How to Make Tres Leches Cake

Hey , I'm John Cannell .

And today on preppy kitchen , we're making an amazing cake .

So let's get started .

First off , set that oven to 3 50 F grab a nine by 13 inch baking pan and we're gonna butter it really quickly .

You could also use baking spray if that sparks joy for you .

This cake is not really gonna get unmounted .

It's gonna stay in the pans so you don't have to worry too much .

That's all done .

Now , we're gonna add two cups or 240 g of all purpose flour into a bowl measuring this out with a scale for best results .

I am so excited for this cake because it is one of my all time favorites .

Half a teaspoon of salt .

You go and three quarters of a teaspoon of baking powder .

We're gonna whisk this up .

Our scale is done .

And now here's the deal .

We have five eggs .

We're gonna separate them and whip both of them .

Grab a medium bowl and a large bowl , separate those eggs out .

This cake is a little special .

It's because one , it's soaked with delicious sweetened condensed milk , evaporated milk and cream .

But two um it doesn't have butter in it .

It's like a sponge cake .

So that lets you soak the cake .

Have a big airy structure inside and uh it's not gonna fall apart and it does some really nice things .

You want a cake that can absorb all those delicious milks .

Whites go into the large bowl and the yolks go into theme bowl .

Try not to get yolk in the egg whites .

If you're nervous about that and being a bit cavalier , you can uh separate them one at a time into a bowl and dump them out in a conveyor belt and five eggs .

So like I said , is one of my favorite cakes .

You can .

Pardon my pronunciation .

But my mom is from Mexico and a lot of our relatives would have them at parties .

I love creamy , like just amazing dreamy desserts that aren't too sweet that are like just clouds of deliciousness and a re cake really fits the bill .

OK ?

The one more thing that I need one and a quarter cups of sugar and I'm putting this into a bowl just because of the way I'll be adding it in .

Grab a mixer .

You could also use a stand mixer for this .

I'm gonna beat these egg whites on high until they're foamy and doubled in size .

It should take about a minute .

Once your egg whites are nice and foamy , we're gonna add in one quarter cup of sugar , but add it in slowly , don't add it in all at once .

Sprinkle it in slow .

This gives you the best stiffest peaks because it gives the sugar a chance to dissolve in the egg whites and really just give you that volume you want .

We're gonna mix this on high until you have stiff peaks will be about three minutes .

So right now , you can see how much volume these egg whites are taking on .

They're gonna have large pockets of air inside of that cake and in those pockets will rest sweetened , condensed milk , evaporated milk and cream for an amazing combination and look at these peaks , they're stiff .

See it stands up straight .

That's nice .

This set aside for just a moment .

I'm adding the remaining cup of sugar to my egg yolks and I'm gonna mix this up until it's pale fluffy and like it'll be thickened and gooey .

Once you have that beautiful , like thick lemony mixture , lemony in color , not taste .

We're gonna add in half a cup or 100 and 20 M L of milk as well as two teaspoons of a nice vanilla .

I was really curious about how this cake was invented and where and when and it is quite the conundrum .

A lot of disagreements , but like probably Nicaragua .

There's a lot of soaked cakes in the world though .

We're gonna pour our yolk mixture into the dry mixture .

This gets mixed until it is just combined .

You definitely don't wanna overmix it fold that flour mixture into the yolk .

It'll get a little bit thick , but we're gonna fix that with the egg whites .

I think it's in Armenia .

There's a version of this cake that uses like three different types of milk .

I think , cow milk , goat milk .

And um , there's one other , since we have the goats on the farm , we get to enjoy goat milk sometimes when they're in milk with their kids .

Goat milk is so good .

Oh my gosh , it's really good .

So now we're gonna grab our stiff yolk mixture .

Looks so beautiful .

It's almost a shame to disturb it .

And in two batches , we're gonna fold this in instead of using butter , we really used our eggs , the whites got fluffed up to the heavens so that we can have a mixture that really rises up and the yolks which have some delicious fats and they're rich and flavorful .

Uh got whisked in with the egg whites .

Second batch of whites , keep folding and now we're gonna be even more careful .

So I'm swirling down the bottom and cutting through the middle folding in the egg whites .

This is ready to go into our pans .

Cake is so easy and delicious .

Pour that right in and we're gonna level it off , use that spatula just to level the cake off .

It's fairly thin and it bakes pretty quickly .

And when that happens , you just wanna have things as level as possible going into the oven my cake is ready to go into the oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean .

While our cake bakes , we're gonna make our amazing concoction of the .

So that starts off with 1 12 ounce can of evaporated milk , which is lovely for cooking with as well and making sauces two thirds of a cup of whole milk and you go and finally 1 14 ounce can of my very most favorite thing in the world , sweetened condensed milk .

If you add sweetened condensed milk to your coffee in the morning , it is like starting off the day with such a jolt of the most delicious sugar in the world .

If you were just drinking this straight or pouring it on your cake , it would be too sweet .

So the nice thing is these other milks really add like a nice bit of richness , but also they water it down .

And some people think that adding the milk to your cake was a way of preserving like a stale cake .

But now we have delicious fresh cake .

This is gonna go into and get so beautifully soaked with .

We just want to whisk this together .

So the sweetened condensed milk really like swirls into everything else .

I don't wanna see any of this nonsense .

I wanna see a uniform mixture .

This is also by the way , a great cake for transporting because you serve it in the pan .

So there's no worry about it .

Like getting messed up in the car .

You just bring the pan with you and uh you're good to go .

Ok , see this no swirls left that is ready to go .

We're gonna set this aside and then have that ready for the cake .

My cake's out of the oven .

The milks are ready and you just wanna wait until the cake is warm but not hot .

If it's hot , bad things will happen .

The cake will be just mush up , get a spoon , get a fork and we're gonna poke it all over because we want to create a lot of holes in this cake .

And you can see the cake has shrunk and gone down a bit .

That's totally fine and expected .

So don't worry about that once you're done poking your cake so it can absorb all of those milks and just be amazing .

We're gonna pour that just over the top .

My cake is bathing in those delicious milks , just cover it up and we're gonna pop this into the fridge so we can chill for an hour before we add our amazing frosting on .

And by the way , you can preorder my book right now .

There is a link in the description box below towards the end of your chill time .

We're gonna make a delicious whipped cream topping .

So you want two cups of heavy cream , make sure it's cold .

And if you want your whipped cream to turn out the best cold bowl , cold whisk .

You can just keep them in the freezer , two tablespoons of powdered sugar and really it's up to you .

Do you want things a little sweeter extra tablespoon ?

Do you want it totally unsweetened ?

That's fine too .

They both work and I'm not using any vanilla in this recipe a little bit more traditional .

But if you want to add some vanilla , go for it , start off low .

work your way up and then you wanna have stiffer soft peaks not curdled because this will turn into butter whipped cream is so easy , but you just have to stay here and watch it and I never whip it all the way with the machine .

I always finish it off by hand because right now like come and take a look .

This is too soft .

This is like nice for putting onto berries but not for putting onto a cake .

So I'm just gonna finish this off by hand right here .

I have a strong whipped cream .

You can see it's holding a peek in the in the container bowl .

I like to do this because if you're using a mixer , a lot of times the very bottom is under mixed , the top is gonna be over mixed .

So just scrape the bottom as you finish it off by hand .

Now we can assemble our cake .

Look at that .

Our cake absorbed all of those milks and now it's soaked and delicious .

I just have to get that whipped cream , pop it on top .

Seeing this makes me so happy whipped cream is one of my favorite things to eat .

As you know , if you watch this channel , just level that out .

We want a big thick delicious layer of whipped cream .

Yes .

Look at these swoopy delicious moments .

Slice some strawberries up , place those on the top for a beautiful fan and your cake is ready to enjoy .

That is a heavenly combination of milks .

It is so perfectly sweet , so moist .

It's like a beautiful cloud .

I hope you get a chance to make this recipe .

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