Tres leches

Today, I made not one, but two tres leches cakes.

The first one, unfortunately, I forgot to add the egg whites. I was supposed to beat five egg whites to soft peaks, then add one third cup of sugar, mixing thoroughly, adding to the flour mixture. I baked the aforementioned mixture, (without required egg whites) which rose about an inch, and even poured the sweet milk mixture over it, thinking it was all that. Yuck.

Then, I reread the recipe, and discovered that I was supposed to beat the egg whites to soft peak, add the sugar, then fold them into the flour mixture. Really??

I squeezed all of the sweet milk out of the first cake, (the tres leches) into a bowl, re-made the blasted cake, the right way, and poured all of the sweet milk over the corrected cake.

It is cooling in the fridge overnight, to be covered with a whipped cream topping, sprinkled with powdered cinnamon, and served with fresh sliced strawberries; tomorrow.

Let me just show you a bit of the work I went through. (Really; read the recipe totally before you start.)

This recipe required that we have sweetened condensed milk available; nope. We have evaporated milk, but not SCM. So, I made my own. Labor intensive? Yes. Satisfactory for use? Yes. Would I do it again? Absolutely.

It does not look like much, but it is thick, and very sweet; like the canned version.
The first attempt. So sad.

This is what the first cake looked like, without the egg yolks folded in, but, soon, the tres leches were poured over it.

After I drowned the cake with the sweet milks, and reread the recipe, (it just did not look right), I let the above cake rest, then, squeezed all of the milk from it, reserving the milk mixture, until I could figure out how to use it for the second attempt. (Really, I did not want to think about making another batch of SCM.)

So, four, or five hours later, I finally, made the cake, with egg whites, and it came out exactly as I thought it should. I poured the “reserved” milk mixture over it, covered it with plastic wrap, and placed it in the refrigerator, overnight, to be covered, tomorrow, with whipped cream, and powdered cinnamon.

The second, and better attempt. It is actually about 3” thick. Amazing.

While we wait to see what it turns out to be, here is what my bread looked like.

I gave this one away, but made another one that was just like this for us. It is delicious, soft, smells amazing, and toasts like you want. I cannot wait to grill a sandwich; well, I have to wait for some more tomatoes before I can grill a sandwich.

While we wait for tomatoes, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.