Tres leches Cake: A Cinco De Mayo Treat!

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Tres leches is a light airy sponge cake, soaked in three kinds of milk- evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream. 

Tres leches Cake

Updated June 29 2017: 

This tres leches cake has been a favorite of mine ever since I posted it for the first time in 2011.  I made it again recently and thought will update the post with recent pics of the tres leches cake and have added a printable recipe as well for this three milk cake.  As always, have kept a picture that went along with the original post of tres leches cake (the one at the end), to remind myself how much I have grown in terms of photography and styling and how much more I can grow. 

Original post dated May 5, 2011:

I am back with Office Thursdays. Office Thursdays was something I started to solve the problem of me baking and then having no one to eat it since V is not fond of sweets. As a result, I would end up eating most of what I baked, and you all know what havoc that does to your body. Of course, I could have just not baked at all- but I love baking and I do crave for the occasional freshly baked good- not what you get in stores but what you get fresh from the oven in your house! So some solution had to be found- one that would allow me to bake but not end up with all the calories that go into it. Thus, the idea of Office Thursdays (at that time I could come up with no better name and so it stuck) came up. Every Thursdays, V has a meeting that he conducts, and several of his co-workers attend it. So, V and I decided that I would bake for these meetings and save for two-four pieces (for the two of us), rest would be served at these meetings.

Tres leches Cake


For today’s office Thursday, since it is cinco de mayo (a Mexican holiday celebrated every 5th of May to commemorate Mexican victory over the French forces in Battle of Puebla, 1862) and a lot of people at V’s office are mexican, I thought of making a traditional Mexican dessert- Tres Leches Cake. Of course, it might have been a very wrong decision- they would know how it actually tastes, so I had to turn to the best-Alton Brown. His measurements were in weights and since I do not own a weighing scale (and I call myself a passionate baker!) , I found a recipe I could work with at Brenda’s blog. Brenda has a beautiful blog and an amazing collection of recipes. Do check her out.

Tres Leches Cake: Tres in spanish means three and leche means milk. So the cake roughly translated is three milk cake. The cake is a sponge like cake that is drenched in a glaze of three different kinds of milk- condensed milk, evaporated milk and half & half. Topped with a whipped cream frosting, you can make several variations to the cake by either adding chocolate, or layering some strawberry whipped cream in between or like Brenda, adding cinnamon to the batter. No matter what you do, you will still be licking your fingers away!

This cake also goes out to one of my blogger friends, Abhi and to the girl who introduced me to his blog (one of my best friends, Elgo), both of whom had their birthday in April! I had promised Abhi a cake, so here it is! I would have made a more extravagant cake- firstly, if I knew how to and secondly, had these guys been here to eat it. Now, Abhi, for whatever reason, does not blog regularly but I have seen the pics of his culinary adventures on Facebook and they all look so mouth watering good. I wish he would blog more often so that I get to learn more from him and not just sit and admire his pictures on FB.

Tres leches Cake


Now, typical to all my new baking adventures I erred here too. I had kept the eggs out in the morning so that they would be at room temperature by the time I was ready to bake the cake in the afternoon. But, when I added them, the eggs were cold, solidifying the butter a bit. Arghh!! What do I do now! I took the bowl and hugged it, hoping my body heat would help the eggs and the butter to come back to room temperature. And well it did work! A hug can melt anyone and this just proved it!

The cake is seriously addictive. While photographing I kept on eating piece after piece. Granted I was hungry after the exercise but one piece would have worked, but I just could not resist! I happily packed these for V’s office-  finally there is some one to take these baked goods off my hand!

The recipe is adapted from here.

Tres leches Cake

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LEMON POUND CAKE

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As far as I remember, Smitten Kitchen was the first blog site that I started following. I do not know how I stumbled on it, but once discovered it became my go-to site. That time I was not married, I had no blog of my own and I hardly cooked and on the rare ocassions that I did bake, it was Deb’s recipe more often than not that I would try. Even now, if I have to make something and I find a great recipe on one of the oh-so-many-beautiful blogs out there, I still check whether Deb has done a version of the recipe and if yes, how different is her technique from the one I am trying.

So when I decided to make this pound cake from her blog, I realised why I go back to her site so often. This cake is exactly how she decribes it- lighter and airier than most pound cakes. 

“Pound cake is generally fairly easy to make- by just mixing together a pound each of butter, sugar, flour and eggs. That’s how it gets its name. Rich, moist and buttery, pound cakes are the king among cakes.”

Though not the traditional way of making a pound cake, this recipe calls for separately folding in whipped egg whites, and sifting the flour three times, giving the cake a texture to die for; while the addition of lemon zest and cognac (anything with alcohol has my attention) gives it a flavor perfect for springtime treats!

The recipe is adapted from Jame Beard’s Beard on Food. The guy is a genius with all things edible. Everyone who had this cake could not stop raving about it. This one is definitely a keeper.

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Mets la main à la pâte!(YEASTED MERINGUE COFFEE CAKE) My first at Daring Bakers!

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For the past few days, ever since India beat Australia in the Quarter Finals World Cup Match cricket has been the talk of the town. From Facebook updates to my college chain mails to newspaper articles- wherever you go – the India Pakistan match is the topic of conversation. I can only imagine the excitement in my hometown Mohali, where the match is being played today. The advertisers, airlines, hotels, all are cashing in on the much anticipated match. Jokes on Afridi and his men are doing the rounds among Indians on social networking sites while the Pakistinis are doing the same on their pages for the team in blue. The mind games have begun on both sides. After long I have been excited about a match- I think there is something about playing Pakistan that triggers every Indian’s blood and the do or die spirit takes over. Defeating Pakistan is for most Indians like winning the world cup. Every Indian today is praying that India wins- I have no more nails left to bite!

Putting the excitement aside for a while, I completed my first Daring Bakers challenge, although a little late! *Victory clasp!*

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

Jamie found this recipe on a piece of yellowed paper in her dad’s collection of clipped out and hand-written recipes from the 1970’s, no source, no date, and she tried the recipe and it was brilliant!

This entry was supposed to be posted on the 27th but since I was busy packing, travelling, shopping, packing again and more travelling, only now I got the time to bake for the challenge. I enjoyed myself thoroughly in this challenge. The recipe yields two cakes and thought I would do one savory version and one sweet.

While the sweet dough kneaded to form a sexy (as Ria and Jamie put it)!, elastic and smooth dough, I had a tough time with the savory dough- I just could not get the elasticity called for in the dough. I used the bread maker’s dough cycle, then used my own muscle strength and boy how I used them! I’m sure tomorrow I’ll have sore muscles- yes I had to knead THAT much!

I also had trouble with the dough rising. It took longer than usual and did not rise as much as I hoped it would. One mistake I did with the sweet dough, which could be a reason for the not rising problem is that when heating the milk with water and butter- the milk almost boiled and it was still quite hot when I poured it in the flour mixture. But, that still does not explain why the savory dough did not rise. Maybe the yeast?! Hmmm…..Anyways the dough eventually did rise.

In the savory version I thought of putting cheddar cheese and have mentioned so in the recipe but when I got to rolling of the dough I realised that I had no grated cheese on hand. Pressed for time as the match had started (the long rising time changed my whole schedule- I was supposed to have been done with baking by the time the match was to start), I put parmesan cheese- but would still recommend the cheddar cheese.

I decorated the savory yeasted cakes by painting on it using a coffee-yolk mixture. (To see how to paint on your bread check this out!) For  painting I did not have a brush. I used an unused lipstick brush from my kit. Of course I washed it thoroughly. The things I do for baking!

The oven still gave me problems while baking- it does not heat evenly. So I had to make sure that I keep shifting the trays. It also took me longer than the stated time to bake the yeasted cakes as they were not getting brown from the top-nor was the hollow sound coming. As a result the sweet yeasted cake got burned from the bottom. I miss my own oven!!:(

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