Celebrating with a Tres Leches cake!

There are several reasons that I am excited about this post.  Reason 1:  this is my first attempt at baking birthday cake, and one of my family member’s favorite cake. Yay!  Reason 2: a friend requested this cake for his birthday. Reason 3: just in time to bake another one to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.  Tres Leches Cake is a sponge cake soaked in three kinds of milk and top with whipped cream.  It is popular in Latin countries, and it is served during  holidays.   This cake is best if made a day ahead to allow it time to soak in the rich milk flavors over night in the fridge.  I made the mistake of making it the same day we consumed it.  The left over slices were so much richer, moist and flavorful after two days in the fridge ( let’s just say this cake ages well.  :) ) This is a Rose Levy Beranbaum cake, and I found this recipe via LeahRodrigues’s post.  As the name says - three milk cake, the recipe calls for 4 kind of milk, but I used only 3 because I didn’t have non-fat milk on hand.  I don’t think it  matters if it is three or four kinds of milk in the ingredients, the cake will still be creamy and flavorful with a sweet aroma.

Ingredients:

For the cake

• 6 large eggs, at room temperature
• 225 grams (1 cup)  granulated sugar
• 5 milliliters (1 teaspoon)  vanilla extract
• .71 gram (1/8 teaspoon) salt
• 218 grams 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, shift before measuring

For the Leches

• 1,183 milliliters (5 cups)   whole milk
• 236 milliliters (1 cup) heavy cream
• 1 can of sweetened condensed milk
• 22.5 grams (1 1/2 tablespoons)  sugar

For the whipped cream topping

• 354 milliliters (1 1/2 cups) heavy cream, cold
• 30 grams (2 tablespoons)  granulated sugar
• 5 milliliters (1 teaspoon)  vanilla extract

For coconut toppings

• 139 grams (1 1/2 cup)  sweetened shredded coconuts, toasted.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F   or  175°C .  Set the oven rack to lower third of the oven.

direction for leches mixture:

1. Whisk together whole milk and sugar in a medium saucepan.  Bring it to just a boil, reduced heat to medium and let it simmer and reduced to half.
2. Stir occasionally. Keep an eye on it to prevent bubbling over or burnt.
3. Pour the liquid mixture into a medium bowl and stir in the condensed mild and heavy cream.
4. Let it cool a little on the counter then cover with lid and refrigerate.

direction for cake:

1. Fill a medium-small  sauce pan with water half full.  Set the sauce pan over medium heat and bring it to a boil. Then reduce heat and let it simmer.
2. In a standing mixer bowl (or a large mixing bowl if you are using hand-held electric mixer), add in eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, and salt.
3. Set this bowl over the simmering pot of water.  Stirring frequently until mixture is warm to touch.
4. Remove from heat and quickly fit the standing mixer  bowl into the machine.
5. Using the whisk attachment, whisk the mixture on high-speed for 5 minutes or until it is thick, light in color, and quadrupled in volumes. ( It was more than 5 minutes for me so don’t worry if it takes a bit long to lighten and quadrupled).
6. Gently add 1/2 of the flour into the beaten egg.
7. Using a spatula, gently and quickly fold the flour into the mixture so the volume will not deflate. (Don’t worry about well blend).  Add the rest of the flour into the batter, and again gently fold everything together.
8. Pour batter into a prepared baking pan.  Bake for 30 – 35 minutes.
9. Remove the cake from oven.  Un-mold and let it cool on a cooling rack.
10. Once the cake is cool to touch, using a serrated knife remove a thin layer of the top cake and scrape the bottom of the cake (for the leches mixture to soak through).
11. Place the cake into a deep dish.
12. Slowly pour the leches over the cake.  You may need to wait a little for the cake to absorb the liquid then continue to pour.  If the cake will not take in any more liquid, save it for add to cake the next day.   Cover and refrigerate the remaining leches if necessary.
13. Cover the cake with plastic wrap, and refrigerate over night (or 8 hours) to allow all the flavor to come together.

Let’s put the cake together now:

To toast shredded coconut:  set a skillet over a medium-low fire, add in the shredded coconut and stir frequently to avoid burning.  Keep toasting until golden color begin to show. Remove skillet from heat, and continue to stir until the coconut are more golden brown. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.

Whipped cream topping:

1. In a clean standing mixer bowl (or a mixing bowl if use electric handheld mixer), add in cold heavy cream and sugar.  Whisks at low-speed and gradually increase speed to medium high and whisk until almost stiff.  Add in the vanilla and continue to whisk until stiff peak. (You can see Jaworski of Joy of Baking demonstrating the technique here).
2. Remove the cake from the refrigerator, and unwrap.  Add more of the reserved leches if needed.
3. With a spatula, scoop enough whipped cream to cover the the whole cake.  Smooth it out (see demonstration).
4. Scoop a handful of toasted  shred-coconut and press to the side of the cake. Careful not to get coconut onto the top.
5. Fit a large (1M) open star tip to a pastry bag.  Fill the bag with whipped cream. Pipe designs onto the top of the cake (piping demonstration).

Et voila! you have a beautiful cake!

Cassava Coconut Cake

Cassava Coconut Cake

Yesterday was one of those days that plating/styling for food photo was not happening. The sun light streaming into our dinning area was too much or not enough making photo shoot really frustrating. I plated cassava coconut squares in circle, zigzag lines and stacking. Nope, did not capture what I was looking for. Certain food can be challenging for me to do a presentation that would allow me to capture its essence. So frustrated that I just turned the camera to a prepping plate, and just started shooting. It worked! This plate of juxtapose cassava coconut squares that I absent-mindedly tossed the unused squares onto came out pretty decent. What do you think?  What do you do on one of those days?

Anyway, back to recipe. This is actually baked cassava cake revisited. It has been a long while, my first post to be exact, since I baked this cake. I baked it again because my Father is visiting this weekend and it is his favorite. I made some minor changes to the recipe, and posting with picture this time around!

I bought a Trader Joe’s coconut cream extra thick and rich. It was the first time I used this product so I didn’t know when the label says thick it meant really thick barely any liquid. I wasn’t sure how that would turn out since original recipe has 1/2 can of coconut milk so I added a little half and half to the batter. Hey, cream would fix everything right? This improvising did baked a moist, chewy, a little more gooey,  and a nice toasted top. A nice balance of texture.  It is a cross between cassava and macaroons.  So here is the recipe again. I hope you will like it too.

Ingredients:

• 2 packs                                                              frozen grated cassava (thawed)
• 1 pack                                                                frozen shredded coconut (thawed)
• 1/2 can                                                              coconut cream (extra thick)
• 45 milliliters                    3 tablespoons             half-and-half
• 1 egg                                                                 whisked
• 6 grams                           1 teaspoon                 sea salt
• 56 grams                         4 tablespoons            cold butter, cubed
• 450 grams                       2 cups                        caster sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to  275 F or 135 C
2. Mix all the ingredients in an 8-inch baking pan, level batter evenly, and rake the top with a fork to which texture.
3. Bake at 275 F (135 C) for 1 hour.  Then increase temperature to 400 F (204 C) and bake for 25 minutes more or until the top begin to turn golden brown.
4. Remove from oven.  Let it cool for 5 minutes then cut into desired squares.

Let it cool completely or serve it warm.

Enjoy!