All this rain has been making it near impossible to get anything done outside, but do you know who’s been eating to compensate for that?
In case you didn’t know, this past Thursday was my birthday. Twenty-nine years I’ve been funneling sugar and potatoes into my mouth like someone is going to take them from me.
We celebrated with a little potluck barbecue, where John grilled up a Boston butt and some corn on the cob. My friend Aaron brought this wonderful potato salad with boiled eggs among the inclusions. For my birthday cake, I tasked my best friend Kendall with a tres leches cake.
For those uninitiated folks, a tres leches cake is a Latin American staple, taking its name from the three kinds of dairy used in the finished cake. What is unique about this cake is that it’s a refrigerated dessert, served cold, and almost like a trifle in its creamy texture. The three kinds of milk, or leches, used are typically sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream.
The first two milks, both canned, are combined and poured over a cooled vanilla sheet cake to soak in the fridge. The heavy whipping cream is then used to make a whipped topping that is spread over the cake. There’s also milk in the cake batter itself, which I suppose makes it a cuatro leches already.
In fact, Kendall went around during the party clarifying that it should be a cuatro leches, since it included coconut milk in the soak. So, should it actually be a cinco leches cake? Ay, ay, ay, so much leches!
After everyone sang “Happy Birthday” and I blew out my birthday candles (in a candelabra), we dug into this rich, slightly boozy cake that was like eating ice cream.
You see, growing up I always looked forward to the dog days of summer. Not only because school was out, but there would inevitably be a mandarin orange cake in the fridge.
Later, I would come to find out that some people know this as an ambrosia cake. It’s a yellow cake mix, moistened with a whole can of mandarin oranges, baked, soaked in crushed pineapple juice, and topped with Cool Whip. Optionally, there can be some coconut and/or coconut milk, also canned, in the soak.
What results is something you can convince yourself is good for you, due to all the fruit. The real selling point of this cake, though, is the fact that it’s served right from the fridge, ice cold.
In the middle of July, you’d think a cake is the last thing you’d want on your dessert plate, but these cakes are different. I hesitate to call them icebox cakes, since a true icebox cake (to me) is not really a cake at all.
Icebox cakes are usually made of cookies that are layered with jams, puddings, whipped creams, or frostings to then sit in the fridge and soften overnight. What results is a no-bake, cold dessert that presents as a cake, without all the fuss of baking one. These soaked cakes, on the other hand, do rely on having a baked cake as the base.
The added bonus of these kinds of recipes is they typically make a generous amount—enough for a potluck and probably some leftovers. I mean, I would hope there wouldn’t be leftovers, but nevertheless they persist.
Also, you don’t have the stress of a layer cake, like where you have to balance a three-layer Lane Cake from your house to the church. Sheet cakes have become the go-to large celebration confection, both for their ease of assembly and the amount of servings it yields.
Although I have my eye on a more traditional tres leches by one of my favorite PBS chefs, Pati Jinich; I thought I might share with you the cake that (as of Monday), I’m still enjoying the last slices of. It’s just so hard to see it go, but it tastes so good as it’s going away.
Here, then, is a Puerto Rican take on a tres leches cake…or cuatro leches, (cinco? Whatever!):
Tres Leches Cake
The Cake
- 1 Tablespoon butter for greasing the pan
- 5 large eggs, yolks and whites separated
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/3 cup milk
- 2 teaspoons Kahlua
- 1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
- 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 (13.5 ounce) can coconut milk
- 2 Tablespoons Puerto Rican rum (anejo)
Topping
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream
- 4 Tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Ground cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg, for garnish
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9×13-inch baking dish.
In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gradually beat in the sugar, followed by the egg yolks, adding the yolks one at a time. Sift together flour and baking powder, then fold into the wet ingredients. Mix in milk and Kahlua. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish.
Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Let cool for at least 15 minutes on a wire rack. Once cooled, use a toothpick or skewer to puncture holes into the cake at 1-inch intervals.
In another large bowl, whisk together the canned milks and rum until well-combined. Carefully pour into the cooled cake. Cover cake pan with foil and refrigerate at least two hours, preferably overnight.
In yet another large bowl, beat the heavy cream, confectioner’s sugar, and vanilla until stiff peaks form. Spread the whipped cream on top of the cooled cake and return to the fridge to chill before serving.
Once ready to serve, garnish the whipped cream with a dusting of cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg.
You could slice and serve this, but I find it easy to just get a serving spoon and scoop some out. That way, after the first slice, you can line each plate with a little bit of the leches soak, which is the kicker here.
After I passed out a slice to everyone, I promptly ate my first slice and went for a second one. Thank goodness, I love high fiber cereal, because my diet has been all out of whack this week.
We must’ve had barbecue pork and corn on the cob all weekend, but I’ll never complain about having plenty of that in the fridge. Especially the barbecue, if you can imagine.
If you’re at all interested in knowing more about this ambrosia cake, fret not! I’ll probably be making one before too long now that the heat is back on.
A little side note, aren’t you rejoicing over this rain. I keep telling everyone how it feels like what Alabama summers used to be like: a flood constantly on the horizon.
My family’s place was in the lowlands, right off a creek bank and I always thought we’d end up underwater if the rain held up like it did. The creek would rise to be level with my great grandparent’s front yard.
There was a stand of pine trees that would turn into a miniature swimming pool for the dogs and every pothole turned into a water cooler for every animal. Especially the mosquitos.
We usually ate better when the weather was so formidable, because there was nothing else to do but think of something comforting to eat while you’re stuck inside most of the day. That is the perfect time for a mandarin orange cake or, in this case, a tres leches cake to make an appearance on your table—or in your fridge, rather.
Call it synchronicity that a cake such as this came to me on my birthday, because it made me rather sentimental—even though I’d never had this particular tres leches before.
Earlier, before the birthday festivities started, I experienced another little bit of synchronicity. I finally planted a garden full of vegetables, right as the rain was about to set in.
So, all my tomatoes and peppers and squash have been getting plenty to drink over the Memorial Day weekend—just like I had plenty to drink on my birthday.
