Chocolate Flan Cake

Chocolate Flan Cake
Cake:
1 (18.25 oz.) box chocolate or devil's food cake mix

Topping:
Melt 1/2 cup of dry sugar in the bottom of a pan on the stove, and pour into the Bundt pan.
OR:
1 (10.9-oz.) jar cajeta (caramel topping) or Smucker’s caramel topping or homemade cajeta

Flan:
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 oz.) can evaporated milk
1/2 C. fresh milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
5 eggs

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Spray a large (at least 12-cup) Bundt pan with nonstick coating. Soften the cajeta in the jar in the microwave and pour into the prepared pan. (If you can’t find the cajeta or do not want to make your own, substitute Smucker’s Caramel topping, but the Mexican cajeta has a richer flavor).

Prepare cake mix according to package directions. Pour the cake batter into the cake pan over the caramel.

To make the flan, pour condensed, evaporated and fresh milks into a blender with the vanilla and eggs. Mix well. Pour the flan mixture very slowly over the cake batter. Cover the pan TIGHTLY with aluminum foil. Covering tightly is very important.

Set the Bundt pan into a large pan and set on the oven rack and slide in. Carefully pour hot water into the larger pan to a depth of 2 inches (The Bundt pan will be sitting in 2 inches of water).

Bake cake for about 2 hours; do not uncover during this time.
5. After two hours, remove cake from water and allow to cool for 15 minutes. Invert cake onto a large plate with rim. The cajeta will drip down the sides of the cake. Cool completely then refrigerate.

Note: Even though the flan is poured on top of the cake batter, it will sink to the bottom of the pan.

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What happened to the lazy days of summer? Seems like all of our days are full to overflowing. We continue to work on remodeling our house here. We are enjoying the library--all three of the kids were in the summer reading program and got prizes for reading--McDonald's coupons, tickets to the local baseball team and today a t-shirt.

Wednesday nights I am helping with the 3rd - 6th grade kids at church. It has been a lot of fun. The kids are looking forward to Awana starting in another month.

Janelle is off to youth camp this week. We hope that she is having a good time, and know that this is good for her.

Reunion

We are enjoying the visit of Bob and Rita, and their kids, Drew and Ellie today. Ellie is also known as MinYi, and was Taylor's best friend as they were children in China. The day we met Taylor, the orphanage director told us that we needed to find Taylor's best friend, who had already been adopted to the States. The amazing thing was that we had already found her through a China adoption internet group. This is the second time that we have been able to get the kids together. This morning their shyness lasted just a few minutes, and they were best friends again.

After church yesterday we headed out to Ayers Natural Bridge to camp. Though we were only there Sunday afternoon and through the day Monday, it seemed much longer, and was a great break from the 12 hour days we have been putting in working every day. Here are a few pictures of the beautiful park we camped in.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Just passed the half way mark on my picture a day project. Click on the picture to see it larger.

Happy 4th!

We had a great afternoon today with family and food and fun! We weren't sure how the day would turn out, as we have had a couple of very rainy days lately. Last night it poured rain and was very windy. Turns out that it was the heaviest rain in Casper in 20 years. It was pretty amazing....reminded us of rains we have known in the tropics. Many areas of the city were flooded. Caleb ended up with one room flooded....caused by a small window left open, and a river running by that window. He was thankful that his newly patched roof didn't leak. The neighbors large tree fell in January, knocking out Caleb's windows and punching many holes in his roof. Matt had some water run through his garage. We were very thankful to not have any water problems here at the house, and that our new windows were leak proof!

Our church is being re-roofed right now, and two nights of big rains was not good for it. Tomorrow we will be having church in the gym, as we now have wet carpet.

Waiting for it to get dark, and we'll head out in just over an hour to enjoy the fireworks.