Tres Leches Cake

I'm not so much a chocolate cake person, so the idea of a vanilla cake soaked in creamy milk sounds amazing to me. It's reminiscent of tiramisu but without the espresso powder and a bit more creamy.

Tres Leches is translated to "three milks" but "tres leches" sounds so much more fancy, so the entire world outside of Latin America is going with this term. The three milks include 1) evaporated milk, 2) sweetened condensed milk and 3) heavy cream. Those are the tres leches that you use to soak the cake in. If you want to be technical about it, there are actually quatro leches as there is a fourth milk used in the cake itself. Either way, this cake is not for the lactose intolerant.

I searched around for different recipes and when we planned another family Mexican dinner night, I made it for dessert. This Pioneer Woman recipe is what I went with and she has thorough step by step instructions on her blog.

I'll show you just a few steps. After baking the cake, you turn it out on a platter. I let it cool for a while and then mixed the milks to pour over and let it soak for an hour or so. 

After the milks soaked in completely, I whipped up the cream with some sugar and vanilla and spread it on top. 

It was the perfect dessert to follow taco night and it was a hit with the kids. What kid wouldn't want creamy cake with whipped cream and a cherry on top? I'm not a huge fan of the maraschino cherries, but they are a very pretty contrast to the stark white cake. So, enjoy dessert with a cherry on top. 

Meringues to Eton Mess

My inspiration to make meringues again was two-fold. First, my mum was visiting and was dreaming of Eton Mess, which she had last enjoyed on a trip back to England.  The second reason, is that I was recalling this idyllic food stand we visited in Covent Garden in London last summer and the dreamy piles of perfectly pink meringues. So, on a recent visit from mum, we decided that our dessert one evening would be Eton Mess.  

We made the incredibly easy meringue and spooned it onto the Silpats creating the fun little peak.

They bake at a very low temperature and we let them cool and dry. 

The last time I made meringues, we created little fruit bowl nests. This time, we broke up the pretty peaked meringues and made lovely Eton Mess parfaits.

Recipe for Meringues

Ingredients:

4 XL egg whites

1/4 t. cream of tartar

Pinch of kosher salt

1 C. granulated sugar or caster sugar, divided

1/2 t. pure vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats. In an electric mixer using the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites, cream of tartar and salt on high speed until frothy. Add 2/3 C. of the sugar and continue beating on high speed until the egg whites form very stiff peaks. Whisk in the vanilla. Carefully fold the remaining 1/3 C. sugar into the meringue. Pipe or spoon onto the baking sheets.

Bake for two (2) hours or until the meringues are dry and crisp but not browned. Turn off the heat and leave the meringues in the oven for four (4) hours or overnight. 

For Eton Mess, mix with chopped berries (strawberries are traditional, but blackberries, raspberries and blueberries are great) and fresh cream made from heavy whipping cream whipped with a bit of powdered sugar and vanilla 

Peach Tart with Mascarpone Cream

I was meeting some friends for an outdoor concert and wanted to take a fresh summery dessert for us to share for our picnic.  With peaches in season in Michigan, this was probably the perfect recipe that I could have found and we all enjoyed it immensely.  I found the recipe using my Epicurious app on my iPad, but you can access it online also. How can you go wrong with fresh peaches tossed in sugar and lemon zest, raw sliced almonds for a little crunch and a honey glaze. It was still warm when we ate it at the picnic and was topped with the rich, sweet mascarpone cream. 

 The peaches were so pretty. I just love the orangey/red fuzzy peaches and they smell so fresh even before they're cut open. But when you pit them, the flesh of the fruit is just as pretty as the outside.

The tart pastry was a perfectly pliable and smooth pastry with the addition of a little powdered sugar for sweetness. The edges were folded over to smooth it out and it made the side of the tart nice and thick.

I grabbed a few photos at home before I went to the concert for our picnic.  I don't have any photos of the tart cut and topped with  mascarpone cream. But trust me, it was decadent. And, we all had smiles on our faces....from the tart, the good music and great friends.

Afternoon Tea for Two Weeks

On our recent visit to England with Audrey, we vowed to try to find somewhere to have afternoon tea every day we were there. Audrey always has an afternoon snack, so going out for afternoon tea would allow us to find a place for her to have her snack and we could enjoy afternoon tea and scones each day and take a breather from sightseeing. For the most part we succeeded in having afternoon tea most every day and it ranged from the quaint tea rooms of Alfriston, the Pump Room in Bath to a café in Caerphilly. I was surprised to discover that most places didn’t offer fruit scones with raisins, so we primarily had plain scones and always tried to get the sinfully good clotted cream and strawberry jam to go along with it. Here are some photos of the scones we enjoyed. The English strawberries with cream were fantastic at the Pump Room. But, my favorite is still The Singing Kettle in Alfriston.