Plate #6: Tres Leches Cake

Firstly. I'd like to apologize to all my loyal followers (whaddup, roommates and friends from high school) for the huge gaps between posts. I've been really busy, you know, being late to work and smiling at cute boys and also picking my nose (sometimes simultaneously!). It is my springtime resolution to be better, in all ways, really, but then again, it's supposed to snow tomorrow, so, like, whatever.

B. Recently, Jenny was trapped under an avalanche of socks. She survived.

Jenny doesn't like doing laundry anymore.

3. (is for) tres leches cake! I think there was a time when I considered myself primarily a baker, but then I probably realized that I'm not so great with things like measurement precision or setting a timer for the oven. La la la oh well.

Technically, this should be called a quatro leches cake, since the whole thing gets smothered in whipped cream at the end, but I suppose that doesn't roll off the tongue quite as nicely. The eponymous tres leches in this cake however are los Señores Sweetened Condensed Milk, Evaporated Milk, y Half and Half. Whisk them together. Let them siesta in the fridge for a while.

More milks in more places.

But before them, we begin with that dense cake, perfect for soaking up a thick milk medley. Cake flour (2 cups of cake flour = ¼ cup of cornstarch and 1 ¾ cups of all-purpose flour sifted), butter, sugar, 5 whole eggs!

Don't forget to butter and flour that pan, babies.

I'll warn you now that if you follow the directions to this recipe correctly, your cake will look far prettier than the one I made below. (See: measuring, bad at. Also: weight conversions, doesn't know how to do the math for.)

Anyway, in theory, you will have baked this beautiful, properly measured cake and you will have also pricked it repeatedly with a fork until it looks like your pockmarked face in middle school. (I will get back to you soon with a better, more appetizing metaphor.) And after that, you'll retrieve los tres leches and pour them all over that cake.

Piscina del leche.

Hopefully, unlike me, you won't get to this step and say to your dog, oh, shit, I have a pool of milk, I've done something terribly wrong, I probably should have spent that extra 10 seconds remembering dry ounces are not the same as fluid ounces. All of this, only to realize that the purpose of the cake is to soak up all that liquid (but you still should have remembered that thing about dry and fluid ounces).

Many hours later, perhaps even after a whole night of fretful sleeping, you will open the fridge and find that the cake did soak up the milk. You know, 80%, but whatever.

Charco del leche?

I think around now would be a good time to whip some heavy cream with a few tablespoons of sugar. Once it's transformed into whipped cream, it would be best to slather it all on top of the cake.

Like I said, mine's not pretty, but it sure tasted like yum with 9 Ms.
YUMMMMMMMMM.

I think the moral of this story is, someone please buy me a kitchen scale.

Tres Leches Cake (makes 1 9x13 cake)
adapted from Alton Brown

6 ¾ oz. cake flour (approx. 1 ½ cups)
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 stick butter
8 oz. sugar (approx. 1 cup)
5 eggs
1 ½ tsp. vanilla

12 oz. can evaporated milk
14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup half and half

1 pint heavy cream
2 tbsp. sugar

Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and then vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients in batches. Bake in buttered and floured pan for 20 minutes at 350°. After cake has cooled, prick with fork. Whisk milks and pour over cake. Let stand overnight. Cover with whipped cream.