A Twist on Tradition: Tres Leches Cupcakes

I have recently decided to get in touch with my family's roots. Of course, there are many ways to do that. But I decided to honor my heritage by making some of the food that my parents remember having when they were kids. I am of Mexican descent, so I started by making took it upon myself to make one of the most iconic desserts that I could think of, Tres Leches.

There are so many Mexican desserts I could have chosen to make, such as flan or churros, but I really wanted to choose a dessert that doesn't get as much attention as others and would be a bit of a challenge. I also put my own twist on the recipe, so instead of making Tres Leche in a traditional cake form, I changed it up into a cupcake.

You may be thinking "Big deal." It's a cake so it can easily be made into a cupcake form, but in the case of Tres Leches, it was a little harder than you may think. Tres Leches translates to "three milks" and those three milks are sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and heavy cream. These three milks are combined together o create a milk solution that is poured on top of the cake so that it can soak through. If it's left to soak overnight in the refrigerator it tastes better, but it's not bad if you just let it soak to an hour or so in the fridge.

We need a cake base to start, and I actually tried different types of cake for this dessert. I finally settled on a white cake recipe because that is what worked out the best when I made them into cupcakes.

Tres Leche Cupcakes

White Cake Cupcakes

Makes about 24 cupcakes

2¼ cups cake flour

1 cup of milk (room temperature - I used skim)

6 large egg whites (room temperature)

2 teaspoons almond extract

2 teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla paste if you want to give the cupcakes a bit more rustic look since you'll see specks of vanilla in the cake. The Nielsen Massey vanilla bean paste we carry at The Chopping Block would be perfect for this recipe.

1¾ cups of granulated sugar

4 teaspoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon of table salt

1½ stick of unsalted butter (room temperature)

*This cake recipe is a variation from the iamabaker.net blog.

Tres Leches Milk Mixture

Fills 24 cupcakes

2 cans evaporated milk

2 cans sweetened condensed milk

6 Tablespoons heavy cream

Heavy cream, for whipped cream frosting

Note: I use foil cupcake liners because they have two liners in one. The white liner for the actual cupcake and the foil liner will actually help keep the milk inside the cupcake. This is key! You will also need a flavor injector in order to get the milk mixture into the cupcake.

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake tins with cupcake liners.
2. Pour milk, egg whites and extracts into a medium bowl and mix until blended.
3. Mix cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of electric mixer at slow speed. Add butter, cut into cubes and continue beating on low for about 1-2 minutes.
4. Add all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture to flour mixture and beat at medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes. Add remaining 1/2 cup of milk mixture and beat for about 1 minute.
5. Pour batter evenly in cupcake lined tins.
6. Bake until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.
7. Allow cake to cool to room temperature.
8. As the cupcakes are baking, combine the evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk and the heavy cream in a bowl and place in the refrigerator.
9. Once the cupcakes are out of the oven and cooled, fill the flavor injector with the milk mixture and slowly inject each cupcake with one needle full of the milk. The milk will overflow a bit and that is okay, the cake will eventually absorb it. Do this to every cupcake.
10. Once you have injected each cupcake with the milk mixture, you will have extra so using the needle,   put some of mixture on top of each cupcake just like if were basting it until all the milk mixture is gone.
11. Place the cupcakes in the refrigerator for at least an hour, or even overnight.
12. When ready to serve, whip some additional heavy cream (with no additional sugar) and use that as your frosting. Since the cake is sweet due to the Tres Leches mixture, you want a frosting that is not super sweet, so a plain whipped cream frosting will work the best with this. Finish with a cherry on top.

I worked on this recipe for a couple of months in order to perfect it, and I am happy to share it now. It's a celebration of my family's heritage and now it can be part of your recipe repetoire as well. For more authentic Mexican recipes, check out our upcoming hands-on cooking class La Cocina Mexicana and hands-on grilling class Grilling Fiesta.