Pastel de Tres Leches

The one thing you always remember from traveling abroad is the food, regardless of where you go. Personally, I believe that food is one of the best ways to discover the country you're in...just ask Anthony Bourdain.

The first time I ever had a Tres Leches cake was in Costa Rica - December, 2008. My home-stay mother, aka "Mama Tica", brought it out to the dinner table one evening and I fell in love. The texture of the cake itself was indescribable. I used my best amateur Spanish (which had to be an amusing conversation) to find out the ingredients she used and the basics of the recipe.

Mama Tica and I

 The fascinating thing about Tres Leches is its disputed history. Its roots are clearly Latin American, but some say that it originated in Spain, while others argue its origin is in Nicaragua. The Nestle company even has staked a claim in developing the recipe during WWII - probably while they weren't engaging in forced labor practices in cocoa fields. Bottom line, if you're going to replicate a traditional recipe, I think it's worthwhile to understand the history.

And I've probably mentioned in previous blog posts that I like researching a variety of recipes, and combining the best parts of each (which is what I did here). Of course, I used Alton Brown's Tres Leches Cake recipe from the Food Network. I also used a few ingredients that I remembered from Mama Tica's recipe. In the end, this is what I came up with:

Ingredients:

Cake:

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 stick butter,  unsalted
• 5 eggs

Glaze:

• 1 can evaporated milk
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 cup half and half **I used Soy Milk instead, duh** 

Frosting:

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

 This is probably seems complicated because of the ingredient list and directions, but remember: 

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and flour a 13x9 inch pan.
• Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together.
• Beat butter and vanilla, then add eggs one at a time.
• Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture.
• Once the two mixtures are blended together, pour into the pan and bake for 20-25 minutes.

** Two things: 1) This isn't going to look like a normal cake batter because it doesn't use a large amount of flour and won't fill up the pan much. Don't worry - this is what makes this dessert so special!! 2) I actually had to bake mine for about 40 minutes to get it to bake evenly. This may just be my oven, so baking times may vary.**

• Once it is thoroughly baked, let cool and poke holes all over the cake.

• After the cake has cooled completely, whisk together the glaze, aka "Tres Leches" and pour over the cake. It may seem like a lot of glaze but don't worry - the cake is porous enough that it will soak up the liquid without being soggy; that's the beauty of this dessert.

CAUTION: Do NOT slice your finger open on the can of sweetened condensed milk as you're throwing it away.

•  Wrap the cake and refrigerate. Some recipes call for it to be refrigerated overnight, but I only let mine sit for about 5 hours.
• Before serving, whip the ingredients for the frosting together until it forms peaks in the bowl. Suggestion: buy an electric mixer. I tried to manually mix mine and it didn't thicken. So I added flour obviously - always works for a quick fix!
• Frost the cake. (I left the milky glaze at the bottom of the pan, but you can drain this if you'd prefer).

 And you're done!

Of course, there are a plethora of ways to change up the recipe/make it easier. You can use a boxed white cake mix and just poke holes after it's done, although this is cheating and lazy and isn't as porous as the original recipe.

Or, you could use a can of frosting instead of making your own- which is also cheating (but who's judging).

Finally, put things away as you go. After I put the cake in the oven, I cleaned up my mess of a kitchen. This way, once you are finished with all three steps of the recipe, your kitchen isn't a disaster.

And with that, I'm finished.

Hasta luego, camaradas!

<3 Meg