Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Tres leches cake

Dave had a Cinco de Mayo party at work, so he asked me to make a tres leches cake for him. (Actually he asked what I should make and I suggested it.) It's a very popular dish in the Hispanic community, although honestly it isn't my favorite. I'm not a cake person anyway, and this wet, cold one isn't usually my cup of tea. Still, a yellow cake that you soak in milk and cream? Sounds like something I needed to try.

I found a highly rated recipe on the Food Network website. It's by Emeril, and believe it or not, it's the first recipe of his I've ever tried. Call me an Ina fanatic. My friend Tiffany said I shouldn't make a tres leches cake that is written by a clear honkey, but I decided to trust Emeril anyway, since his is the highest rated one in the Food Network recipe bank.

So, this is a very egg-y cake recipe. It requires six eggs, separated, for extra fun. When I'm separating eggs, I like to set up a system.


I crack the egg into an empty bowl (upper left) and discard the shells (upper right). Then I reach in and carefully take out the yolk and put it into a bowl (lower left). Then I pour out the egg white (lower right) and start the whole process over again. It helps make sure you don't get any egg shells into anything, and also to make sure you don't pollute the whole pile of egg whites in the case of a bad egg or a broken yolk.

Next is to make the batter. This was a very typical cake batter, except for the whole separation of egg whites and yolks. First beat the egg whites, then add sugar. At this point the batter is very fluffy, since it's basically a meringue. Then you add the yolks and it gets yellow, then the flour, baking powder, whole milk, and vanilla. You want this to stay nice and fluffy, so you work fast.


After it is done baking, you pour on a tasty mixture of milk, and this is where the "tres leches" - "three milks" - comes from. It's a mixture of evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream.


It's three cans of milk and two cups of cream, so if you do the math, you figure out that that is a lot of liquid to soak into the cake. The above picture is the second or third time I poured the liquid into over the cake and waited for it to soak in. I wish I knew how much it was in volume. And on top of that, Dave had to pour another cup and a half over it right before serving!

Although his coworkers devoured most of it, Dave took a piece home for me, and it was really, really good. I'd make this cake again for sure. It helped that I let it warm up to room temperature, too. Maybe I'll have to try more of Emeril's recipes.

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