Recipe
Whipped cream tres leches cake
Claire Saffitz's take — a whipped-cream-lightened sponge with toasted hazelnuts, drowned in three milks. The one the /now page promised.
Yield One 13×9 — serves 15
Prep 1 hr active
Cook 35 min + 3 hr soak
Flow of operations
Neutral oil, for the pan
57 g blanched hazelnuts (½ cup)
300 g heavy cream (1¼ cups), chilled
2 tsp vanilla extract
270 g all-purpose flour (2 cups)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
7 large eggs (350 g), room temp
200 g sugar (1 cup)
480 g whole milk (2 cups)
298 g sweetened condensed milk (1 cup)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of kosher salt
480 g heavy cream (2 cups), for the soak
480 g heavy cream (2 cups), chilled, for the topping
Ground cinnamon, for sprinkling
oil the bottom of a 13×9 · parchment · sides stay bare
toast 8–10 min · chop fine · save 2 tbsp
whip to medium peaks · chill
whisk together
beat ~6 min to a thick, slow ribbon
sift over in thirds · mix on low, just combined
fold in the cream, then the nuts
bake 165 °C / 325 °F · 30–35 min · cool fully inverted in the pan
whisk into the soak
poke everywhere · pour slowly · fridge ≥ 3 h
whip to soft droopy peaks
unmold · swoosh the cream · nuts + cinnamon · cut into squares
Method
- Set up. Oil only the bottom of a 13×9 metal pan and line it with parchment — leave the sides bare so the sponge has something to climb. Oven to 165 °C / 325 °F, rack in the center.
- Nuts. Toast the hazelnuts until golden and nutty, 8–10 minutes. Cool, chop fine, and set 2 tablespoons aside for the top.
- Two bowls of air. Whip the 300 g of cream with the vanilla to medium peaks and refrigerate. Separately, whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
- The ribbon. Beat the eggs and sugar — medium-low until broken up, then high — until pale, mousse-y, and thick enough that the beaters leave a slowly dissolving ribbon, about 6 minutes. This is the cake's only leavening that matters; don't shortchange it.
- Fold. Sift the dry mixture over the eggs in three additions, mixing on low until just combined each time. Fold in the chilled whipped cream and the chopped nuts (not the reserved spoonfuls) with a spatula until you have a thick, airy batter.
- Bake 30–35 minutes, rotating after 20, until risen, golden, and springy, with a clean tester. The counterintuitive move: immediately invert the pan onto a wire rack and let the cake cool completely upside-down, still in the pan — it keeps the sponge from sinking.
- The three milks. Whisk the whole milk, condensed milk, 480 g of cream, vanilla, and salt. Flip the pan right-side up, poke dozens of holes all the way to the bottom, and pour the soak on slowly, pausing whenever it pools. Use all of it, cover, and refrigerate at least 3 hours.
- Finish. Whip the last 480 g of cream to soft, droopy peaks. Loosen the cake's sides, invert it out (the bottom becomes the top), peel the parchment, and swoosh the cream to the edges. Reserved hazelnuts, pinches of cinnamon, squares.