Christmas pudding: Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe for chocoflan | Christmas food and drink 2019 (2024)

Chocoflan

There’s a nifty science trick in this recipe, when the cake layer and the flan layer swap positions during the baking. We’ve tested this with different tins without much success, so do make sure you use a 27cm bundt tin that does not have a removable base. I’d recommend making this a day ahead, because it tastes even better when fridge-cold.

Prep 10 min
Cook 1 hr 20 min
Cool 2 hr-plus
Serves 10-12

160g caramel sauce (thick set), store bought or homemade – I used Waitrose salted caramel dipping sauce
1 tbsp whole milk

For the flan
1 x 400g tin evaporated milk
1 x 397g tin sweetened condensed milk
120g full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
¼ tsp salt

Heat the oven to 170C (160C fan)/ 350F/gas 4. Liberally grease a 27cm bundt tin with butter, then coat the bottom with half the caramel sauce and put the tin into a larger roasting tin about 40cm x 28cm in size.

For the flan batter, blitz all the ingredients in a blender until smooth – about 15 seconds. Pour the flan batter over the cake batter in the tin, then cover the bundt tin first with a piece of greaseproof paper and then with a piece of foil, wrapping it up tightly. Add enough boiling water to the roasting tin to come about 2cm up the sides of the bundt tin, then transfer to the oven and bake for an hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out almost clean; rotate the tin once after 30 minutes, to ensure an even bake. Lift the tin out of its water bath, remove the foil and greaseproof paper, and leave for about an hour, until completely cool.

Invert the chocoflan on to a large, round platter – you may need to shake it slightly to release it from the tin – then refrigerate until cold, for at least two hours and, ideally, if time allows, overnight. To serve, thin the remaining 80g caramel with the milk and drizzle all over the flan.

Fiona Beckett’s drink match

This is sweet enough without serving a sweet wine with it, so I’m going for a tot of brandy. The Co-op has released one under its Irresistible label for £20 (40%), or try a Spanish brandy such as Fortnum’s luxurious Brandy de Jerez (£40, 40%).

• This article was edited on 10 December 2019. The ingredients for the caramel sauce were inadvertently excised from an earlier version.