tres leches cake.

Cake. Baked in a Jar. Soaked in a mixture of milks (including condensed milk!). Topped with whipped cream and sprinkles.

Are you kidding me? Of course you have to make it now! 

And better yet, I baked it in a jar. Now it's adorable and delicious. You know what, I plan to sleep with a jar next to my pillow tonight so I can wake up to the sight of cake. Oh yes, very convenient too. The best part is, you have the whole jar to yourself. No sharing. Sharing is not in my cake vocabulary.

I think it's a texture thing. After the sponge sucks up all the milk mixture, it adopts a super moist, almost pudding-like texture. At some parts where I went a little too poke-happy, it was kinda mushy, but not baby food mushy. But I bet I really liked my baby food when I was a crying, screaming pooping infant.

I took pioneer woman's recipe and divided it by 5 to get three jars worth of cake. Although there was very little batter in each jar, it still took pretty long to bake. I noticed stuff baked in jars always take longer than usual.

I had a lot of fun stabbing the cakes. I might be sadistic. The good thing about this recipe is that you don't have to worry about leaving holes in the cake when you insert a skewer to test for its doneness. You'll have to make a hundred more later anyway. 

Pouring the milk in was pretty darn fun too. You can see how the milk travels from the top down the million holes you poked.

What are you still reading for? Go make the cake now! Oh right, the recipe.

Tres Leches Cake

adapted from The Pioneer Woman 

makes 12 servings

If you decide to bake this in little jars, butter the insides first and place the jars on a baking sheet. Take note that they will take longer than the average cupcake even if it's the same amount of batter. And you may or may not use up all the milk mixture.

1 cup plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

5 whole eggs, separated

1 cup sugar, divided

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup milk

1 can evaporated milk

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup heavy cream or regular milk

For the icing:

1 pint heavy cream

3 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. 

Beat the egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar on high speed until the yolks are pale yellow. Stir in the milk and vanilla. Pour egg yolk mixture over the flour mixture and stir very gently until combined. The idea here is to not deflate the air out of the egg yolks.

Beat the egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 1/4 sugar while beating and beat until the egg whites are stiff but not dry.

Fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture gently until just combined. Pour into the prepared pan and spread and smooth the surface.

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Turn cake out on a rimmed platter and allow to cool slightly.

Combine the condensed milk, evaporated milk and heavy cream or regular milk. Pierce the cake with a fork several times. It doesn't matter if the cake is still warm. I feel that a warm cake would absorb the milk mixture better due to the difference in temperatures. Drizzle the milk mixture on the cake- don't neglect the edges!

Allow the cake to stand for at least 30 minutes. I let mine absorb the milk mixture overnight. 

Before serving, whip the 1 pint of heavy cream with the sugar until thick and spreadable. Frost the cake, cut, and serve.