I got back from Costa Rica – Pura Vida – just last week and in talking with the kids we were trying to see where we were “traveling” to for our World Wide Wednesday adventure and after batting around a few ideas we decided to go to Costa Rica. I know why did it take us anytime to come up with that country. I am going with jetlag though I don’t think I had any which was shocking to me. I live in Eastern standard time zone, I spent a week in the Pacific time zone then back to EST for 5 minutes and then onto to Central time for another week until arriving back to EST. I know that’s sentence is too long and a little confusing but I honestly felt fine.
So this wasn’t my first time trying to make this very moist but light and not too sweet dessert. My first time the entire cake went into the trash, yup not one bite was had by anyone. I don’t blame the recipe I was using, it was totally me. Well it was the converting of the measurments from metrics to what we use here in the US but I was the one doing it so theres that. I definietly read something wrong and the cake did not obsorb any of the milk, it was simply floating in a milk bath and not edible.
I know right Tres means 3 and I have Cuatro (4) milks here…..
Off to google what dessert was considered the most popular in Costa Rica and up pops Tres Leches ugh! Though I should have known since the dessert on the plane was this very cake and SO good. I was a little nervous because of my first attempt but I figured; can it go bad twice, really? It didn’t it was really good and you should try this recipe out. It was very easy with simple ingredients that you may already have on hand. I had to go to the store for heavy cream only.
I hope you give it a try and enjoy it as much as we all did!
Tres Leche Cake
Equipment
- 1 9x13 inch pan
- hand or stand mixer
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs room temperature
- ½ cup whole milk
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup white flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- pinch of salt
Milk sauce
- 1 cup sweetened condensed milk
- 1 cup evaporated milk
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup whole milk optional but will help cut down on the sweetness of the cake
Topping
- 1 pint heavy cream
- 3 tablespoons white sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350℉Separate the egg yolks. putting the whites in one mixing bowl and the yolks into another. You will be beating them both but separate.
- in a mixing bowl add the egg yolks and beat, using the whisk attachement, on medium speed until the yolks turn a pale yellow.
- In the meantime add the dry ingredients together. Flour, sugar, baking powder and salt to another small bowl and whisk them to combine.
- Add the milk to the egg yolks stir to combine and then add the dry ingredients mixing to combine.
- In a separate bowl you will want to beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add the egg whites to the egg yolk bowl folding them into each other until they are combined. Your batter should be light and airy.
- Spray your 9x13 pan with nonstick spray and add your batter to the pan. Place this in the middle of your preheated oven bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. mine was done at 25 minutes.
- While the cake is baking in a medium sized bowl add the Milk ingedients. stirring to combine.
- Allow the cake to cool slightly and then poke holes using a fork all over the cake. Then pour the milk mixture all over the entire cake until it is all absorbed. Let the cake cook completely. Just before serving add some whipped topping. Either whip your own cream or use cool whip or whip cream in the can. I perfer whipping my own but you do you.
Whipped topping
- you can do this by hand but why would you. Using your stand mixer place the container of heavy or whipping cream into the bowl, and using the whisk attachment start whipping after a few minutes add the sugar and vanilla then gradually increasing the speed until you see stiff peaks forming. I tend to place a kitchen towel over my mixer to keep the splatter to a minimum. Or you could not turn it up as fast as I do mine.
