Rose Tres Leches Cake

Over the last few months we’ve had so many folks sending us requests for a rose tres leches cake recipe and here it finally is.

The preparation is quite straightforward. It’s a simple rose flavoured sponge cake soaked in a three milk mixture and topped with whipped cream.

There are a few things to go over before we get to the recipe. Firstly, if you can’t find evaporated milk, just use an equal amount of whole milk.

You’ll also need an electric hand mixer or stand mixer to make the whipped cream topping because doing it by hand is going to need a ridiculous amount of effort, especially for those of us who are unpractised. So, if you don’t have a hand mixer or stand mixer, you can use one of those whipped cream cans; you know the ones you can just sort of spray on top of cakes. You can also just serve the cake without the topping; it won’t look as good but it’ll still taste pretty awesome.

Ingredients for the cake:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 ½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1/3 cup full cream milk
• 3 ½ tbsp. rose syrup
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup oil

Ingredients for the rose milk:

• 1 cup full cream milk
• ½ cup condensed milk
• ½ cup evaporated milk
• 15 tbsp. rose syrup

Ingredients for whipped cream topping:

• 1 cup whipping cream
• ½ tbsp. sugar

Instructions:

1. Rub 2 teaspoons of oil on the bottom and sides of a 7 ½ inch diameter cake tin. You can just use your fingers for this, after thoroughly washing them of course. Then dust the tin with around a tablespoon of plain flour. You can just place the flour in the middle of the tin and just gently tap while turning the tin this way and that to have it distributed evenly at the bottom. To dust the sides, hold the tin vertically, place the flour on the side, and then just turn it like a wheel while tapping. All of this might sound confusing, but you’ll find it’s quite simple when you actually do it. Also, if you line the pan with foil before doing all this, it could help with getting the cake out of the pan after the rose milk soak.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set it aside.
3. Combine the milk and rose syrup in a small bowl and set it aside.
4. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
5. Beat together the eggs, sugar and oil until you get a creamy texture. For this you can use a stand mixer, hand held electric mixer, or even your juice blender. If you are using your juice blender, running it for around 2 minutes on low would do. You can also beat it by hand using a fork. If using a fork you’ll have to go at it for around 10 minutes.
6. If you used the blender, transfer the egg mixture to a bowl. If not, you can just go on to the step below.
7. Add around 4 tablespoons of the flour mixture to the egg mixture and mix until the flour is fully incorporated. You can just use a spoon for the mixing and do it gently being careful not to over mix.
8. Then add in around 2 tablespoons of milk and mix until combined, once again being careful not to over mix.
9. Repeat steps 7 & 8 until you run out of flour and milk.
10. Gently pour the mixture into the cake pan that you prepared before.
11. Place the tin on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. For us this took 30 minutes. But oven temperatures differ, so keep an eye on it, especially towards the end and make the necessary adjustments.
12. When the cake is baked, let it cool down completely in the pan.
13. While the cake is cooling down prepare the rose milk mixture by mixing together all the ingredients under rose milk. You can have a taste and adjust too.
14. When the cake has completely cooled down to room temperature, use a fork to make holes on top of the cake. Have the holes go halfway deep and quite close together. We did it in zigzag rows, leaving around ½ cm in between.
15. Pour the rose milk over the cake. We used a tablespoon for this, pouring a little and then letting it sink in a little before repeating. We reserved around ¼ of the mixture for drizzling while serving too. But you don’t have to do that.
16. Cover the cake and keep it in the fridge for at least an hour so that the cake can absorb all that rose milk. You can keep it for longer too.
17. Prepare the topping by whipping together the whipping cream and sugar. (To whip, you just have to add the whipping cream and sugar to a mixing bowl and use your hand mixer or stand mixer to mix on high speed until you get medium peaks. At the medium peak stage, when you lift the whisks out of the bowl the mixture that’s sticking to them would look like peaks and they’d be holding their shape fairly well. The mixture should also look fluffy and a bit glossy. For us it took around 2 minutes. Do be careful to not over whip. If you do, the mixture is going to get grainy and curdled. If this happens, add some more cream and gently beat it into the curdled mixture.)
18. Finally, spread the whipping cream on top of the cake. We removed the cake from the pan and transferred it to a large plate before putting the whipped cream on top. If you are going to do this, you’ll probably need some help and you’ll have to be really gentle about it because the cake at this point would be ultra-moist. If you are working alone, it might be easier to just serve it in the pan.
19. Store the cake in the fridge covered.