I thought about just referring all you prospective tres leches cake makers to the basic génoise tutorial and saying: just add nuts! However the process for tres leches génoise is slightly more involved than that. My solution: to create a new tutorial that mixes old and new photographs. What? It’s not like my lighting or […]
READ ONThe main layer is the basic génoise recipe from the site, only with some toasted almonds added. It also has a little orange zest mixed in, a great idea that I stole from Rick Bayless. Why a génoise for a Latin American cake? First, because spongecake is Latin American (by way of Europe, of course). […]
READ ONI’ve received several emails criticizing my planned addition of dulce de leche to tres leches cake. A few folks writing in from Mexico are telling me that it’s an “American thing.” That’s a valid criticism, since from what I’ve learned dulce de leche-tinged tres leches cakes first became popular in south Texas and Miami. Yet […]
READ ONReader Donna writes: Is dulce de leche a strictly New World food? I swear I ate something just like it in France when I was a student there in the 90’s. There is in fact a very similar preparation that’s made in Normandy. It’s called confiture de lait, essentially “milk preserves.” Thanks for the email, […]
READ ONThe first time ever heard about dulce de leche I was in high school. A Mexican classmate was trying to explain it to me, and he described it as something his mother made by boiling an entire, unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot. The whole thing sounded completely crazy to me. It […]
READ ONI was waiting for someone to ask that question. Thanks, reader Emily! Dulce de leche recipes call for baking soda for one simple reason: to help the mixture brown. Those of you who’ve stuck with me through past posts about caramel know that it takes a fair amount of heat for sugars to start caramelizing […]
READ ONOnce you’ve tasted a proper homemade dulce de leche, you may never go back to regular caramel sauces again. It has just too much to bring to the flavor party. And as you’ll see, it’s not difficult at all to make. Start with your baking soda: Add about half a cup of milk and stir […]
READ ONReal dulce de leche isn’t nearly as time-consuming as it’s made out to be. In fact it takes far less time than the boiled can method, and demands only intermittent attention. This recipe calls for 50% cow’s milk and 50% goat’s milk, which produces the most interesting and balanced flavor. All cow’s milk is a […]
READ ONDulce de leche means “milk candy” or “sweet milk” in Spanish, and is it ever. However I should say that not every Spanish-speaker knows it by that name. In some parts of Central and South America it’s called manjar. Since my first experiences of it came by way of Mexicans in Chicago, I know it […]
READ ONHere’s one that various readers have been after me about for quite some time. What is a “tres leches” cake? It literally means “three milks” in Spanish. Frequently a combination of evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk and cream, those milks are combined into a sort of syrup that’s brushed onto the cake before it’s frosted. […]
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