My Tres Leches Cake is a from-scratch, butter-less sponge cake that's drenched with a mixture of evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and half-and-half. It's then topped with a simple, not-too-sweet whipped cream. I made my first one in 2013 and fell in love, because it's impossible not to love a cake called "Three Milk Cake."
Tres Leches Cake from Scratch - at a Glance
- ⏱ Prep Time: 45 minutes
- 🔥 Cook Time: 30 minutes
- 🥛 Soaking Time: 4 hours
- ⌛ Total Time: 5 hours 15 minutes
- 👪 Serves: 20
- 🍽️ Calories: 294
- 🌾 Main Ingredients: Eggs, flour, sugar, sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, half-and-half, heavy cream
- 👌 Why You'll Love It: A butter-less sponge cake soaked overnight in evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and half-and-half, then topped with whipped cream - perfect for making ahead.
SUMMARIZE & SAVE THIS RECIPE ON
This cake begs to be made a day in advance so that the cake can soak up nearly 4 cups of milk overnight. Just whip the cream and top it on the day you serve it.
I'm very picky about texture and was skeptical of a soaked cake at first, but making it from scratch makes all the difference. Using a butter-free sponge keeps it from becoming mushy; the eggs provide the structure so that the rest of the ingredients can soak up the milk. It's milky and sweet without being toothachingly so. If you love sweetened condensed milk, this is definitely a dessert for you!
I bake this cake at least once a year, usually for a burrito or taco party night - I start with Classic Margaritas or a Campari Margarita for something a little different, have guacamole or spicy black bean soup as an appetizer, and make Slow Cooker Barbacoa for our main dish.
Why You'll Love This Cake
I adore Tres Leches Cake and actually hoard it for myself. You'll also love it because it's:
- ☁️ A butter-less sponge cake that soaks up milk without dissolving.
- 🕰️ Perfect to make in advance - prep the day before, soak, and top right before serving.
- 🍰 Leftover cake is still just as delicious up to 4 days later, with no loss of flavor or texture.
- 🥛 Moist, not mushy, every time.
What is Tres Leches Cake?
Tres Leches Cake is a sponge cake soaked with a mixture of 3 milks - usually canned evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and milk or cream - then topped with whipped cream. Tres Leches is Spanish for "three milks." I use half-and-half for my third milk. The cake originated in Latin America, most likely Nicaragua or Mexico.
Key Ingredients
Some recipes, like Alton Brown's recipe I tried in 2013, include butter in the cake, but you don't need it to keep the cake soft or moist; there's enough fat in the milk and cream to do that. Instead, I've adapted Smitten Kitchen's Tres Leches Cake recipe, which uses a butter-less, egg-leavened sponge as its base.
Cornstarch: Mixing this into all-purpose flour yields a substitute for cake flour, which makes for a more tender cake. If you don't have cornstarch, substitute an equal amount of all-purpose flour, measured lightly.
Egg whites and yolks: Stiffly beaten egg whites lift the cake, provide the bulk of the structure for the cake, and prevent it from becoming a mushy mess when soaked. The yolks provide richness and tenderize the cake.
Sweetened condensed milk: Canned milk that's been cooked with sugar and reduced into a thick syrup. The first of your three leches.
Evaporated milk: A concentrated but thin canned milk. It's not sweet and not interchangeable with sweetened condensed milk. The second of your three leches.
Half-and-half: The third of your three leches. I use it instead of light or heavy cream because I prefer the milk soak to have a light texture.
Heavy cream: Technically a fourth leche. You'll whip this with a little sugar for the topping. If you used heavy cream for the soak instead of half-and-half, you'd only need the one kind of cream. Whipping cream has slightly less fat but should whip properly; light cream will not whip.
How to Make Tres Leches Cake from Scratch
Eggs separate best when they're cold. Use a three-bowl set-up to separate the eggs, with one bowl for whites, one for yolks, and one to separate into. That way if an egg breaks, you don't contaminate the whole batch. I sometimes skip whisking together dry ingredients, but I use this three-bowl setup every time I separate eggs - as I do for my Almond Cake.
Make the Sponge Cake
One: Whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt; this makes it easier to sift into batter later.
Two: With an electric mixer, beat the egg whites on medium speed until soft peaks form. Soft peaks are foamy, droop, and move easily, but hold together. This can take several minutes.
Three: Gradually add the sugar a few tablespoons at a time to allow the sugar to dissolve into the egg whites. Beat until stiff peaks form. Stiff peaks will be satiny and shiny, and will not flop around. This can take several minutes; slow down when they're close to fully mixed, as egg whites overmix quickly at the end.
The glossy egg whites will maintain structure in the bowl, and you'll see where the whisk was.
Four: Add the vanilla and egg yolks, one by one. The batter will still have some structure. Then, mix in the milk to slightly loosen the mixture.
Five: Use a rubber spatula to fold in the flour mixture, ⅓ at a time. The goal is to mix in dry ingredients without deflating the batter.
To fold, you want to cut down the middle of the batter toward the bottom, then sweep the spatula up along the side of the bowl. You then "fold" that batter over the top. The technique is the same as for my Chocolate Yule Log, where the chocolate makes the process easier to see.
Six: Scrape and smooth the batter into a greased 9x13 inch pan. Bake for around 25-35 minutes; my cake consistently takes 28-30 minutes across 2 different ovens. The cake will rise significantly and turn a golden brown. A toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean, and the cake will spring back when lightly pressed.
Seven: Cool the cake completely before soaking it. A warm cake will become mushy instead of absorbing the milk properly.
Soak the Cake
Time to drench the cake!
Eight: In a 4-cup measuring cup or large bowl, mix together the evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and half-and-half. Set aside about ½ cup in a small jar or container for serving.
Nine: Using a toothpick or fork, poke holes all over the cake to help the milk soak in. Slowly and evenly pour it all over the cake, including along the edges. The milk begins to soak in quickly; the cake in this picture has the milk soaking in it.
Ten: Cover the cake and store in the refrigerator at least 4 hours, or overnight.
Topping with Whipped Cream
Top the cake with whipped cream immediately before serving - as with my Coconut Cream Pie, whipped cream will deflate over time.
Cream whips best when it's cold, straight from the refrigerator.
Eleven: Combine heavy or whipping cream and a small amount of sugar in a large bowl; cream will double in size when whipped. (Be careful; cream spatters.) Whip until soft peaks form and hold their shape in the bowl.
Twelve: Spread the whipped cream all over the cake.
Serving and Storage
Serve the cake right after topping. Pour a little reserved soaking milk on the plate for garnish, if desired.
Immediately refrigerate leftovers. Cover the cake well; dairy takes on flavors easily. Serve cold, straight from the refrigerator. Most recently, I've been enjoying a slice of leftover cake with an afternoon cup of coffee.
Cake continues to be delicious even after 4 days; the whipped cream deflates slightly, but the cake itself holds up well.
Expert Tips for a Moist Cake
🌡️ Don't underbake your cake. A fully-baked, dry sponge absorbs the milk much better than an underbaked one.
🥄 Smooth out the batter evenly. Egg white batter holds its shape and won't spread out much.
🫨 If your cake jiggles at all when you touch the pan, it is not done. Don't bother toothpicking it; just bake it longer before you test it.
❄️ Cool the cake completely. The cake will become mushy if you soak it while it's still warm.
🤍 Top the cake immediately before serving. Whipped cream will dissolve slightly when it hits moisture and will continue to deflate over time.
Tres Leches Cake FAQs
It's normal for cakes to shrink a little as they cool! In particular, the edges will pull away from the sides of the pan. Excessive deflation usually means the cake was underbaked.
Evaporated milk is thin but richer than fresh milk, pours easily, and has no sugar added - my great-grandma called it PET milk, after the name brand, and it may sometimes be called "unsweetened condensed milk." Sweetened condensed milk is thick, pours slowly, and has sugar added to it. Both are shelf-stable canned milks, but they are not interchangeable.
This recipe is a good candidate for a gluten-free substitution since the structure of this sponge comes from the stability of beaten egg whites rather than flour. Substitute a mild-tasting, gluten-free cup-for-cup flour blend that includes a binder such as xanthan gum to replace both flour and cornstarch. Check the rest of your ingredients to be sure they're gluten-free. I haven't tested this myself, so let me know how it goes.
Other Recipes with Sweetened Condensed Milk
I told my husband this week that sweetened condensed milk is my favorite milk. If you have a can in your pantry you're itching to use, here are some of my favorites:
I hope this becomes a recipe you'll return to. If you try it, a star rating below helps others find it - and I'd love to hear how yours turns out in the comments! 💕 Questions or trouble? Drop a note, and I'll do my best to help.
📖 Recipe
Tres Leches Cake from Scratch
Equipment
- electric mixer
- egg separator (affiliate link)
- 9x13 inch pan
Ingredients
Butter-less Sponge Cake
- 6 eggs (separated)
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour (230 grams)
- ¼ cup cornstarch (30 grams)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon table salt
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (10 grams)
- 1 ¼ cup sugar (250 grams)
- ¼ cup milk (57 grams)
Three-Milk Mixture for soaking
- 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk (1 can; 397 grams)
- 12 ounces evaporated milk (1 can; 354 mL)
- 1 ½ cups half-and-half (354 grams)
Whipped Cream for topping
- 1 ½ cups heavy cream (354 grams)
- 1 tablespoon sugar (12 grams)
Instructions
Sponge Cake
- Whisk together flour, cornstarch, salt, and baking powder.
- With an electric mixer or a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, beat egg whites on medium speed until soft peaks form. They'll be foamy first, but will stay somewhat upright on the beater when they're soft peaks.
- Gradually add 1 ¼ cups sugar, a few tablespoons at a time, and beat on medium speed until stiff peaks form. The mixture will become shiny, and the peaks will stay upright, without bending over. Slow the mixer down if they're close to stiff peaks but not quite there, as egg whites overwhip quickly.
- Still on medium speed, add vanilla extract and egg yolks, one at a time. Switch to low speed, and add milk just to combine.
- Using a rubber spatula, fold in the flour mixture in one-third at a time. To fold, insert a rubber spatula down the middle to the bottom of the bowl, then scrape up along a side to "fold" the batter over.
- Scrape batter into a greased 9x13-inch pan (affiliate link), and smooth it out. Bake at 350F for 25-35 minutes, until top is lightly browned and until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. (If the cake jiggles when you touch the pan, let it bake longer before testing it.)
- Let the cake cool completely before soaking with milk.
Soaking
- In 4-cup measuring cup (affiliate link) or a large bowl, whisk together evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and 1 ½ cup half-and-half. Set aside ½ cup of the mixture for serving.
- Use a fork or toothpick to poke holes all over the cake. Pour all the milk mixture, except for the ½ cup you've reserved, on the cake, up to and including the edges. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours.
Topping and Serving
- Immediately before serving, whip 1 ½ cups heavy cream and 1 tablespoon sugar until soft peaks form. Spread the whipped cream on top of cake.
- Serve cake right after topping, garnishing with a little of the milk mixture if desired.
- Immediately store remaining cake in the fridge. Leftovers are good up to 4 days later; whipped cream deflates somewhat, but it doesn't affect the flavor or texture of the cake.
Leona Konkel says
Of course I love it since it's my recipe. But when I make a 9x13 inch cake for 3 people, I end up eating most of it, happily. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do! I'm happy to help troubleshoot or hear your experiences!