LECHE FLAN CAKE/ CUSTARD CAKE

To me Custard Cake=Goldilocks Bakeshop. Memories, memories. Goldilocks Bakeshop is a popular Filipino bakeshop, i dare say it's the Country's National Bakeshop, there i said it! If only they would open a branch here!!

Okay, back to the cake! To Filipinos this is called leche flan cake sometimes custard cake, to Mexicans they call this flan cake. Leche Flan, Custard cake, Flan cake, it doesn't matter, all i can say- DECADENT DESSERT! Hey it's okay to enjoy this kind of dessert once in a while!!! It's a 2 in one "type" of dessert..a leche flan on top of a cake, heaven!!!

You can make this cake by using any kind of cake pans, round, square, designed cake pans e.g. bundt cake pan , so it's all up to you. You can also make the cake from scratch but if you know me, i do make my cake from scratch..hhhmm... scratch the box of a cake mix ha!ha!ha! So here goes the recipe!

Ingredients:

Flan- this is my recipe for Leche flan sans the raisins
1 can condensed milk (14 oz)
1 can evaporated milk (12 oz)
1 T vanilla extract
8 large egg yolks (save the egg whites for other recipes, you can freeze them)

Caramel Syrup:
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1T corn syrup

Cake:
1 box cake mix of your choice (i've used redvelvet, yellow and chocolate cake, they are all delicious)
eggs
water
oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Mix cake mix according to instructions on the box. Set aside
Whisk and beat the flan ingredients well until smooth. Set aside
In a sauce pan, mix the caramel ingredients and bring to slow boil.
Quickly pour the caramel into the cake pan, tilting the pan to evenly spread the syrup.
Pour the flan into the cake pan, then the cake batter.
Place cake pan with the flan/cake batter in a larger pan filled w/ hot water to serve as the water bath.
Bake for an hour or stick a clean toothpick in the middle of the cake, if it comes out clean, the cake is done.
Cool for few minutes then carefully unmold and chill well before serving.

***It may not make sense pouring the flan and the cake batter one after the other, believe me the flan will sink to the bottom of the pan when cooked.

This is how it'll look like right before you put it in the oven. You don't have to spread the cake batter. It'll sink down the bottom and it'll spread by itself.

Few minutes it'll look like this. The cake batter will go down the bottom.

The flan will sink to the bottom when it's cooked. So when you unmold, the flan will be on top. Make sense? oohhh just wait and see!!

This was baked couple of years ago for thanksgiving.

A little secret! Baking isn't really my cup of tea, well to my friends it's not a secret ha!ha! So once again i got so impatient, didn't wait for the cooling stage..see what happened, he!he!he!

Baked last year..experimented on a different kind of caramel syrup. I say, stick to the original syrup=;)

Baked this couple of days ago!

Yummm!!!!!

My first Leche Flan Cake w/ red velvet cake! SCRUMPTIOUS!!

HOMEMADE YOGURT

I use to think making yogurt is a complicated process and it needed a hi-tech machine to make one until my middle eastern co-worker brought us homemade yogurt.

She taught us how to make our own yogurt by using only 2 main ingredients, milk and the yogurt she gave us as a starter. No machine needed, all you need is a thermometer, pot and sterilized jars.

Ingredients:

Fresh milk (depends on how much you want to make) I used 1/2 gallon of milk
1/4 cup yogurt starter (you can buy a plain yogurt as your starter)

1. Slowly heat the milk on a stove on medium heat until it reaches 180 degree F. This is the crucial part of the process, you have to make sure that the milk will not boil over.

2. Let the milk cool down to 108 degrees F, then  slowly add your starter.

3.  Put the yogurt into a clean covered jars.

4. From here , i've tried 2 different ways to do this step, the incubation process.
   A. During winter time -  Cover the jars w/ towel and place them by the heater vent for about 6 hours or until the yogurt starts to congeal.

   B. Place your jars in a big container. Pour warm water around the jar  until half of the jars are covered. Cover the entire container w/ towel and set them near your oven/stove or any place that's warm for at least 6-8 hours or unil the yogurt has congealed.

5. After 6-8 hours, transfer your yogurt into the refrigerator and it's ready.