Ube and Vanilla Marbled Flan Chiffon Cake

Ingredients for caramel

• 1 cup (200g) sugar
• 1/2 cup water

Ingredients for flan

• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 3/4 cups sweetened condensed milk
  • This is basically the equivalent of one can.
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon all purpose flour

Ingredients for chiffon cake

• 4 large eggs (with egg whites and yolks separated)
  • Make sure you keep the egg whites in the fridge to keep them cold, but the egg yolks should be at room temperature.
• 1/2 cup (100g) sugar
• 2/3 cup (84g) all purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons (10g) cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons lukewarm milk
  • I actually used 1 tablespoon heavy cream and 1 tablespoon water, but you should be able to substitute with any kind of milk here, like whole milk, oat milk, coconut milk, etc.
• 1 teaspoon ube extract
  • You can substitute ube extract for any other flavoring you’d like, such as pandan, orange, almond, banana, etc. If you’re using a powdered flavoring, use 2 tablespoons instead, such as matcha, black sesame, strawberry, etc.
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

This makes one 8-inch flan cake, but you can adjust or make mini cupcake versions too. I used a regular cake pan, but a bundt cake pan would also work. This flan cake also has the really cool effect of a layered cake, but without you doing all the layering!

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare and grease your cake pan well on all sides.
2. Let’s make the caramel! In a small saucepan, add sugar and water. Stir and cook the mixture on medium heat until it turns a nice golden brown color (about 10 minutes). Pour the caramel into your cake pan and place into the freezer until cold.
3. Now, let’s make the flan! In a bowl, beat together eggs, heavy cream, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract and flour. Then, put the mixture into the blender and blend for about 2 minutes. You can also strain this through a sieve as well. Pour the flan into the cake pan on top of the cold caramel.
4. Then, let’s make the marbled chiffon cake! In a large bowl, add egg yolks and whisk until evenly mixed. Add half of the sugar and whisk until the mixture has approximately doubled in volume. I hand-whisked for approximately 7 minutes. The mixture should be a lighter yellow color and be at a ribbon stage (when you lift the whisk up, the mixture should fall back into the bowl in ribbons that will hold its shape until disappearing back into the mixture).
5. In bowl of a stand mixer, add cold egg whites and beat on low speed until foamy (approximately 2 minutes).
6. Add the other half of the sugar over 2 separate times and beat on medium high speed until the egg whites reach stiff peaks (approximately 7 minutes). Make sure to keep checking the egg whites to not overbeat them.
7. Add 1/3 of the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture. Gently hand whisk until evenly combined.
8. Add the egg yolk and egg white mixture back into the egg whites. Using a silicon spatula, gently fold in the egg whites until evenly combined.
9. Add flour, cornstarch and baking powder. I sifted these dry ingredients together first, but you can omit this step if you’d like. Using a silicon spatula, gently fold in the dry ingredients until evenly combined.
10. Add lukewarm milk. Using a silicon spatula, gently fold until evenly combined.
11. Now, separate the batter evenly into two bowls. In one bowl, add the ube extract. In the other add the vanilla extract. Gently fold each batter until evenly combined.
12. Using the two different spoons (one for each kind of batter), spoon the batter on top of the flan in a checkerboard pattern, alternating ube and vanilla. Then, take the handle of the spatula and gently draw swirls around the batter. If you’re feeling lazy, you could also just pour the vanilla batter in, then pour the ube batter into the center. Then, use the handle of the spatula to draw lines from the ube center to the edge of the pan.
13. Cover the cake pan with aluminum foil and place the cake pan on top of a sheet pan. Place the sheet pan with the cake pan on it into the oven. Then, pour boiling water into the sheet pan to about a half inch high to create a water bath.
14. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. You can take the aluminum foil off to check on the cake.
15. After you’re done baking it, let the flan cake come to room temperature, and then refrigerate it for at least 4 hours, so the flan can set.
16. When you’re ready to serve, put the cake in a boiling water bath again for 10 minutes to loosen up the caramel and flip over onto a plate. You’re done!

Ube and Vanilla Marbled Flan Cake is the perfect cake to make for an indulgent dessert that you want to impress your friends with. Why? Well, first of call, the flan and the chiffon cake creates two distinct layers in texture and in how it looks with the creamy flan and fluffy chiffon cake, which basically means you get to make a two layered cake without doing any layering at all! It’s also magical because even if you had cake batter that sunk into the flan, the baking process re-separates the layers due to different densities. Additionally, the marbling of the ube and vanilla chiffon makes cutting into the cake quite the surprise. with the different ribbons of contrasting colors and flavors. For your next special occasion or if you just want a sweet treat, definitely try making this and let me know how it goes in the comments below!