Nicaragua - Tres Leches Cake

It translates as 'Three milks cake' because it has regular milk, evaporated and condensed milk in the recipe. Apparently Nicaragua and Mexico both claim to have invented this cake and me posting it as Nicaragua's entry doesn't mean I'm taking sides, honest!




Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
5 egg yolks
5 egg whites
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1  can evaporated milk
1 large pot of double cream


 Preparation, preparation, preparation! Butter and flour a cake tin.


Separate the eggs. I've seen people do this lots of different ways and seen gadgets to make it easier. I just juggle the egg yolk from half eggshell to half eggshell and let the white drop into a bowl underneath. I assumed everyone did it this way until recently. Each to their own though :)


Put the egg yolks in a bowl with the sugar. Beat together until paler and doubled in volume.


Add the vanilla, flour, baking powder and milk. Stir well to make a smooth batter.


Whisk the egg whites in a different bowl until they form soft peaks. I love this rotary whisk, such less hassle than anything electric. 


Gently fold the egg whites into the cake batter.


 Pour into the waiting cake tin and bake at 200C for 45 minutes. My cake looked weird and wrinkled on the top so I turned it over for the picture :D


 Mix together the condensed milk, evaporated milk and 1/4 cup of the cream. Use something pointy to poke holes in the cake all over and then pour the milk/cream mix all over the cake.


It'll all soak into the cake and then near the end of the mixture it'll just sit on the top. That's when you know it's soaked to capacity!


Whip the rest of the cream and spread on top of the cake. Chill until you're ready to eat it.



This cake was surprisingly delicious. I didn't expect much flavour wise because there's no strong flavours in the recipe but it was creamily soft and smooth to eat with a delicate sweet flavour. The cake was incredibly moist and dense inside but sort of chewy around the edges. Everyone loved it and ate 2 slices, even Erin who's usually not that keen on desserts.

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