Tres Leches Cake

This is a simple sponge cake that’s soaked in a three milk mixture and topped with whipped cream. We sprinkled some pistachios and pomegranate seeds on top of ours, but feel free to use whatever fruit you want.

If you can’t find evaporated milk, just use an equal amount of whole milk. You can also go easy on yourself and use a whipped cream can instead of whipping the cream yourself.

Ingredients for the cake:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 ½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1/3 cup full cream milk
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup oil
• 1 tsp. vanilla essence

Ingredients for the three milk mixture:

• 1 cup full cream milk
• ½ cup condensed milk
• ½ cup evaporated milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla essence

Ingredients for whipped cream topping:

• 1 cup whipping cream
• ½ tbsp. sugar

Instructions:

1. Rub around a teaspoon of oil on the bottom and sides of a 7 inch diameter cake tin. You can just use your fingers for this. Then dust the tin with around a tablespoon of plain flour. You can place the flour in the middle of the tin and just gently tap while turning the tin this way and that to have it distributed evenly at the bottom. To dust the sides, hold the tin vertically, place the flour on the side, and then just turn it like a wheel while tapping. Also, if you line the pan with foil before doing all this, it could help with getting the cake out of the pan after the milk soak.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set it aside.
3. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
4. Beat together the eggs, sugar and oil until you get a creamy texture. For this you can use a stand mixer, hand held electric mixer, or even your juice blender. If you are using your juice blender, running it for around 2 minutes on low would do. You can also beat it by hand using a fork. If using a fork you’ll have to go at it for around 10 minutes.
5. If you used the blender, transfer the egg mixture to a bowl. If not, you can just go on to the step below.
6. Add around 4 tablespoons of the flour mixture to the egg mixture and mix until the flour is fully incorporated. You can use a spoon for the mixing and do it gently being careful not to over mix.
7. Then add in around 2 tablespoons of milk and mix until combined, once again being careful not to over mix.
8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 until you run out of flour and milk.
9. Gently pour the mixture into the cake tin that you prepared before.
10. Place the tin on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. For us this took 30 minutes. But oven temperatures differ, so keep an eye on it, especially towards the end and make the necessary adjustments.
11. When the cake is baked, let it cool down completely in the pan.
12. While the cake is cooling down prepare the milk mixture by mixing together all the ingredients under three milk mixture. You can have a taste and adjust too.
13. When the cake has completely cooled down to room temperature, use a fork to make holes on top of the cake. Have the holes go halfway deep and quite close together. We did it in zigzag rows, leaving around ½ cm in between.
14. Pour the milk mixture over the cake. We used a tablespoon for this, pouring a little and then letting it sink in before repeating.
15. Cover the cake and keep it in the fridge for at least an hour so that the cake can absorb all that milk. You can keep it for longer too.
16. Prepare the topping by whipping together the whipping cream and sugar. (To whip, you just have to add the whipping cream and sugar to a mixing bowl and use your hand mixer or stand mixer to mix on high speed until you get medium peaks. At the medium peak stage, when you lift the whisks out of the bowl the mixture that’s sticking to them would look like peaks and they’d be holding their shape fairly well. The mixture should also look fluffy and a bit glossy. For us it took around 2 minutes. Do be careful to not over whip. If you do, the mixture is going to get grainy and curdled. If this happens, add some more cream and gently beat it into the curdled mixture.)
17. Finally, spread the whipping cream on top of the cake. We removed the cake from the pan and transferred it to a large plate before putting the whipped cream on top. If you are going to do this, you’ll probably need some help and you’ll have to be really gentle about it because the cake at this point would be ultra-moist. If you are working alone, it might be easier to just serve it in the pan.
18. Serve the cake cold, and store it in the fridge.