Transcription
Hey, I'm John Canel and today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making a dreamy, delicious tres leches cake. So, let's get started.
First off, set your oven to 350 and you're going to want to butter a 9 by 13in baking dish. And if you prefer, you could make this in two 8 in square or round pans to have two tres leches, one for you, one to deliver. This is going to be the cake of your dreams.
First off, in a large bowl, you're going to combine the dry ingredients, starting with 2 cups or 240 g of all-purpose flour. So, if you haven't had tres leches cake before, you are missing out. It's so delicious. A simple vanilla sponge with no butter or oil gets baked up. Then, we're going to drench it in a combination of evaporated whole milk and sweetened condensed milk together. They are going to soak that cake through and through and make it so like perfectly delicious. Topped with whipped cream, it's impossible to beat. To puff things up, 3/4 of a teaspoon of baking powder. My mother's from Mexico, so along with fla. This was one of our favorite desserts that was on a heavy rotation. And half a teaspoon of salt for some contrast. Grab a whisk. Our scales done. And we're going to mix this up. By the way, if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button. There's two new recipes every single week. Nice and distributed. Let's set this aside and grab our stand mixer.
This cake has a lovely delicate crumb thanks to the way we're going to treat the eggs. They're not just going to get dumped into the bowl. We're going to separate the yolks from the whites. And you'll want five eggs for this recipe. So here we're going to be whipping up the egg whites with sugar to make a meringue basically and then folding that in at the very end with my egg yolk sugar flour mixture. This is going to have thousands of tiny little bubbles that expand in the oven and help lift and leaven your cake so it's light and airy and can accept all of that delicious milk. Pop the whisk on and we're going to add our egg whites in. The egg whites get beat on high until they're foamy and doubled in size. Then you're going to add 1/4 cup or 50 grams of sugar, drizzling it in slowly. And some magic's going to happen. My egg whites are foamy and doubled in size. So, it's time for my sugar. Sprinkle that in. Let your mixer run for about 3 minutes and you'll see the difference in the texture. I'm going to stop it right now just so you could see. We have super soft peaks. See how droopy that is? Once they're stiff, they'll be sky-high and sharp. [Applause] Look at this. Stiff and perky. Straight up. If you overbeat your egg whites, the consistency is not going to be as nice. And when your cake is in the oven, those bubbles will burst as opposed to getting larger in parts at least. So, watch the texture.
So, at this point, we're going to set this aside. And you can either grab another mixer bowl or use a large bowl and a hand mixer. This time, the egg yolks are going to get worked with. So, five egg yolks right in. A traditional tres leches cake won't have butter or oil in it because you want it to be a little bit drier and more open in crumb so it can accept all the milk mixture. If it was too fatty, it would like just kind of repel the milk and you wouldn't have that soaking. Now, we're going to add the remaining cup of sugar, 200 g. The sugar will soften and sweeten our cake. I'm going to use that whisk. And we're going to beat this until it's pale in color and fluffier. Feel free to scrape the bowl down. So, you don't have to go crazy on this. Just thicker and lighter in color. And you can see it's more of a pastel. Thicker but smooth. Okay. To this mixture, I'm adding half a cup of whole milk. Just drizzle it in slowly while the mixer is running. And 2 tsp of vanilla. Just do a check and make sure it's all combined. Yeah. Now you're going to pour the flour mixture in and mix on low until it's just combined or almost combined. That's good. Still some flour around. So I'm going to just scrape it and mix by hand with the whisk. My mixer is done. The rest is going to be by hand.
Now we're going to add our beautiful light meringue. Right into the batter in two additions. The first addition is going to have a noble sacrifice. A lot of it's going to crumple up and you're going to lose the bubbles, but the mixture itself will be lightened. So, when we add the second half in, you'll retain more of those bubbles and it's just going to mix nicer. So, we're going to scrape this down. Bring your spatula up and cut through the middle. Then, rotate and continue the process. You're making these like convection currents basically with your spatula. Circular motions, gently folding. Folding is like a gentle careful mixing where you're trying to not disturb whatever your mixture is. Okay. And I just want to see that almost all of the streaks of white disappear before I move on.
Tres leches, of course, is like a Latin favorite. If you're from Mexico, people will say this is a Mexican dessert. If you're from Nicaragua, they'll say this came from Nicaragua. And the list goes on. Basically, almost every country will claim that it's theirs. And that's fine. Everyone loves it. I'm not going to delve into the history except to say that soaked cakes were popular for hundreds and hundreds of years. Like if you were in England, a rum-soaked cake, delicious. People love it. Traditional fruit cake is soaked in brandy. And soaking the cake in alcohol will preserve the cake, make it taste delicious, and um you know, allows it to just last forever. It's thought that Portuguese and Spanish people brought this sensibility of soaked cakes to the new world and you had cakes that were soaked in milk, custard, cheese, and alcohol. When canned milk became more readily available in the 1900s, this became super popular. It would use canned evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and these were things that could travel really well and be kept. So, you can thank all those canned milk companies for popularizing this recipe around the world. Okay, this looks beautiful now. Very light, very airy. I don't see really any streaks. Transfer your batter into the pan. Get every drop of batter out. Spread this out into a nice evenish layer. And now our cake is ready to go into the oven 350 for 25 to 30 minutes until the center is nice and set.
In the meantime, we're going to make our leches. For your soaking mixture, you have a choice. Like on the blog, I give you like a soak, but if you want to double the recipe, it becomes a soaking mixture, which I really prefer. So, I'm doubling my blog's recipe. Instead of 2/3 of a cup of milk, 1 and 1/3 cups. Instead of one 12 oz can of evaporated milk, two 12 oz cans. And instead of one 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk, two 14oz cans. [Laughter] I'm going to get my spatula for this part. And if you see a beautiful bottle of rum next to me, it's because if I was making this for adults, it would have like probably about a cup of dark rum. But that would be for an adult tres leches. So if you have like an adult's birthday party or something, I highly recommend getting a nice beautiful dark rum, pouring it in, and it'll add so much. My seven-year-old twin boys are a bit young for that, so we're making a standard version today. Because no alcohol is cooked off when you do that. It's a straight pour on the cake. If you have any left over, this is wonderful with some coffee or espresso, giving you a Vietnamese coffee vibe. Grab a whisk and just give this a good mix. The sweetened condensed milk is so thick that uh you know it'll take a while. If you wanted to, you could either buy or make dulce de leche. I have a blog post and I think a video on that too. It's really just cooking this down. Or you can just buy it at the store and it gives you a more caramel flavor. It's a very subtle caramel. It's beautiful. And that's an easy just swap out. Lovely, thick, and beautiful. I think a tres leches cake should be an ocean of this milk mixture with a beautiful piece of cake floating inside or partially submerged inside with little whipped cream topping. That's how it should be. Not some bum dry cake that's like got a little bit of syrup someplace. You set this aside. And as soon as our cake comes out of the oven and cools, we're going to get to work.
My cake has come out of the oven. It smells so good. It's like It smells like angel food cake. Actually, that's what it reminds me of. Anyways, we have a choice here. Once your cake is just warm, no longer hot, you could use a big skewer. You could use a big fork. But either way, you are going to have to poke holes all over the cake because you really want it to absorb the liquid. Not just on the edge, but the middle, too. So, poke your little heart out. The skewer could work, too. I cannot wait. So, we're going to take about half of this and pour it over. Go slow because you really want it to soak in the center. [Music] Nothing wrong with a little strategic spooning. The remaining liquid will just be served with the cake. So, it's kind of up to you. Like if you're going to serve your cake in more of a bowl shape, yes, you want the reserved liquid. If you're going to serve it on a dessert plate, you should probably soak the cake with almost all the liquid. Right now, when I lived in LA, there was one bakery. It was called Milk, not Milk Bar, but Milk. And they served tres leches but in like a plastic deep dish container and it was a slice of the cake like a square piece and the container was completely filled with a tres leche. So only the whipped cream was poking up at the top. So good.
It's time to cover and chill your cake at least an hour. But like a delicious soup, this is better the next day. It gives all that liquid a chance to soak in and the flavors combine. So, make it a day ahead in advance and serve the next day for a delicious treat. When this comes out, it's time for the topping.
Once your cake is chilled, it's time to make your whipped cream. 2 cups of cold heavy cream right into your mixer or a big bowl if you're using a hand mixer. And 2 tbsp of powdered sugar. If you don't have powdered sugar, you could use granulated. Mix this up. Starting on low, moving your way up gradually. And you're going to mix this until it's almost ready. Keep an eagle eye on it cuz it happens so fast. Okay. Once it's coming together and getting started, just finish it off by hand. I have overmixed whipped cream too many times to think that the machine's just going to let me know when it's ready. When you whisk it by hand, you can feel the resistance and you can see the texture change much more easily. There. Beautiful. Perfectly soft peaks. By the way, if you want to, you could add a little bit more powdered sugar. That's totally fine. As a whipped cream afficionado, it's important. You don't want it too sweet, though, because the syrup is fairly sweet.
Grab your cake and let's get to work. This is the easiest cake to decorate. Just pull up that whipped cream out. And use an offset spatula to swoop it up. Swooping frosting gives the appearance that it is so much thicker than it actually is. Mind you, if you are addicted to whipped cream, double the recipe and have a mountain on top. It's up to you. When you swoop, you're just making little arcs or curves and getting some height. By the way, there's a video I put up fairly recently with my friend Rick Martinez. We made the coconut tres leches from Preppy Kitchen. Super easy. If you love coconut, definitely check that one out. It was a fun video, too. He's super nice.
My cake is ready to cut. Let's take a look inside. Give it a slice. Serve with more of the milk mixture. And just like that, you're ready to enjoy. Aside from the amazing flavor and the perfect level of sweetness, what's really nice is the cake itself. It is so so light and airy, but filled completely with that tres leches mixture. Oh my gosh, it's just a cake you can devour in a sitting. I hope you get a chance to make this amazing recipe. And if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button and check out my cake.