Tres Leches Cake

For a fun weekend treat, I made Jim one of his favorites, Tres Leches Cake. I mostly followed a recipe from All Recipies.com for Tres Leches Cake, but I did make enough changes that I thought it was worth noting here.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup white sugar, divided
  
• 5 egg yolks
• 5 egg whites
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk (I used 2% and it worked fine)
  
• 1 pint heavy whipping cream, divided
  
• Maraschino cherries

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9x13 baking pan with non stick cooking spray and flour.
   
2. Beat the egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar until light in color and doubled in volume. Stir in milk, vanilla, flour and baking powder.
   
3. In a small bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Beat until firm but not dry. Fold egg whites into yolk mixture. I would recommend using the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 method: 1/3 stir directly in, 1/3 fold in, and 1/3 at the end just barely mixing. Pour into prepared baking pan.
   
4. Bake for 45 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
5. Mix together condensed milk, evaporated milk and 1/4 cup of the whipping cream.
   
6. Using a fork, pierce the entire surface of the cake. I gave the fork a quarter-turn as I pulled it out of the cake to ensure maximum perforation.
7. Pour milk mixture over the cake and refrigerate overnight.
8. Whip the remaining whipping cream and top the cake with the whipped cream. Garnish with cherries.
   

Sammy actually does approve of this desert as he got a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk out of the recipe.