The charms of this beloved Latin American bake can be summed up in two words: sweet and wet. As you cut into it, it should literally ooze the tres leches, or three milks, in which it’s been soaked. Though certainly popularised by a recipe on Nestlé tins, the cake’s precise origins are as cloudy as milk itself, but it’s variously claimed by Nicaragua, Mexico and even Albania as their own – for many Latin American households, it’s what food writer Isabel Orozco-Moore terms the “ultimate celebration cake. Do you have a quinceañera coming up? How about a wedding, birthday party, baptism or graduation? Then it’s time to make a tres leches cake!”
What it’s not, despite the best attempts of The Great British Bake Off, is any ordinary cake – the showstopper challenge to make a stackable version during last year’s ill-fated Mexican week had anyone familiar with tres leches howling in horror. As Latinx author Myriam Gurba observed: “Making a tiered tres leches cake is like making a tiered soup.” Instead, lean into the sogginess. You won’t regret it.
