My Culinary Trial Room

Hi friends, how was your New year celebrations? Ours was good, we ate, we drank to the new year and then we had a potluck with friends. All together it looks like a pretty good start. But on the weather front, the temperatures have started plunging head first and we had a terrible snow storm two days back. And the temperatures are still dropping. So its been garam garam pakodas and bhajjis with cardamom chai for the past few days.

Coming to this recipe, I made this some time back when we met a friend for dinner. I wanted to try my hands on something new and this tres leches cake has been in my bucket list for a long time. We loved the cake so much that this has been fixed to be part of pappu's birthday party after his approval.

Prep Time: 45 min; Cook Time: 1 Hour; Serves: 12

~*What U Need*~
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Whole eggs - 5
Sugar - 1 cup, divided
Vanilla - 1 tsp
Whole milk - 1/3 cup

Evaporated milk - 1 can
Sweetened condensed milk - 1 can
Whole milk - 1/4 cup

For the frosting
Heavy cream - 1 pint
Sugar - 3 tbsp
Fruit cocktail - 1 can drained
Mandarins - 1 can, drained
Maraschino cherries - 8-10, cut into halves

How I Made it:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan. Separate eggs. Beat egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar on high speed until yolks are pale yellow. Stir in milk and vanilla.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Pour egg yolk mixture over the flour mixture and stir very gently until combined.Beat egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. With the mixer on, pour in remaining 1/4 cup sugar and beat until egg whites are stiff but not dry.

Fold egg white mixture into the batter very gently until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and spread to even out the surface. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Turn cake out onto a rimmed platter and allow to cool.

Combine condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream in a small pitcher.

When cake is cool, pierce the surface with a fork several times. Slowly drizzle all the milk mixture—try to get as much around the edges of the cake as you can. Allow the cake to absorb the milk mixture for 30 minutes.

To ice the cake, whip 1 pint heavy cream with 3 tablespoons of sugar until thick and spreadable. Spread over the surface of the cake. Decorate cake with fruits and cherries. Cut into squares and serve.