- Hey, I'm John Kanell and today on Preppy Kitchen,
we're making an amazing tres leches cake,
so let's get started!
First off, set that oven to 350 Fahrenheit,
grab a 9 x 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 pan, so you don't have too much.
That's all done.
Now we're gonna add two cups, or 240 grams,
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.
1/2 teaspoon of salt, there you go,
and 3/4 teaspoon of baking powder.
We're gonna whisk this up.
Our scale is done.
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
and it's because, one, it's soaked
with delicious sweetened condensed milk,
evaporated milk, and cream,
but, two, 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 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 the medium bowl.
Try not to get yolk in the egg whites.
If you're nervous about that, I'm being a bit cavalier,
you can separate them one at a time into a bowl
and dump the out in a conveyor belt.
And five eggs.
So like I said,
tres leches 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 the parties.
I love creamy, just amazing dreamy desserts
that aren't too sweet
that are like just, ah, clouds of deliciousness,
and a tres leches cake really fits the bill.
Okay, the one more thing that I need, 1 1/4 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 1/4 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
'cause 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.
It'll 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 gets set aside for just a moment.
I'm adding the remaining cup of sugar to my egg yolks
and I wanna mix this up until it's pale, fluffy,
and it'll be thickened and gooey.
Once you have that beautiful thick, lemony mixture,
lemony in color, not taste,
we're gonna add in 1/2 cup, or 120 mLs, of milk,
as well as two teaspoons of a nice vanilla.
I was really curious about how this cake was invented,
where, and when, and it is quite the conundrum.
A lot of disagreements, but it's 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 over-mix 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 three different types of milk.
I think cow milk, goat milk, and 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,
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 pan.
This 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 tres leches.
So that starts off with one 12-ounce can of evaporated milk,
which is lovely for cooking with as well and making sauces,
2/3 of a cup of whole milk, in you go,
and finally one 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, ah,
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
a nice bit of richness, but also they water it down.
And some people think that adding the milks to your cake
was a way of preserving a stale cake,
but now we have delicious fresh cake this is gonna go into
and get so beautifully soaked with.
We just wanna whisk this together
so the sweetened condensed milk really 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 getting messed up in the car.
You just bring the pan with you and you're good to go.
Okay, 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 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 it can chill for an hour
before we add our amazing frosting on.
And, by the way, you can pre-order 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 we 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 wanna add some vanilla, go for it.
Start off low, work your way up,
and then you want to have stiffer soft peaks.
Not curdled, 'cause 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, come and take a look, this is too soft.
This is nice for putting onto berries,
but not for putting onto a cake.
So I'm just gonna to finish this off by hand.
Right here, I have a strong whipped cream.
You can see is holding a peak 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.
We just have to get that whipped cream, plop 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
and if you like this video, check out my Kik playlist.