Lyana Blount is the chef and owner of Black Rican Vegan, a successful pop-up restaurant servicing New York City and beyond. She has been featured in the New York Times, Buzzfeed, and more. Lyana lives and cooks in the Bronx. In this article, she shares her recipe for Vegan Flancocho.
Table of Contents
Flancocho is a custard that is baked on top of a chocolate cake. Flan is a popular dessert in Puerto Rico, normally made with condensed milk and sugar to make a custard. This flancocho was a recipe I worked on for three months to perfect, and it is now a popular item on the Black Rican Vegan menu. This dessert is sweet, and the custard texture mixed with the moist chocolate cake makes it a perfect bite every time. You’ll need a Bundt pan for this recipe, so make sure to plan ahead.
Ingredients You’ll Need
Flan
- Sugar
- Organic unsweetened coconut milk (Target® has the best options)
- Sweetened condensed coconut milk
- Agar powder
- Cinnamon
- Vanilla extract
- Salt
Chocolate Cake
- All-purpose flour
- Cocoa powder
- Salt
- Cane sugar
- Avocado oil
- Water
- Vanilla extract
- Lemon juice
How To Make This Flancocho
Make the Flan
- Get your 10-inch (25-cm) Bundt pan ready and set it on a flat and even surface.
- To a medium-sized nonstick pot over medium heat, add the sugar and caramelize, stirring constantly with a spatula, until it is golden brown. Working fast is vital because this will get very hot very quickly, and you do not want it to burn. Once the sugar turns brown and runny, pour it into the Bundt pan and use the spatula to spread it evenly on the bottom. Let the sugar harden. You may hear it start to crack—this is normal.
- In another pot over medium heat, whisk together the unsweetened coconut milk, condensed coconut milk, agar agar, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil while whisking, then remove it from the heat and pour it into the Bundt pan. Let the flan rest for 20 minutes, then put it into the refrigerator to solidify a bit for about 2 hours.
Make the Cake
- Preheat your oven to 350°F (180°C). In a large bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, cocoa powder, salt, raw cane sugar, avocado oil, water, vanilla, and lemon juice. Mix thoroughly. Evenly pour the chocolate cake batter into the Bundt pan over the flan.
- Add about 8 cups (1.9 L) of water to a deep, wide baking dish that is large enough to hold your Bundt pan. This will be your water bath, which will prevent the sugar from burning during the baking process. Place the Bundt pan into the water bath. Bake for 1 hour, checking on it periodically. Insert a toothpick into the chocolate cake and make sure no wet batter coats the toothpick—if so, the cake may need more time. When the cake is done, let it rest in its pan at room temperature for 40 minutes, then refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.
- Use a cutting board or big plate to flip the Bundt pan upside down. You may have to run a knife through the edges or tap out the cake.¡Buen provecho!
Vegan Flancocho – Recipe Card
Lyana's Famous Vegan Flancocho
Ingredients
Flan
- 1 cup 200 g sugar
- 2 13.5-oz [400-ml] cans organic unsweetened coconut milk (Target® has the best options)
- 1 8-oz [236 ml] can sweetened condensed coconut milk
- 1 tbsp 7 g agar agar powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tbsp 15 ml pure vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
Chocolate Cake
- 1½ cups 188 g all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup 37 g unsweetened cocoa powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 cup 200 g raw cane sugar
- ⅔ cup 160 ml avocado oil
- 1 cup 240 ml water
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp 15 ml fresh lemon juice
Instructions
Make the Flan
- Get your 10-inch (25-cm) Bundt pan ready and set it on a flat and even surface.
- To a medium-sized nonstick pot over medium heat, add the sugar and caramelize, stirring constantly with a spatula, until it is golden brown. Working fast is vital because this will get very hot very quickly, and you do not want it to burn. Once the sugar turns brown and runny, pour it into the Bundt pan and use the spatula to spread it evenly on the bottom. Let the sugar harden. You may hear it start to crack—this is normal.
- In another pot over medium heat, whisk together the unsweetened coconut milk, condensed coconut milk, agar agar, cinnamon, vanilla and salt. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil while whisking, then remove it from the heat and pour it into the Bundt pan. Let the flan rest for 20 minutes, then put it into the refrigerator to solidify a bit for about 2 hours.
Make the Cake
- Preheat your oven to 350°F (180°C). In a large bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, cocoa powder, salt, raw cane sugar, avocado oil, water, vanilla and lemon juice. Mix thoroughly. Evenly pour the chocolate cake batter into the Bundt pan over the flan.
- Add about 8 cups (1.9 L) of water to a deep, wide baking dish that is large enough to hold your Bundt pan. This will be your water bath, which will prevent the sugar from burning during the baking process. Place the Bundt pan into the water bath. Bake for 1 hour, checking on it periodically. Insert a toothpick into the chocolate cake and make sure no wet batter coats the toothpick—if so, the cake may need more time. When the cake is done, let it rest in its pan at room temperature for 40 minutes, then refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.
- Use a cutting board or big plate to flip the Bundt pan upside down. You may have to run a knife through the edges or tap out the cake.¡Buen provecho!
Reprinted with permission from Black Rican Vegan by Lyana Blount. Page Street Publishing Co. 2023. Photo credit: Mariana Peláez.
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About the Cookbook
Growing up in a Puerto Rican and Black household, Lyana Blount knew from a young age that food was a love language, and it was one she intended to master. After going vegan, she set out to capture the flavor, vibrancy, and love in her family’s recipes with lighter plant-based ingredients. And with that, her NYC pop-up Black Rican Vegan was born! In this personal collection of recipes, Lyana shares the secrets behind the vegan, Latin soul food she’s famous for, so you can make her incredible meals right in your own kitchen and enjoy healthier versions of beloved classics.
These 60 dishes combine crowd-pleasing favorites from the Black Rican Vegan menu, OG meals from the five boroughs, and passed-down family recipes. Make Puerto Rican fare like Holiday Vernil, Chicharron sin Carne, Mofonguitos con Vegan Camarones, and Sopa de Salchicon. Celebrate the diverse NYC food scene with recipes like Moxtails, NYC Bacun Eggin Cheeze, Succulent Birria Tacos, Titi’s Lasagna for Dad, and Bronx Fried Oyster Mushrooms. Lyana’s ingenious plant-based swaps will have you wowing your friends and family with ridiculously good meals no one will believe are vegan. Because after all, food is love, and nothing helps you share that more than the incredible plant-based recipes in Black Rican Vegan.
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More Vegan Recipes You Might Like
If you enjoyed this Vegan Flancocho, You Might Also Like:
- Orzo Stuffed Tomatoes
- Pumpkin & Bourbon Brulee Tart
- Lemon Tahini White Bean Caesar Salad
- Lemon Pesto Lentil Salad
- Poppy Seed Tea Cake with Raspberry Cream Cheese Icing
Connect with Lyana on Instagram and at blackricanvegan.com
I wish there was a better recipe for the vegan chocolate cake portion of the flancocho. I followed every step to a T, and the cake still came out raw even after baking on 350° for an hour; and I am talking RAW. When I went to check on the cake after 60 mins, it was still wet batter!!!! I’ve never even seen that happen before. Then, after raising heat up slightly, and baking for an additional 20 minutes, it was finally “baked”, however when I went to demold it, I saw that the cake was 1) flat and dense as all heck, and 2) it was WET at the part where the cake meets the flan!!! I’m not a baker by any means, but I’ll admit that when making the recipe I was scratching my head at the lack of baking powder to help the cake to rise, especially with the fact that there is no egg in the cake to help with that. Flour on its own does not do a good job of making a cake, so I would say the recipe needs to be tweaked with some sort of egg substitute and also a adding a leavening, like baking powder/baking soda. Additionally, the lemon juice made the cake taste like sour milk and I was not a fan. I will be making a different version of vegan chocolate cake for this recipe because the one included here was extremely volatile. I do not believe this is the recipe that she uses for her dishes, there’s just no way. I’m so disappointed because I was really looking forward to veganizing this popular dish.