Vanilla Tres Leches Cake

Video

Images

Ingredients/ Instructions

Ingredients

• 1 can (12-oz) evaporated milk
• 1 can (14-oz) sweetened condensed milk
• 1 cup half and half
• 1 box yellow caked mix
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• shortening to grease pan

Instructions

Step 1

Take some shortening to grease pan.

Step 2

Put 1 box yellow caked mix,
3 eggs,
1 cup water,
1/4 cup vegetable oil,
and 1 tsp vanilla
into a large bowl.
Use a electric mixer to mix them well.

Step 3

Half way through, turn off the mixer.
Use a spatula to shovel the bowl sides to prevent sticking.
Mix that 3-4 time with the spatula.
Then continue to use the electric mixer to mix again until mix well.

Step 4

Pour the cake mixture from the bowl to a baking pan.
Give a little shakes, and taps on the surface.
This brings any air bubble to the top.

Step 5

Preheat oven to 350F. Bake the baking pan in the oven for 25-30 minutes.
After that, remove the pan and let cool for at least 30 minutes.

Step 6

Use a bamboo stick to poke the cake, make about 325 holes.

Step 7

Pour 1 can (12-oz) evaporated milk,
1 can (14-oz) sweetened condensed milk, and
1 cup half and half milk into a bowl. Mix well.

Step 8

Pour the milk mixture all over the cake little by little.
Cover the cake, chill in a refrigerator at least 3 hours, overnight is fine.

Step 9

Add some scream, a little bit sugar and vanilla into a bowl. Mix well.
To serve, Spoon some of the scream mixture on a piece of cake on a plate.

Comments

• John - Fri 05 Feb 2010 @ 15:42

  On a recent gourmet getaway to Aspen, I had the pleasure of tasting a fantastic Tres Leches cake at the Hotel Jerome (pictured below). Chef Christopher Keating, crediting his wife for the recipe, explained it was one of the items that he just couldn’t take off the dessert menu. As I made my way through the moist, milky goodness, I knew why — this was a great cake. I'm sure I'd had it before, but I couldn't recall where or when, so it was like tasting it for the first time. Normally a soggy cake would not be a good thing, but here it's genius. The cake is soaked with a sweet milk syrup made from condensed milk, evaporated milk, and half and half (hence the name, Tres Leches). It's like eating cake and drinking milk, but in the same bite!

• John - Fri 05 Feb 2010 @ 15:42

  I won't pretend this version is better than the Hotel Jerome's made-from-scratch recipe, but since this is my Mom's version, it's at least a tie. She would have normally made this from scratch also, but time was short, and the humidity was high (life-threateningly high), so she used a yellow box cake mix, which worked just fine. Whenever I post an ethnic recipe like this, I like to research the name and history. Here I didn’t bother, since the cakes origins are so obvious once you see how it's made. So, with no facts to back up my story, here is how the Tres Leches cake was born.

• John - Fri 05 Feb 2010 @ 15:42

  Somewhere in either Mexico or Nicaragua, someone made a cake. They were going to serve it with milk, as people tend to do, but something happened which caused the milk to spill on to the cake. Not wanting to waste a good piece of cake, soggy though it may be, the Mexican or Nicaraguan cook served it anyway. People loved it, and eventually a sweet tres leches (three-milk) syrup was developed for soaking the spongy cake. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Whether you make a cake from scratch, or use Pauline's shortcut, give this delicious dessert a try! Enjoy.