Birthday Cake

We rarely buy birthday cakes, we like to cook and bake and we can't quite imagine not just doing for ourselves.  Occasionally good friends contribute, wonderful creations, and I feel lucky we haven't had to politely plow through a less than stellar store bought cake at a home party for a long time.  (not that all store bought is bad, but we all know--a heck of a lot of them are).  I'll admit some of the kid cakes are more about appearance than lends itself to complete deliciousness but they're all fun, and we hedonistic adults nearly always end up with something whose sole intent is to make you smile when it hits your tongue.

Our family birthday month of craziness is February, with a total of 5 in the near and dear having birthdays and another 8 or 10 by the time we spread the net wide to good friends near and far.  It is definitely time to research some good cake!

My John loves anything involving chocolate, caramel and pecans.  Coconut is no bad things either.  Previous birthdays have involved things like German Chocolate Tart and Chocolate Pots de Creme.  This year I was casting about for something interesting and came across an amazing sounding recipe.  It was so tantalizingly trashy yet delicious sounding.  Occasionally I like to go back to my roots, which are inextricably intertwined in the kind of church potluck which always included jello, cream of something soup, taco seasoning, cake mix concoctions and other chemical delights. This promised just that.  

It turned out suprisingly well--the promised effect achieved nearly effortlessly.  From the furthest reaches of the internet (and then further Frankensteined), I present:

Chocolate Flan Cake

For the cake:

•  devil's food cake mix
• 1 12 oz can of coke
• oil and eggs as dictated on the back of the cake mix box 

 For the flan:

• 1 can evaporated milk
• 8 ounces of cream cheese
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extra
• 2/3 cup caramel sauce (in that vicinity--part of a jar of Smuckers caramel ice cream topping works great--this does not need to be precise--eyeball it)
• pan spray or oil for greasing the pan

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  You'll need a bundt pan, which you can spray with pan spray or grease generously, pour the caramel sauce in the bottom and set aside. 
Make the cake mix according to the direction but substitute the Coke for the water.  Set prepared mix to the side.

Fling everything for the flan in the blender.  (That'd be pretty much be the remaining ingredients).  Zap it til smooth.

Pour the cake mix carefully into the bundt pan.  Then pour the flan mix down the side of the pan so it sorta slides under the cake mix.  Not all of it will but most, and don't worry, it will all be fine.

Figure out a pan you can put a little water into and set the bundt pan in, it doesn't have to be a lot of water, an couple of inches--I found a round cake pan that did the trick--an ovenproof skillet would probably work too.  Set all this in the oven and bake.  It will probably take about an hour, possibly even a little longer.  This is a fairly moist cake--almost brownie-like so you'll want your toothpick test to show sticky but not wet--the cake pulling away from the sides a bit is a good sign too.

Cool the cake completely, refrigerate overnight ideally.  Put a few warm wrung out clothes on the top of the pan to help loosen it once you've tipped up upside down onto a serving platter.  You should end up a with a lovely caramel sauce covered flan layer perched on top of a surprisingly good cake.  Moist and delicious!  We toasted up a few pecans for those who liked them, and I think it would be very pretty to put those in the caramel before you pour everything else in.