- Hey, I'm John Kanell and
today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making an amazing tres leches cake, so let's get started! First off, set that
oven to 350 Fahrenheit, grab a 9 x 13-inch baking pan, and we're gonna butter it really quickly. You could also use baking spray
if that sparks joy for you. This cake is not really
gonna get unmounted, it's gonna stay in the pan,
so you don't have too much. That's all done. Now we're gonna add
two cups, or 240 grams, of all-purpose flour into a bowl, measuring this out with
a scale for best results. I am so excited for this cake because it is one of
my all-time favorites. 1/2 teaspoon of salt, there you go, and 3/4 teaspoon of baking powder. We're gonna whisk this up. Our scale is done. Now, here's the deal. We have five eggs. We're gonna separate them
and whip both of them. Grab a medium bowl and a large bowl. Separate those eggs out. This cake is a little special and it's because, one, it's soaked with delicious sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and cream, but, two, it doesn't have butter in it. It's like a sponge cake. So that lets you soak the cake, have a big airy structure inside, and it's not gonna fall apart and it does some really nice things. You want a cake that can absorb
all those delicious milks. Whites go into the large bowl and the yolks go into the medium bowl. Try not to get yolk in the egg whites. If you're nervous about that,
I'm being a bit cavalier, you can separate them
one at a time into a bowl and dump the out in a conveyor belt. And five eggs. So like I said, tres leches is one of my favorite cakes. You can pardon my pronunciation,
but my mom is from Mexico and a lot of our relatives
would have them at the parties. I love creamy, just
amazing dreamy desserts that aren't too sweet that are like just, ah,
clouds of deliciousness, and a tres leches cake
really fits the bill. Okay, the one more thing that
I need, 1 1/4 cups of sugar and I'm putting this into a bowl, just because of the way
I'll be adding it in. Grab a mixer. You could also use a stand mixer for this. I'm gonna beat these egg whites on high until they're foamy and doubled in size. It should take about a minute. Once your egg whites are nice and foamy, we're gonna add in 1/4 cup of
sugar, but add it in slowly. Don't add it in all at once. Sprinkle it in slow. This gives you the best, stiffest peaks 'cause it gives the sugar
a chance to dissolve in the egg whites and really just give you
that volume you want. We're gonna mix this on high
until you have stiff peaks. It'll be about three minutes. So right now, you can see how much volume
these egg whites are taking on. They're gonna have large pockets
of air inside of that cake and in those pockets will
rest sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and cream
for an amazing combination. And look at these peaks, they're stiff. See, it stands up straight. That's nice. This gets set aside for just a moment. I'm adding the remaining
cup of sugar to my egg yolks and I wanna mix this up
until it's pale, fluffy, and it'll be thickened and gooey. Once you have that beautiful
thick, lemony mixture, lemony in color, not taste, we're gonna add in 1/2
cup, or 120 mLs, of milk, as well as two teaspoons
of a nice vanilla. I was really curious about
how this cake was invented, where, and when, and it
is quite the conundrum. A lot of disagreements, but
it's probably Nicaragua. There's a lot of soaked
cakes in the world though. We're gonna pour our yolk
mixture into the dry mixture. This gets mixed until it is just combined. You definitely don't wanna over-mix it. Fold that flour mixture into the yolk. It'll get a little bit thick, but we're gonna fix that
with the egg whites. I think it's in Armenia,
there's a version of this cake that uses three different types of milk. I think cow milk, goat
milk, and there's one other. Since we have the goats on the farm, we get to enjoy goat milk sometimes when they're in milk with their kids. Goat milk is so good. Oh my gosh, it's really good. So now we're gonna grab
our stiff yolk mixture, Looks so beautiful. It's almost a shame to disturb it. And in two batches,
we're gonna fold this in. Instead of using butter,
we really used our eggs. The whites got fluffed up to the heavens so that we can have a
mixture that really rises up and the yolks, which
have some delicious fats and they're rich and flavorful, got whisked in with the egg whites. Second batch of whites. Keep folding and now we're
gonna be even more careful. So I'm swirling down the bottom and cutting through the middle,
folding in the egg whites. This is ready to go into our pan. This cake is so easy and delicious. Pour that right in and
we're gonna level it off. Use that spatula just
to level the cake off. It's fairly thin and it
bakes pretty quickly. And when that happens, you just wanna have things
as level as possible going into the oven. My cake is ready to go into
the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick
inserted in the center comes out clean. While our cake bakes, we're gonna make our amazing
concoction of the tres leches. So that starts off with one
12-ounce can of evaporated milk, which is lovely for cooking
with as well and making sauces, 2/3 of a cup of whole milk, in you go, and finally one 14-ounce can of my very most favorite
thing in the world, sweetened condensed milk. If you add sweetened condensed milk to your coffee in the morning, ah, it is like starting off the day with such a jolt of the most
delicious sugar in the world. If you were just drinking this straight or pouring it on your cake,
it would be too sweet. So the nice thing is these
other milks really add a nice bit of richness, but
also they water it down. And some people think that
adding the milks to your cake was a way of preserving a stale cake, but now we have delicious fresh
cake this is gonna go into and get so beautifully soaked with. We just wanna whisk this together so the sweetened condensed
milk really swirls into everything else. I don't wanna see any of this nonsense. I wanna see a uniform mixture. This is also, by the way, a
great cake for transporting because you serve it in the pan. So there's no worry about it
getting messed up in the car. You just bring the pan with
you and you're good to go. Okay, see this? No swirls left. That is ready to go. We're gonna set this aside and then have that ready for the cake. My cake's out of the oven. The milks are ready and you just wanna wait until
the cake is warm, but not hot. If it's hot, bad things will happen. The cake will just mush up. Get a spoon, get a fork, and we're gonna poke it all over because we want to create a
lot of holes in this cake. And you can see the cake has
shrunk and gone down a bit. That's totally fine and expected,
so don't worry about that. Once you're done poking your cake so it can absorb all of those
milks and just be amazing, we're gonna pour that just over the top. My cake is bathing in
those delicious milks. Just cover it up and we're
gonna pop this into the fridge so it can chill for an hour before we add our amazing frosting on. And, by the way, you can
pre-order my book right now. There is a link in the
description box below. Towards the end of your chill time, we're gonna make a delicious
whipped cream topping. So we want two cups of heavy cream. Make sure it's cold. And if you want your whipped
cream to turn out the best, cold bowl, cold whisk. You can just keep them in the freezer. Two tablespoons of powdered sugar. And really, it's up to you. Do you want things a little sweeter? Extra tablespoon. Do you want it totally unsweetened? That's fine too. They both work. And I'm not using any
vanilla in this recipe, a little bit more traditional, but if you wanna add
some vanilla, go for it. Start off low, work your way up, and then you want to
have stiffer soft peaks. Not curdled, 'cause this
will turn into butter. Whipped cream is so easy, but you just have to
stay here and watch it. And I never whip it all
the way with the machine. I always finish it off by hand because right now, come and
take a look, this is too soft. This is nice for putting onto berries, but not for putting onto a cake. So I'm just gonna to
finish this off by hand. Right here, I have a strong whipped cream. You can see is holding a
peak in the container, bowl. I like to do this because
if you're using a mixer, a lot of times the very
bottom is under-mixed, the top is gonna be over-mixed, so just scrape the bottom as
you finish it off by hand. Now we can assemble our cake. Look at that, our cake
absorbed all of those milks and now it's soaked and delicious. We just have to get that
whipped cream, plop it on top. Seeing this makes me so happy. Whipped cream is one of
my favorite things to eat, as you know if you watch this channel. Just level that out. We want a big, thick, delicious
layer of whipped cream. Yes, look at these
swoopy delicious moments. Slice some strawberries up, place those on the top
for a beautiful fan, and your cake is ready to enjoy. That is a heavenly combination of milks. It is so perfectly sweet, so moist. It's like a beautiful cloud. I hope you get a chance
to make this recipe and if you like this video,
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