(Thankfully) successful vegan chocoflan for friends. The collective+Sparknote recipe in my notebook was of 3 different recipe sources, but the meat of it was from Dora's Table. https://dorastable.com/vegan-chocoflan/comment-page-1/#comment-13538 Notes
Made in a 10-cup bundt pan (10-12 was rec'd).
For some reason, my ratio of flan:chocolate cake came out 4:1. I followed the recipe, so I'm not sure what happened. I'd be more mindful if I do this recipe again in the future since I'd want the 1:1 ratio. I'd consider halving the flan/doubling the chocolate cake, and pour any excess into a small mold — but ultimately just really observe the proportions and keep a watchful eye on the amount that's poured into the cake pan.
I foolishly forgot to grease my bundt pan. Thankfully after some superficial knife cuts around the cake edge-pan, then letting the pan sit in a waterbath for a random 5 minutes to help with release, and then flipping it onto the plate+shaking the pan+plate a little vigorously till I felt a THWUMP — the release THANKFULLY came out as a whole!!! The modern Nordic Ware bundt pans are naturally non-stick but in the future I would still grease the pan, haha. To avoid a mini heart attack.
I went with a traditional heating of granulated sugar+bit of water to pour caramel into the bundt pan first (before the flan and cake batter). I'm glad I did since it gave the flan top the traditional gorgeous caramel coloring.
I eyed out about 1.3 teaspoons of tumeric to color the flan, giving it a pseudo-eggy appearance. I added it into the blender step. And nope, it's not detectable tastewise in the end. Alternatively, one could use yellow food coloring at one's discretion.
The recipe calls for 15oz of coconut cream but the cans I encountered were 13.5oz. (Ultimately I went with Trader Joe's high-fat content at ~114g vs two other brands that clock in at 81/84g. Higher fat lends to richer taste.) I already had a pint of soy-heavy-cream, which I used as a supplement. The coconut cream is still liquid at room-temp, but I have a very-very-very vague memory that it could thicken up in the fridge. See my note on agar agar powder next.
I added 1.2 teaspoons of agar agar powder to the step of heating coconut milk. I was really paranoid about the flan holding up for the flip release+subway commute to my friend's. I tried asking the recipe author if she thought agar agar would still work after baking & for chilling, plus I also tried Google'ing if agar agar powder would be ineffective due to baking at 350F, but ultimately I think it helped for the flan to hold together, for me. Phew.
After baking, the cake sat at room-temp for 1 hour before I put it into the fridge for 8 hours before flipping it. I just left it for that amount of time due to sleep, so I can't say for certain if it'd be fine the same way after 4 hours. It shooouuuld be fine.
You could subtly taste the coconut cream in the "flan". Not a bad thing, just a note. The flan could use more vanilla extract? I used 2.8t.
Remove the hardened caramel at the bottom of the cake pan by soaking in hot water. Use the wooden end of a kitchen utensil (like the tiny Le Creuset spatula) to use force to slide the still-hardened-but-loosened caramel.
