sweetened Condensed Milk
- 1 ½ cups (354 g) Half-and-Half
- 8 ounces (227 g) Full-Fat Cream Cheese , at room temperature
- ½ teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
- Pinch of Salt
- 4 Large Eggs
For the Pumpkin Cake
- 2 cups (250 g) unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt , or 1/2 teaspoon Fine Sea Salt
- 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1½ teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon Ground Ginger
- ½ teaspoon Freshly Grated Nutmeg , or 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon Ground Cardamom
- 10 ounces (283 g) Canned Unsweetened Pumpkin Puree
- ⅓ cup (75 g) Neutral Oil , like grapeseed or vegetable
- ¼ cup (57 g) Buttermilk
- 1 cup (200 g) Granulated Sugar
- ⅓ cup (69 g) Light Brown Sugar
- 2 Large Eggs
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Mist a 10-cup Bundt pan well with cooking spray. Cut out a piece of foil large enough to cover the top of the pan and mist it, too. Drizzle the dulce de leche into the bottom of the Bundt pan.
- Make the flan: In a blender, combine the condensed milk, half-and-half, cream cheese, vanilla, and salt. Blend for 1 minute on medium-high speed, then add the eggs and blend on medium-high for just about 10 seconds. Try not to blend for too long after you add the eggs so you don’t whip too much air into the flan. Set this mixture aside.
- Make the pumpkin cake: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cardamom. In a second large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, oil, buttermilk, and both sugars until you have a smooth mixture. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, making sure not to overmix. Sift the dry ingredients into the bowl with the wet mixture, then use a rubber spatula to fold the dry into the wet. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure everything is evenly incorporated.
- Scrape the cake batter into the prepared Bundt pan. Gently pour the flan over the top of it by pouring it into a ladle and letting it flow over the edge. This allows the flan to be added without disturbing the cake batter that much. If you aren’t gentle when pouring the flan mixture over the batter, you’ll have chunks of cake baking into the flan.
- Place the square of aluminum foil greased side down onto the Bundt pan and wrap it around the outside edge of the pan. No need to wrap it super tightly, but try not to just leave it sitting on top. Place the Bundt pan in a large roasting pan. Transfer the roasting pan to a pulled-out oven rack. Fill the roasting pan roughly two-thirds of the way up the sides with warm water (a large pitcher with a good spout is your best friend here) and close the oven door.
- Bake until a short bamboo skewer or cake tester comes out with only a few crumbs from the cake, 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours. Start checking on it at the 1 hour 45-minute mark and note that if the skewer goes into the flan its tip might be a little wet because the flan won’t have set yet; it will do that in the refrigerator.
- Carefully remove the roasting pan from the oven and carefully lift the Bundt pan out of the water bath and place it on a cooling rack. Let the chocoflan cool completely at room temperature with the foil tented on top of the pan; this will take about 2 hours.
- Place the foil tightly back onto the pan and place the chocoflan in the refrigerator to set completely. This should take 4 to 5 hours, but an overnight 6- to 8-hour chill is ideal for the flan to set up perfectly.
- When you’re ready to serve, carefully use the tips of your fingers to pull the cake away from the edge of the pan then place a large serving platter or cake stand over the Bundt pan and flip over to invert. Depending on your pan the chocoflan might be a little difficult to invert at first. If this is the case dip the bottom of the pan into a bowl of warm water for 5 to 6 minutes and try to invert the cake again.
- To store, carefully wrap it in plastic wrap and keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
- NOTE: I developed all of the chocoflan recipes using a basic Wilton Bundt pan. I noticed that when I used pans with more intricate designs, the baking time increased by 10 to 15 minutes, and that caused too much marbling. The simpler the Bundt pan, the easier it will be for the batters to swap places during the baking process.