Here’s the thing about love…. allow me to speak as an authority on the subject for a moment.
The thing about love is this: you have to fall into it with everything. Arms flailing, smiling like a maniac, giddy beyond belief, with all of who you are. You have to go big. You have to leave nothing behind. You have to risk it all. That’s the only way it has a chance of working… right?
And even then… sometimes it doesn’t work. And you fall flat on your face. And it sucks. And there’s no way that it won’t suck… so you just have to sit with the suck for a while. And then sit with it some more…. and a little more still.
And then I suppose you separate yourself from all the suck and try again… later. Waaaaaay later. Cause your face is sore from where you totally fell on it.
That’s how it works, right?
This helps… but isn’t always foolproof.
Know what also helps? Cake. Cake with milk. So there. Put that little gem in your brainhole.
I wanted to give you a closer look at this cake. It really is special.
The cake base is a dense yellow cake flavored with just a hint of almond extract. The cake batter has a lot of eggs in it. So many eggs you might feel a little uneasy. Not to worry. Everything will work out.
I think the secret to this cake is pre-slicing the cake just before soaking it in milk. I soak my cake slices for about 4 to five hours. I’m not an overnight soaker. I don’t like super soggy cake.
I love the coconut milk in this recipe. Coconut milk and cinnamon and a hint of cardamom. It’s rich… but still delightfully light… and just otherwise lovely.
Tres Leches Cake
makes 18 cubes of cake
adapted from Alton Brown
For the Cake:
1 1/2 cups plus 1 Tablespoon of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup plus 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
5 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
For the Glaze:
1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cup half and half
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 cinnamon stick
1 cardamom pod
3 Tablespoons aged rum
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil and flour a 13 by 9-inch metal pan and set aside.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium mixing bowl and set aside.
Place the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, beat on medium speed until fluffy, approximately 1 minute. Decrease the speed to low and with the mixer still running, gradually add the sugar over 1 minute. Stop to scrape down the sides of the bowl, if necessary. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and mix to thoroughly combine. It’s a lot of eggs and the mixture will appear soupy. Add the vanilla and almond extract and mix to combine. Add the flour mixture to the batter in 3 batches and mix just until combined. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and spread evenly. This will appear to be a very small amount of batter. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the cake is lightly golden and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove the cake pan to a cooling rack and allow to cool for 30 minutes. Slice the edges off the entire cake and portion into 18 cubes of cake. Poke the top of each slice with a skewer or fork. Allow the cake to cool completely and then prepare the glaze.
Whisk together the evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, half and half, coconut milk, cinnamon and cardamom in a saucepan over medium heat. Allow to just warm, cover and place in the fridge for 2 hours. Stir in the rum. Arrange the tres leches cake in a dish with 1-inch sides. Pour the milks over the cake slowly. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Most people like to leave the cakes to soak overnight…. but I don’t like overly soggy cake and find that four hours is juuuust fine.
Serve with slightly sweetened whipped cream.
{ 125 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh Joy, those look like little squares of heaven. I bet they’re great with the coconut milk! I gotta try this as soon as exams are over…
My face is totally sore. Maybe this cake will help!
Interesting cake, I’ll definitely try it!
This looks amazing and delicious. :)
oh, can I have one? :)
Oh, Joy. You have such a delightful and humorous way of describing some of the most complicated (and sometimes) painful things about life. We all adore you for it. Also, I’m kind of a Tres Leches fanatic, so I adore you for that, too ;) I’m off to buy some condensed milk!
This looks wonderful! I’ve tried tres leches cake from the Pioneer Woman’s recipe. I’ll definitely give yours a try!
I adore tres leches cake! I first made it from the Pioneer Womans recipe and we have been in love with it ever since!
Oh Joy, these look lovely.
I always, always make mine with coconut milk but never thought to add cardamom.
Tres leches is my absolute favorite cake!! So much that it wa my wedding cake! Or part of it :)
hmm, yum yum yum! what a coincidence!
i had never heard about this cake until my lovely flatmate from the dominican republic told me about it and i knew i was gonna like it!
apparently she told a chef at school about it you immediately asked her to make one the very same night. which she did. a whole big double batch for the chefs at school and another one for me! ;D
because students wanted some too she had to make another one the next day and surprisingly they came out quite differently. her recipe is a good bit different to yours anyway as it includes dulce de leche instead of coconut but which she wasnt able to get and substituted with guava jam…
i preferred the first batch that was swimming in the delightful liquid and was really soggy to the second drier and desnser one that tasted a whole lot more of rum. i know you like your rum… but personally i believe itd be even better with the dulce de leche! dulce de leche makes everything better! ;P
hers also had meringue on top which i scraped off because i felt it added unneccessary sweetness. now i wanna try your recipe or make an adaptation of the both of them…oh boy, delicious or what?!
Excited to try this with coconut milk – though I must confess, I am definitely an overnight soaker. I love this cake soggy.
I’ve never tried Tres Leche Cake but I love any sweet with cardamom so giving this a try.
This cake looks amazing! I know I’ve fallen on my face for a boy..and when it’s over, cake helps.
Mmmmm… the first time I saw this cake was at the Pioneer Woman’s site… She didn’t use coconut milk though, and it sounds PERFECT for this cake!
I love that first part you wrote. You’re amazingly eloquent and funny, even about the sometimes most heartbreaking subjects. I hope the cake made you feel much better! ;)
Wei-Wei
I’ve never even had this magical cake! Now I know what to make next.
sweet and delicious cake so it seems… and even sweeter and wise way of dealing with ‘face-falling’… hopefully the cake will make you smile for a little while!
I’ve never had tres leches with coconut milk–what a great idea! But I can hear my favorite puerto rican protesting that this cake NEEDS a meringue topping (perhaps browned) and some cherries. Must have cherries!
Oh, poo! This absolutely fascinating and delicious looking cake is a no-no for me. I’m allergic to coconut (but I love the taste of it)! SIGH!
try replacing the coconut milk with almond milk! Win!
tres leches = tres yummy!
I have been wanting to make one of these for a while now…great tip about slicing before soaking!
you’re the best :)
Soggy baked goods make me cry, but a shorter soaking time and cardamom (!) and cinnamon (!) make my heart sing. Yum!
Ooh – coconut milk sounds delicious!
I’m allergic to coconut (I know, right?!), so is there something else I can substitute it with? I’m not sure if condensed milk is the way to go, since the textures and sweetness are not totally comparable. Please help, because seriously, this looks like heaven and I’d love to go to town on a slice with the hubby. Thanks!
If coconut doesn’t work for you replace it with perhaps almond milk? That would also be super yummy!
Thanks bunches – can’t wait to give it a try!! :)
My friend had a tres leche cake. She’s from Mexico and it was very important to her. In fact, so important that her brother spent $5,000 on her tres leche! And every single crumb was gone….eaten…devoured. It was sooooo good.
So if it has milk, flour and eggs, does it qualify as breakfast food? I mean cereal has lotsa sugar, so why not!?
This is *definitely* a breakfast food. :)
Falling on your face sucks, I’m sorry…But amazing cake, can’t wait to try.
Ok, this has got to be my favorite cake, hands down. But I just blogged yesterday about pineapple upside down cake being my favorite. Ooops.
Hi, Joy. Say I needed to make the cake more than 4 hours in advance, but I also didn’t want it soggy. Could I soak the squares for 4 hours and then take them out of the liquid and serve them a day later? Or does this cake really need to be served the day it’s made?
I made this cake the day before i served it. I just double wrapped the entire unsliced cake in plastic wrap and left it at room temperature. The day I was to serve it. I sliced the cubes, poured over the milk covered the dish and left them to soak for 4 or 5 hours. Hope that helps!
Awesome. Now to take this recipe and try and make the version they sell at the Kogi truck (with chocolate and yummy crunchiness on top). Mmmm, Kogi. Only in LA :)
Thank the goddesses for coconut milk. It heals all wounds.
cake sounds lovely, especially with the cardamom. i’ve never made tres leche cake, but since i have condensed milk sitting in the fridge it might be worth a shot!!
Tres Leches is my favorite!! i wil have to try this recipe. i only got brave enough to try my own a few months ago!
special doesn’t begin to cover tres leches. tres fantastic. tres amazing? tres stupendous! too difficult to have as a second wedding dessert? hmmmm…
cheers,
*heather*
I am absolutely flailing my arms for this cake!!!
Duh! I make this frequently but never thought to cut the pieces of the cake first and then douse them in the milk triple threat. I have never liked it that the sides don’t get as milk filled as the center. Now I know why. Thanks!!!
I wish I had known about this cake years ago… my face was pretty much perpetually sore for, oh, I don’t know, all of college. I had to use ice cream – it worked, sort of. But this looks way better. And you know what? even when you think all that falling and flailing has calmed down, sometimes you still get sore. I shall call this ‘my-husband-is-being-an-idiot cake’ and not let him have even a tiny sliver until he apologizes!
Mm! This looks delicious!
xxMK
Oh boy, I’m a ‘throw it all in, go big or go home’ falling in love kinda gal, and i’ve broken my face many times too. but it only has to work once, and when you’re both free-falling crazily something magical happens in the universe and there’s soft fluffy pillows waiting for you. or something like that.
This cake makes me wish I wasn’t lactose intolerant.
Looks delicious. Thanks for finding a yummy way to subsitute cake flour with all purpose flour!
Do you ever frost the cake or does that do it an injustice?
i frosted this cake with barely sweetened whipped cream. i think the traditional frosting is a meringue.
I hope you haven’t ‘fallen on your face.’ If you did, the faller is missing something special from the fallee.
P.S. Drooling over the keyboard at the cake.
I put sugar and butter on top of my pancake and drown it with evaporated milk..try it too..
that sounds…. AMAZING!
Nom nom nom I’m drooling!!
Oh, Joy. A broken face and only a soggy cake to rest your head on. Life is mysterious. And wonderful. And sometimes filled too many lessons we don’t want to learn. Ones that hurt. Here is what I will tell you about love, it is the only thing I know for certain about it: What your mind wants and what your soul needs are rarely the same thing; but the man that touches your soul—that deep, true you that even you avoid looking at sometimes—will be a true partner. For life. I can’t tell you how to find him. I can only tell you that he more than likely won’t look how you expect, have the education you imagined, or any of the myriad things you have listed on the “husband material” job application. But he will do his job better than the ones with gleaming resumes.
whoa. preach it Yolanda. for serious.
amen. thank you for that yolanda.
mmmm…..milk soaked cake…… (that should sound like homer). can’t wait to make this.
Also loved “put that in your brainhole”. So quoting that!
Yum! I’ve never had it with coconut milk. That just sounds heavenly!
I’ve always wanted to try tres leches, but I have a mild lactose intolerance. Milk in baked goods is okay, and in ice cream (lucky coincidence! I know) and yogurt, but straight up milk is not so good. I wonder if I could substitute something for the condensed and evaporated milks? Otherwise, I’ll just make it for other people – it looks beautiful!
Holy yum. Would you suggest putting fresh sugared berries or something on the top or just AS IS?
This would be perfect for Cinco de Mayo! Although, I think I’d sub almond milk for coconut as you suggested to some. Not allergic, but I am not a coconut lover (*hides*). Unless it doesn’t taste very coconutty? I love curries with coconut milk, but don’t taste the flavor of it in those.
You literally read my mind, this is scary. I went on your site to see if you had a tres leche cake and of course you just posted one. Like I said, reading my mind!
by far one of the best cakes i’ve ever had!
I don’t know, sometimes I think you have to know the difference between love an lust and that’s hard to do sometimes. When you are in love, I’d agree you have to be there completely.
I couldn’t make these cakes the day before because I have people who can’t eat baked goods after 24 hours. Anything baked has to be consumed right after making it. What isn’t eaten goes in the trash unfortunately. These sound good though.
i quite honestly don’t think the poor girl has been going out w someone for months just out of lust…
i’ve made this cake once and you can make it the same day… just bake early morning and soak it for a couple hours.
yea! totally right. this cake can be made in the morning then soaked for a few hours and served. go for it.
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