What Are The Three Milks You Need To Make A Tres Leches Cake?

Tres leches cake is as transparent as it gets when it comes to dessert names. Unlike, say Black Forest Cake or hummingbird cake, the contents of tres leches is right in its name. Spanish for "three milks," traditional tres leches cake includes whole milk, evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk (the latter two are also handy ingredients to amplify any boxed cake mix). These are combined and slowly poured over a baked, cooled vanilla sponge, which soaks up the three milks to create a very wet, sweet, and popular dessert that is frosted with a simple layer of freshly whipped cream.

Of course, there are dozens of variations on tres leches cake, which is popular in many Latin and Central American cultures. It's common for home bakers to switch up the milks and use things like soy, coconut, or oat milk for a dairy-free dessert. Heavy cream and half-and-half can be used in place of whole milk to make the cake extra rich. Eggnog makes a wonderful, seasonal tres leches cake. Using strawberry milk or horchata will add an extra layer of sweetness. Meanwhile, incorporating strong coffee or espresso into the milk creates a wonderful flavor. You can also add booze like Irish cream, brandy, amaretto, or rum to make the cake a little more grown up and special.

The name tres leches cake leaves little doubt that the cake originated from a place where Spanish is widely spoken, but the idea of soaking sponge and frosting it could have come from European sweets, such as Italian tiramisu and traditional English trifle. In fact, Nicaragua, which claims to have invented tres leches cake, was colonized by England from the 17th to 19th centuries, but was also partially owned by Spain from the 16th to 19th centuries. Influence from these two European cultures would have included the introduction of sugarcane and cattle, and therefore milk products, to Central America. References to tres leches cake in recipe books began to crop up in the 1970s, however, in the 1930s, Nestle printed a recipe for the cake on cans of its evaporated and condensed milks, which were being produced in its Mexico-based factory. 

Along with straying from the traditional blend of whole, sweetened condensed, and evaporated milks, you can change up the type of sponge as well. Traditional sponge cake works well because it has plenty of air holes which properly soak up the liquids, but pound cake (named for the weight of its ingredients), butter cake, boxed vanilla cake, and flavored cakes, like Devil's food or coconut cake, all produce delicious results.