Tres Leches Cake. My boyfriend speaks fluent Spanish and I’m not gonna lie, I always say phrases to him in Spanish because I’d like to think that I’m fluent in another language besides English and Vietnamese.
Te amo.
¿Qué Hora Es?
¡Ayúdame, por favor!
Nothing too special, really. Just the basic phrases you learn in Spanish I. And besides, practice makes perfect, right? How am I going to learn if I never try? I’m actually not that bad at Spanish– I used to write letters in Spanish when I was writing to my bestie on his mission in Guatemala. It’s the whole speaking part that I struggle with.
When I made this cake, I must have gone around the house saying “Tres Leches Cake!” a million times because it’s fun to say. I also took one of my formspring reader’s advice and baked something out of the ordinary– something more cultural. This cake is most popular in Latin America and I actually tried it for the first time at one of my boyfriend’s family gatherings since his grandma made it. It’s kind of strange, at first, if you’re not expecting it to be so…. wet. It’s basically a sponge cake soaked with three different kinds of milk. It may initially be very sweet, but the cake tends to mellow out if you refrigerate it overnight. I added freshly cut strawberries to top it all of, but any fruit will do. You can even leave it plain if you’d like. Recipe from The Pioneer Woman.
Ingredients
- 1 cup All-purpose Flour
- 1-½ teaspoon Baking Powder
- ¼ teaspoons Salt
- 5 whole Eggs
- 1 cup Sugar, Divided
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
- ⅓ cups Milk
- 1 can Evaporated Milk
- 1 can Sweetened, Condensed Milk
- ¼ cups Heavy Cream
FOR THE ICING:
- 1 pint Heavy Cream, For Whipping
- 3 Tablespoons Sugar
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan liberally until coated.
- Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Separate eggs.
- Beat egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar on high speed until yolks are pale yellow. Stir in milk and vanilla. Pour egg yolk mixture over the flour mixture and stir very gently until combined.
- Beat egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. With the mixer on, pour in remaining 1/4 cup sugar and beat until egg whites are stiff but not dry.
- Fold egg white mixture into the batter very gently until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and spread to even out the surface.
- Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Turn cake out onto a rimmed platter and allow to cool.
- Combine condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream in a small pitcher. When cake is cool, pierce the surface with a fork several times. Slowly drizzle all but about 1 cup of the milk mixture—try to get as much around the edges of the cake as you can.
- Allow the cake to absorb the milk mixture for 30 minutes. To ice the cake, whip 1 pint heavy cream with 3 tablespoons of sugar until thick and spreadable.
Spread over the surface of the cake. Decorate cake with whatever fruit your heart desires. Cut into squares and serve.
