Tres Leches Cake

While I was making the cake that fed the world, I also was experimenting with a Mexican tres leches cake because who can resist making a cake that soaked in, among other things, the glory that is sweetened condensed milk and cream? I am a huge fan of both sweetened condensed milk and cream (sorry hips).

So despite the fact my kitchen was littered with red velvet cake at various stages of readiness, I couldn't resist making this cake too.

This cake is a lighter-than-air sponge that is cooked, cooled and then poured over with a mix of the aforesaid sweetened condensed milk, heavy cream and evaporated milk. THEN it's topped with whipped cream. Heaven.

It's so easy too, thanks to this foolproof recipe from The Pioneer Woman. Everything happened exactly as it was supposed to, with my only hiccup being my lack of a rimmed platter. I had to use a baking tray.

before soaking

after soaking

I adored this cake. The brilliant thing about a tres leches cake is that despite being soaked in the three milks, the lightness of the sponge stops it from getting soggy. It ends up with this divine almost juicy texture (in a good way). The flavours come together like you wouldn't believe, it doesn't taste anything like I would have expected. I simply can't describe how wonderful this cake is. I did take some of the cake to work along with the red velvet cake, but the moment I realised that everyone seemed to prefer the other cake I greedily hoarded the rest of the cake at home and enjoyed sneaky slices for as long as I could.

I was a little concerned about how long I could keep it in the fridge because of the cream and milks, but the cake held up quite well to about a week in a sealed container. That being said, don't take my word for it as I was quite happy to risk a stomach ache after because it meant I could eat the cake first, so please be cautious.

I would have to say that this cake is one of the best cakes I have ever made and one of the most enjoyable to eat. Fantastic!

I used this recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks if you would like to try it yourself.

Thanks to a huge backlog of posts, the posting of this recipe has been a little delayed. It was originally made in September 2009.