Tres Leches Cake- Trinity Sunday

Tomorrow is the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity! This feast falls the Sunday after Pentecost and it is on this day especially that we celebrate a fundamental dogma of the faith. The Trinity is the term used to signify the central teaching of the Catholic faith that in the unity of the Godhead, there are three persons, each one being truly distinct from one another while simultaneously possessing the same eternal and divine nature. We believe in one God, three divine persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as expressed in the Creed.

What is a dogma you ask? A dogma is...

Doctrine taught by the Church to be believed by all the faithful as part of divine revelation. All dogmas, therefore, are formally revealed truths and promulgated as such by the Church. they are revealed either in Scripture or tradition, either explicitly (as the Incarnation) or implicitly (as the Assumption). Moreover, their acceptance by the faithful must be proposed as necessary for salvation. They may be taught by the Church in a solemn manner, as with the definition of the Immaculate Conception, or in an ordinary way, as with the constant teaching on the malice of taking innocent human life.

(Modern Catholic Dictionary)

To bring this divine reality to life, I thought it would be fun and fitting to make Tres Leches cake. One cake, three divine milks.

You could also do a tri-colored pasta, scoop up some Neapolitan ice cream, or even a sip margarita made with triple sec.

(tres leches, trinity, sunday, solemnity)

Prep Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Bake Time: 30 minutes

Yields: 12 servings

Cake Ingredients

• 1 cup flour

• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 5 eggs

• 1 cup sugar, divided

• 2 tsps vanilla extract

• 1/3 cup whole milk

Milk Mixture Ingredients

• 12 oz evaporated milk

• 9 oz sweet condensed milk

• 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

Frosting Ingredients

• 1 pint heavy whipping cream

• 2 tbsps sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• ground cinnamon, to garnish

• strawberries, to garnish

Let's start by buttering a 9x13" baking dish and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Set out three mixing bowls and in the first one sift together 1 cup flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, and 1/4 tsp salt.

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites into the other two bowls.

Sprinkle in 3/4 cup sugar to the egg yolks and beat with a hand mixer on high until the mixture is pale yellow. This took me about 2 minutes.

Then pour in 1/3 cup milk and 2 tsps vanilla extract and whisk together until combined.

Set that bowl aside and beat your egg whites with the hand mixer until you form soft peaks. Then pour in 1/4 cup sugar and beat for another minute or so. We want the egg whites to be fluffy and and formable.

Set that aside and pour the egg yolk mixture into the flour and stir together with a baking spatula until everything is thoroughly combined.

Slide in the egg whites and gently fold them into the cake mixture. Don't overdo this part! Look at how nice and fluffy this turned out.

Pour the cake batter into your buttered baking dish and spread it out evenly. I baked mine for 30 minutes and checked it with a toothpick which should come out clean when finished.

While that baked I made the milk mixture. In a large measuring cup I combined one can evaporated milk, one can sweet condensed milk, and 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream.

Set that aside and when your cake is finished take it out of the oven and give it plenty of time to cool down before pouring the milk on top. You can do this in one of two ways: by taking it out of your baking dish and setting it on a platter to cool or by putting the baking dish into the fridge for about 30 minutes. I did the latter!

...30 minutes later...

Time to poke some holes. Many will use a fork but what I found is that when you pull the fork out it sometimes takes little chunks of the cake with it, even if you clean the fork between pokes. I don't like this because it means the milk is going to pool in that area, so instead I use a toothpick to create holes across the top of the cake.

Note: Don't poke too many holes. The key to a really good tres leches cake is for it to be moist, not soggy!

Slowly drizzle the milk mixture over the cake and make sure to get around the edges! Initially I started pouring from the measuring cup but found this too hard to control, so instead I spooned the mixture onto the cake allowing it to seep in before adding more. This took a little bit of time but paid off in the end.

Note: The milk mixture made almost 4 cups, I didn't use about 1 1/2 cups because I could tell it was going to be too much.

Let the cake soak for about 30 minutes to absorb all the milk. While that is happening we can make the whipped cream.

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 pint heavy whipping cream, 2 tbsps sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla. Beat the ingredients together with a hand mixer until it is thick, this took about 10 minutes.

Even Oliver appreciates a good bowl of whipped cream.

Spoon the whipped cream over the cake and spread it evenly.

Now you can dust the top with ground cinnamon and top each piece with strawberries. I make little strawberry fans by creating a row of slits across the strawberry up to the stem but not through it. Then gently push the strawberry to the side like you are opening a fan.

Look at how delicious, you have to make this sometime soon.

Happy Solemnity, dear friend!

Keep in touch for more liturgical living recipes and resources. Let me know how your dessert making goes and share with me some of the things your family likes to do for the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity!

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