Chocoflan
by Sommer Collier — last updated on Apr 10, 2025 Chocoflan Impossible Cake – Mexican Chocoflan Cake is a dense, rich chocolate cake stacked with creamy vanilla flan, dripping with a delicate layer of cajeta caramel sauce!
What is Impossible Cake?
Chocoflan is often referred to in media as an “Impossible Cake” because it defies culinary logic by inverting its layers during the baking process.
The pan goes into the oven layered with caramel, then chocolate cake, then flan. Then later comes out of the oven with the chocolate and flan layers reversed. When you take the cake out of the pan, the chocolate cake layer will be on the bottom, even though you cooked it in the middle layer!
This happens because of science, not magic. The flan layer is denser than the cake layer and will drop down and cook in the bottom of the pan while in the oven. Yet it looks and tastes like magic. One bite of our Chocoflan Recipe will leave you believing in the Impossible!
Sommer’s Recipe Notes
Chocoflan – AKA Impossible Cake
Have you always wanted to try Impossible Cake, but never had the nerve? This easy Chocoflan Recipe, aka “Pastel Imposible” is a winner! Mexican Impossible Cake is a dense, rich chocolate cake stacked with creamy vanilla flan, dripping with a delicate layer of cajeta caramel sauce! A Mexican caramel sauce made with goat milk.
This amazing Chocoflan will make you do a double-take. It is a beautiful double-layered cake covered with Cajeta caramel sauce. It is like no other cake I have ever made or enjoyed. Impossible Cake has the look of a cake you slaved over all day.
Contrary to appearances, it is surprisingly fun and easy to make. However, there are specific steps you must attend to, to achieve the desired “magic”, but there is nothing too hard about that. This Chocoflan Cake is such a perfect combination of textures and flavors. It is impossibly addicting, impossibly easy, and very possibly your new favorite dessert!
Chocoflan Recipe Ingredients
For the Flan Layer:
- Sweetened condensed milk – don’t mix it up with evaporated milk
- Evaporated milk – adds a creamy texture
- Cream cheese – softened
- Large eggs – helps bind and adds a firm, creamy texture
- Vanilla extract – Mexican vanilla, if possible
For the Chocolate Cake Batter Layer:
- Unsalted butter – unsoftened
- Granulated sugar – adds sweetness
- Large egg – used to bind and adds structure
- All-purpose flour – provides structure and stability
- Unsweetened cocoa powder – adds deep chocolate flavor
- Ground cinnamon – adds warm flavor
- Baking powder – helps the cake rise
- Baking soda – works with the buttermilk to create additional lift
- Buttermilk – or use a combination of lemon juice or vinegar and milk (use this homemade buttermilk recipe)
For the Pan:
- Softened butter – for greasing
- Cajeta – caramel sauce
Pro Tip: Cajeta is easy to find in most grocery stores. Check the Mexican food section or Mexican market. You can also find it online. If you can’t find it you may substitute Dulce de Leche or another type of caramel sauce.
How To Make Chocoflan
Find the full Chocoflan Impossible Cake recipe with ingredient proportions, detailed instructions, and video tutorial in the printable form at the bottom of the post.
Tips & Tricks
- Use the right size bundt pan! This recipe requires a minimum 12-cup capacity pan. If you use a smaller one, it might come over the edge of the pan!
- Grease the bundt pan well! The cake came out of the pan much better when I buttered it, instead of spraying it with baking spray. Butter is better! Be sure to get into all the nooks and crannies!
- Don’t skip the water bath! The water bath is critical to making this impossible chocoflan come out perfectly. It will help the flan layer to cook properly and the layers to reverse while cooking.
Frequently Asked Questions
It can be a tiny bit wobbly when you take it out of the oven, but not a big wobble, or it might collapse.
Yes, you can make this recipe several days in advance. Cover and chill, in the pan, until the day you plan to serve it. Then set it out at room temperature for 1-2 hours before flipping it out of the pan.
To store, place the leftover chocoflan in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days!
To freeze the chocoflan, tightly wrap the cooled cake in at least two layers of plastic wrap. Freeze for up to 3 months! To serve, thaw in the refrigerator overnight and serve the next day.
Looking for More Delicious Cake Recipes? Be Sure to Try:
- Strawberry Bundt Cake
- Blueberry Muffin Bundt Cake
- Lemon Olive Oil Cake
- Butter Pecan Cake
- Chocolate Pudding Cake
- Strawberry Crunch Cake
- Heavenly Peach Cake
- Texas Sheet Cake with Coffee
- Homemade Strawberry Cake From Scratch
- Best Buttermilk Lemon Cake
- Best Cream Cheese Pound Cake
- Japanese Castella Cake (Wagashi Sponge Cake)
- Better Than Sex Cake (Retro Recipe)
Chocoflan Impossible Cake
Video
Ingredients
For the Flan Layer:
- 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
- 12 ounces evaporated milk
- 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 3 large eggs
- 4 teaspoons vanilla extract, Mexican if possible
For the Chocolate Cake Layer:
- 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder, unsweetened
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/4 cup buttermilk
For the Pan:
- 2 tablespoons softened butter for greasing
- 1/4 cup cajeta (caramel sauce)
Instructions
- You will need a 12-cup bundt pan and a roasting pan large enough to put the bundt pan inside of and have plenty of room for water. You are creating a Bain Marie or water bath to cook the flan layer.
- Set one oven rack in middle of the oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat the bundt pan with butter and drizzle the bottom of the pan with cajeta.
- Boil about 2 quarts of water for the Bain Marie.
- For the Chocolate Cake Layer: With an electric stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes. Beat in the egg. Sift all dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Then mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, 1/3 at a time, alternating with buttermilk until all ingredients are incorporated.
- For the Flan Layer: Place all the flan ingredients together in a blender and blend on high until smooth, about 30 seconds.
- Set the bundt pan inside the roasting pan. Scoop cake batter into the bundt pan on top of the cajeta, smooth it out. Then gently pour the flan mixture over the back of a large spoon into the bundt pan so that it lays on top of the cake batter.
- Lightly butter a piece of foil and cover the bundt pan tightly, butter side down against the cake. Pour boiling water in the roasting pan about two inches high. Gently slide the pan onto the middle oven rack. Bake for 1 hour without opening the oven door. (You need to keep all of the steam inside the oven to do its job.)
- Remove the foil and test the cake. It should be firm to the touch, and an inserted toothpick should come out clean. (If not, place back in the oven for another 10-20 minutes.) Remove the cake from the water bath and cool completely to room temperature. When cool, shake the pan from side to side to loosen, place a large platter inverted over the cake, hold tightly and quickly flip over. With a rubber spatula scrape the remaining cajeta onto the cake.
- Serve at room temperature, or chill and serve cold. Both are !Muy Delicioso! Garnish with more cajeta if desired.
Just made this yesterday and followed the directions exactly except I added 1 tsp of cinnamon and cooked the cake for 1 1/2 hours. The cake was perfectly baked and came out of the pan without any problems. This was a very impressive dessert and tasted delicious! The very clear, step by step instructions gave me the courage to try making this dessert and it is definitely a keeper!!
Its very yummy and delicious recipe that I taste today by the lovely reading of your article. It is one of mine interesting and useful article I really like this recipe and after the reading of this article, I am craving for this tasty cake recipe. Thanks for sharing this article with us
I made this dessert for a gathering this week and boy oh boy was this a huge hit with our friends. I was apprehensive about the amount of cinnamon used in chocolate cake batter but it adds to the flavor of the cake. I added vanilla to both cake and flan and it was just perfect.
This is a keeper. The only variation that I did was that I made the caramel. Definitely let it cool completely before cutting it. We cut ours warm and the flan caved in a little. But everyone loved it.
Hi Sommer Collier,
This is such top notch ideas. I am always looking to make some thing new for my kids lunch object. This time I discovered your listing useful. I am going to feature this to my child lunch item. Hope, so my infant additionally loves it.
Thanks for the sharing this yummy recipe recommendations..
Wonderful recipe! Beautiful textures and flavor! Easy to follow recipe! Thank you! The crowd at my house loved it!
You can make your cajeta by putting a pan on the stove on medium and a cup of sugar. Keep stirring occasionally and that will melt down into caramel sauce.
I made this last night for the first time,super delicious!My flan was a bit to soft not sure if I blended for to long.When I tilted my cake some did stay stuck on the bundt pan:(Still tasty
I saw this recipe, and thought, very impressive! Well, I was jumping for joy when i turned the pan upside down, and this beautiful cake came out! I was making it for my neighbor, and she loved it!!!
The 1st time I made it, it was perfection. The 2nd time it bombed! All the flan mixture seeped out of the pan. I am using an angel cake pan cause I couldn’t find a bundt pan big enough. I can’t figure out what went wrong! Any thoughts?
Hi Heather,
I’m so sorry that happened. So if you had success the first time, you have to consider what variables were different the second time you made it. (Baking can be fussy like that.) Did you try to bake it on a very humid day? Were you using old baking soda or baking powder? Is there any chance your oven needs to be calibrated? Any of these things could have caused the issue.
That’s exactly why it’s seeped out and made a mess because an angel food cake pan comes apart and it’s basically only for angel food cake, I have a friend that did the same thing
This cake is pretty easy and delicious, I made it for my husband for his birthday because it’s his favorite. However 1 thing I would add to this as a side note is, if you are hand mixing the flan ingredients with a wire whisk add the cream cheese to the bowl and slowly add in the liquid while mixing. This will ensure the flan mix is smooth and you wont have trouble mixing in small clumps of cream cheese. You can also toss it all into a blender if you don’t have a hand mixer.
This is bomb 💯