Tried and True Tres Leches Cake

What do I love more than milk? Three kinds of milk!! Ever since my friend Sunni introduced me to tres leches, I have been hooked! I was a little nervous making this since Sunni only made things that were ridiculously complicated and had a chance of exploding, but I figured it was worth the risk.

While I can't say if this is as good as hers (unfortunately it has been far too long for me to recall), it was pretty fabulous and I will most definitely be making it again. We had a progressive dinner this past weekend with several of our new neighbors and I volunteered to do the dessert course. As my neighbor Kevin would say, this cake was "stupid good". So good that I could only snag a lonely corner piece to take pictures of. Next time I hope to plan a little better and take some shots of it before its completely devoured.

I always get nervous when trying out a new recipe, but this one from Cook's Country did not disappoint. My husband did suggest adding a little dulce de leche / salted caramel drizzle to it next time, but it was fabulous just on its own. So good that I'm even considering throwing tradition out the window and making it for Thanksgiving this year. And I'm not even kidding.

***UPDATE: Since this initial post, this recipe has become a staple in our household. It is so good that I haven't even bothered looking for another recipe. I hope you enjoy!

Mmmmm, tres leches.

Tres leches. Good for just about any time of day. Nom nom nom.

Tres Leches Cake from Cook's Country

Milk Mixture

• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract  

Cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 cup whole milk
• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

 Whipped Topping

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 tablespoons corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. For the milk mixture: Pour condensed milk into large microwave-safe bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Microwave on low power, stirring and replacing plastic every 3 to 5 minutes, until slightly darkened and thickened, 9 to 15 minutes. Remove from microwave and slowly whisk in evaporated milk, cream, and vanilla. Let cool to room temperature.
2. For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 13 by 9-inch baking pan. Whisk flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in bowl. Heat butter and milk in small saucepan over low heat until butter is melted; set aside off heat.
3. With electric mixer on medium speed, beat eggs in large bowl for about 30 seconds, then slowly add sugar until incorporated. Increase speed to medium-high and beat until egg mixture is very thick and glossy, 5 to 7 minutes. Reduce speed to low and slowly mix in melted butter mixture and vanilla. Add flour mixture in three additions, scraping down bowl as necessary, then mix on medium speed until fully incorporated, about 30 seconds. Using rubber spatula, scrape batter into prepared pan and bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes (it took me the full 35). Transfer cake to wire rack and let cool 10 minutes.
4. Using skewer, poke holes at 1/2-inch intervals in top of cake. Slowly pour milk mixture over cake until completely absorbed. Let sit at room temperature 15 minutes, then refrigerate uncovered 3 hours or up to 24 hours 
5. For the frosting: Remove cake from refrigerator 30 minutes before serving. With electric mixer on medium speed, beat heavy cream, corn syrup, and vanilla to soft peaks, 1 to 2 minutes. Frost cake and slice into 3-inch squares. Sprinkle with just a tad of cinnamon and serve. (The assembled cake can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.)

Cupcake Critique: Matty Cakes (Atlanta, GA)

Nice texture and crumb, but the icing didn't blow me away.

So I've driven by Matty Cakes hundreds of times, but had yet to try out this Best of Atlanta bakery. Finally on one of my tasting spree Saturdays (sure beats the gym folks), I was able to stop in. While intent on trying their red velvet, I found myself completely awestruck by a designer purse cake they were making. These fondant covered cakes looked better than some of the bags I've seen on Canal Street. As tempted as I was to order a $140 purse made out of cake, I had to remind myself that I was there just to try their red velvet.

The one thing I like about Matty Cakes is that their prices are super reasonable. Their large cupcake is ginormous and only $2.95. To give you an idea of scale, I took a picture of it on top of a quart of paint, and as you can see, it takes up the majority of its surface area. What they call their "mini" cupcake, is in fact a regular sized cupcake that sells for $1.95.

Now for the red velvet. The cake itself was quite good - the flavor was nice, the texture was moist and the color was a beautiful shade of crimson. I found myself a little disappointed however with the icing. It had a very light whipped cream cheese flavor. It would've been fabulous atop a strawberry shortcake, but it didn't quite stand up to the red velvet for me.

A large cupcake from Matty Cakes is almost equivalent
to the circumference of a quart of BEHR paint.

What I consider to be the ideal color for red velvet.

Waiting for Gâteau

Remember that book Waiting for Godot that many of us had to read in high school? Well I'm sure none of you felt like Vladimir and Estragon, eagerly awaiting my next post about gâteau (that's French for cake), but I'm here to assure you that I have several new reviews, recipes and stories to share.

In the last two weeks alone, I've done tastings in New Orleans and DC, as well as baked (and blogged about) the yummy cake balls pictured below. It's all coming soon, so don't forget to subscribe to my posts (top right under subscribe). You can also follow my updates on twitter or like The Velveteen Baker on Facebook.

Study Shows Ad Execs Prefer Younger Cakes

For my latest baking adventure I decided to pit two recipes against each other. Both were featured in the New York Times, but published 30 years apart. I wanted to see if people preferred the younger, more contemporary cake (circa 2007) to the older, more traditional one (circa 1977).

As prefaced in an earlier post, today I brought both cakes into my office to conduct a 'taste' study. As part of the survey, I asked that all participants taste both cakes and rate them on a scale of 1-10. Of the 35 advertising executives included in this study, the vast majority preferred the younger (2007) version.

First Runner Up: Circa 1977 Cake (pictured top left)
The older cake hailed from Alabama and was published on April 25, 1977 in an article entitled Red Velvet Cake Returns, Tomato Paste Lingers On (I assure you the recipe has nothing to do with tomato paste). The icing called for a very unique frosting made of butter, sugar, egg yolks, chopped pecans or walnuts, raisins and bourbon or rum. While I planned to make this frosting all along, I hesitated to remember buying bourbon until Sunday. At that point, no matter how good my intentions, Georgia state law simply wouldn't allow me to make this frosting. So I opted for a more traditional ermine (boiled milk) frosting. Overall feedback was that this cake wasn't as moist as the 2007 cake, but still very tasty. This is not surprising considering the 2007 cake had 2 cups of oil, while this one only called for a 1/2 cup of shortening. Next time I'll probably increase it to a full cup of shortening, or replace it with a cup of vegetable oil. And while I do like the ermine frosting, I would opt for a nice cream cheese frosting (like the one in my first recipe) instead.

Better with Age?

I simply couldn't decide on a single recipe for my next baking challenge, so instead I chose two.

Since many of the contemporary red velvet recipes differ by only a few ingredients, I thought it would be interesting to juxtapose it with an older, and hopefully more traditional recipe.

I went to the New York Times archives to do some digging, which by the way, is an amazing resource for baking cakes. Not only are their cake recipes some of the most popular, but you can search their archives back to 1851. You won't have any luck finding red velvet until the 20th century, but a good resource nonetheless.

Cupcake Critique: Gigi's Cupcakes

Today at lunch I ran over to Gigi's Cupcakes for my first of many cupcake critiques around Atlanta. Gigi's is a chain, so right off the bat I had some preconceived notions. They have a wide variety of cupcakes from Italian Cream Wedding Cake, Peach Cobbler and Cherry Cordial, but I of course was interested in none other than Scarlett's Red Velvet.

The ECD (that's Executive Creative Director for the non-ad folks) at my agency @carlrwarner said to me that Gigi's has the perfect icing-to-cupcake ratio, but I respectfully must disagree. If there is enough icing on one cupcake to wallpaper a 10'x12' bedroom, that is too much. Surely from looking at the pictures it may seem I'm exaggerating, but keep in mind this cupcake suffered quite a bit of shrinkage on the ride home in this Atlanta heat.

In critiquing this cupcake I examined several key factors: appearance, flavor, texture and color.