Tres Leches Cake

Hello everyone!

Tres leches cake is a cake that my family and I have been wanting to try for many weeks. Ever since my sister heard of it on Laura Vitale's Youtube show, she's been obsessing about how awesome it looked and how much she wanted to try it. When my mom told me she had invited my uncle's family over for dinner, I decided that it was the perfect opportunity for me to try this dessert.


Tres leches cake, or "three milks" cake, is a Mexican cake that is made by making a basic white, yellow, or french vanilla cake and soaking it in a combination of milks - evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy whipping cream. Now, I've seen many different combinations and amounts of milk used while I was searching for the best recipe and I've decided that these three make the best combo. That being said, this cake was pretty easy to make and absolutely divine - in both taste and looks

Tres Leches Cake

Cake:
1 cup All-purpose Flour
1-1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Salt
5 whole Eggs
1 cup Sugar, Divided
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1/3 cup Milk
Milk Syrup:
1 can condensed milk
1 can evaporated milk
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Topping:
maraschino cherries
2 cups heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10" round cake pan and set aside. 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. Hold your nose; this stinks. 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. Leave cake out and allow to cool. If you decide to use a box mix, follow the directions on the box.

Meanwhile, combine all three milks for the syrup in a pouring device. Resist drinking it. You're going to need it for the cake.

Stab the cake with a fork multiple times, all along the entire cake. Pour the milks over the cake, into all the holes, over the edges, and everywhere as evenly as possible. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge for an hour or overnight. The cake will need to soak in all the milks.

Meanwhile, whip the whipping cream until it forms soft peaks. Try not to over beat it like I did or you'll either end up with sweet butter or mush. A tip to achieving soft peaks faster is to leave the whipping cream in the fridge until the last minute and letting your mixing bowl and whisk chill in the freezer for a couple minutes. I don't know why, but it works awesomely.

Transfer your cake onto your cake stand or serving platter. Drop 3/4 of the whipping cream on top of the cake and using a spatula, spread it down the sides. To achieve the pattern on the side of the cake, just lightly drag your spatula up diagonally on the cream. Make sure you don't push too hard or you'll end up exposing the cake underneath. Using the remaining 1/4th whipping cream, pipe swirls around the top edge of the cake using the 3M Wilton tip and put maraschino cherries in the centers.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy!