Cooking web notes

On this same day last year, something special took shape. It kept me tingling- happy, nail-biting anxious, hair-pulling irritated, and joyously content through the days. Today, Sunitha and I celebrate our blog’s First Birthday! Hip! Hip! Hooray!

As a bonus, today we also complete our 200th post on our site! Wham! Bam! With fire crackers and banners we celebrate! And for you who gave us good company with your kind compliments of our photographs and recipes, we thankfully share nothing less than Tres Leches Cake.



Have you tasted this before? If you have, then you know what I am talking about. Melt-in-your-mouth texture, commingle with frothy cream, sweet condensed milk, effervescent flavor of vanilla. Every bite is a marvel. Each time you bite into it, savor the taste and experience the jolly ride it takes you on. This cake is right for this week.

I made this cake on Monday celebrating my wedding anniversary. I definitely had my husband swooning, ahem! With the cake. But the reasons for celebration were not over; following closely was my mom's birthday, then my daughter's and today the BLOG birthday. Fantastic, I proclaim!

Now a little about the recipe; it is adapted from The Pioneer woman, Ree. I have always admired her blog, writing style and recipes. If you don’t know about her please click here. This is the first recipe I'm trying out from her blog. And it proved to be everything as promised. Rich with the perfect sweetness.

A day indeed for celebrations here at Collaborative Curry. I hope it will rub off on you too.



Ingredients:

For the cake:

All purpose Flour - 1 cup
Salt - a pinch
Baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Eggs - 5 separated
Sugar - A Little less than 1 cup
Pure Vanilla extract - 1 1/2 tsp
Milk - 1/3 cup

For pouring over the cake:

Evaporated milk - 1 can
Condensed Milk - 1 can
Heavy cream - 1/4 cup

For frosting:

Heavy cream - 1 3/4 cup
Confectioner's sugar - 3 Tbsp
Pure Vanilla Extract - a few drops



Method:

1.Whisk together the flour,salt and baking powder in a bowl.
2.Preheat the oven at 350 degree F.Grease a 9 inch springfoam pan and set aside.
3.Separate the eggs and take the yolks in a bowl.Beat it with 3/4 cup of sugar until it turns smooth and pale yellow in color.
4.Mix in the vanilla extract and milk too.
5.Combine this with the flour mixture by folding in.
6.Clean the whisk well and wipe it dry before you start with egg whites.
7.Beat the egg whites till soft peaks appear.Now add the remaining 1/4 cups of sugar and beat until you get stiff peaks.Do not overdo this.
8.Gently fold in the whites into the above mixture.
9.Pour it into the prepared pan and bake it for about 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
10.Cool it on a wire rack.Transfer it into a serving dish, upside down, that has lips to hold the milk you will be pouring over it.
11.Make small holes on the cake by piercing it with a skewer or tooth pick.
12.Combine the 3 milks,evaporated, condensed and heavy cream in a bowl.
13.Spoon this over the cake as evenly as possible.You could save a part of it, say about half a cup and use it while you serve the cake slices.(which I forgot to do this time)
14.All these will be absorbed by this magically spongy cake in about 1 hour.
15.Prepare the frosting by beating the heavy cream till stiff peaks form.Add the sugar and vanilla too. Spread it evenly on the cake.
16.Keep it chilled and serve with a little leftover milk mixture and lots of love :-)
17.This could be stored in the refrigerator for several days.




Notes:

1.You could use the smaller cans of evaporated milk or condensed milk, according to your preference of sweet level.
2.Ree suggests to make this in a 9 by 13 inch pan, so that you get a thinner cake and the milk gets absorbed easily.I have tried it too. But then you need a serving dish with lip as big as that :-)
3.I got a one pint heavy cream and used 1/4 cup for the milk mixture and the remaining for the frosting.

Contributor: Namitha