Sugar Savvy

A while back I had some cocoa financiers that just didn’t go anywhere. I got the idea of using them as breadcrumbs on something, and remembered a cake that was the rage around here about 10 years ago. It went by different names: Diplomat, Choco-flan, Impossible Cake and even Better than Sex Cake. Call it as you wish, it has a layer of chocolate cake on the bottom and a layer of flan on the top, and is usually served with caramel sauce and nuts.

My idea was to use the crumbs to coat some small flans. Unfortunately my wife got to the stale financiers before I did and they ended up in the bin.  The idea stayed active, however, and I planned different ways to serve them, and it involved the fried flans, leche frita-style, a caramel parfait and a praline sauce.  It wasn’t until this weekend that I finally got around to cooking, and since I had taken a Mexican theme, why not end it with the reinvented “Choco-flan?”

The flan was a pretty straighforward, home-style flan, the way some people do it around here, with condensed and evaporated milk along with eggs. I did add a bit of citrus zest and then cooked them in small round silicone molds in a 150°C oven, cooled them and then froze.

Next up, I prepped the parfait, I took the recipe from Ducasse’s book… but added some Cajeta for extra taste and a sprinkle of fleur de sel. I then poured it into a slightly larger silicone mold and froze.

For the praline sauce,  I did take the easy way out. I just ground up some brittle with just enough liquid to turn. The fat content in the pecans turns this into a nice, spreadable paste.  Finally, I made a cocoa frying batter, much like a crepe batter, but thicker and finished with beaten egg whites.

Before serving, I rolled the frozen flan into smoked oreo cookie crumbs (as inspired by Shola), dipped into the batter and deep fried them. The batter puffs up nicely so the small flan beignets actually got rounder. I sprinkled some powdered sugar on top.

For plating, I spread some of the praline sauce, placed a parfait on the sauce and then the beignet on top. Not quite what I had envisioned, but the pieces turned out larger than what they were in my head… Everyone had seconds… The bad news is, we were all too busy eating it, nobody thought about reaching for the camera…