Tres Leches Cake

A Tres Leches cake, or Pastel Tres Leches (“Three milk cake”), or Pan Tres Leches (“Three milk bread”), is a sponge cake soaked in three kinds of  milk – evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream.  It’s a very light cake with many air bubbles, which doesn’t make the cake soggy inspite of  being soaked in a mixture of three types of milk – Source : Wikipedia.

My friend R sent me this recipe last week, saying she had this amazing Tres Leche cake at a friend’s place. Her words “the cake was to kill for“. And I trust her taste buds so much that I HAD to make this cake immediately. And just then Easter was round the corner and my husband wanted me to bake a cake so that he could take to work. And I thought I would experiment this cake on his colleagues. And oh yes,  I made this last week for Easter along with the Rotisserie Chicken, but really couldn’t find time to post it. But better now than never :).

Anyway, I made this cake for Easter and we totally agree with my friend about how super-soft and moist this cake was. It just melts in your mouth. I was only planning to keep a small portion of the cake for the 3 of us and send the rest to my husband’s office, when I saw my son asking for seconds and thirds. My son ONLY gets excited about me baking a cake, then cutting it for the first time (while he sings Happy Birthday…even when there’s no birthday) and if I’m lucky he’ll eat one small piece just that one time and then won’t look at it ever. But he too totally and absolutely loved it that he was excited about this cake even on the 3rd day. Yes…it lasted in our house for about 3 days because there was so much cake and just 3 of us at home to finish it all off.  It was soo good that every time I opened the fridge, I would take a little scoop that by the time it was time for a meal I would feel so guilty for all the high calorie intake that I would skip my meal or eat less . But I just couldn’t stop eating the cake.

So seeing my son eating the cake well, I decided that the cake stays home and because by then it was already late evening, we rushed to the nearest cake shop, and got his colleagues a White Forest Cake. I guessed they missed it!

Ideally this cake is to be soaked in evaporated milk, condensed milk and heavy cream. And then it’s topped with a whipped cream topping. But then we could do with little less indulgence and therefore I soaked the cake only in evaporated and condensed milk. NO heavy cream. And the whipped topping I didn’t put it as a topping but served it on the side with fruits. This way, we could enjoy the cake while it melted in the mouth and eat only the necessary amount of whipped cream. Wishful thinking there! Because I guess when it was served on the side we now took a bigger scoop of cream! 🙂 

BTW… this is an excellent cake for milk lovers and really simple too!

TRES LECHES CAKE

Ingredients

• Betty Crocker’s French Vanilla Cake or Yellow Cake box – 1 ( my friend says do NOT buy any other brand as it won’t work the same. Also, if you have a personal recipe for a yellow cake, you can use that to bake a cake).
• Evaporated milk – 3/4th cup
• Condensed milk – 3/4th cup
• Heavy Cream – 1/4th cup (optional if you’re soaking the cake in cream)

Whipped Cream

• Heavy Cream – 3/4th cup
• Vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon
• Sugar – 1 tablespoon

Fresh Fruits – I used peaches, apples and strawberries.

Method

Bake the cake as per instructions on the box i.e. add the eggs, oil and water and beat well.

Once you take the cake out of the oven, while it’s still hot prick it all over with a fork (Tip: keep some warm water on the side and keep dipping the fork in it so that the cake doesn’t stick to the fork when it’s pricked).

Whisk together the evaporated milk, condensed milk and the heavy cream (if you’re using it). Slowly pour the liquid over the cake. Refrigerate. Occasionally, spoon the milk runoff back onto the cake.

Meanwhile in another bowl, beat on high-speed the heavy cream, vanilla and sugar to prepare the whipped cream!

Now you’ve got 2 options

Option 1 – Whipped Cream as topping – You can either spread a thin layer on top of the cake and then keep the cake in the refrigerator for it to soak up all the milk and cream.

Option 2 – Whipped cream as a side – If you don’t want to put the cream as a topping, then put the cake (after you pour the evaporated and condensed milk) directly in the refrigerator.  You can prepare the whipped cream the next day fresh and serve it along side the cake or else prepare it on the same day that you baked the cake and refrigerate this too.

Eitherway, don’t forget to refrigerate the cake for at least 4 hours or best if kept overnight so that the cake soaks up all of the milk.

Serve it with some berries, bananas, mangoes or other yummy fruits that’s in season!

You’ll enjoy it… I guarantee!