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. 

Creme Brulee

I gave my husband a choice of desserts for a Father's day treat and he chose creme brulee. I've wanted to make it for a while anyway and it's also one of my favorites. It's such a simple yet elegant dessert, but I have to admit that I haven't made it from scratch for some time. I guess I've just found it easy to get the creme brulee mix from the store when I was in a pinch for a dinner party dessert, but never again. I think there was a time several years ago when I didn't have as much patience and did not temper the eggs slowly enough where I ended up with a curdled creme. So, I took a deep breath, gathered the finest ingredients, researched recipes and tried again.

Don't worry - this cream is not burnt or dirty...it's vanilla. Instead of using a recipe that called for vanilla extract, I used a recipe with vanilla bean. I chose to use Madagascar vanilla beans that I got from a local gourmet food store. I scraped the vanilla bean seeds and added the vanilla bean itself and the seeds to the cream to bring to a boil.

While the cream became infused with fresh vanilla, I prepared the egg yolks and sugar.

The vanilla cream was SLOWLY added to the egg yolks to temper them so as to not cook them and end up with scrambled eggs.

This final mixture was added into my ramekins of various shapes and sizes and I baked them in a water bath with the water filled part way up the ramekins. They were placed in the oven VERY carefully so as to not get any water in the custard!

They cooked very nicely and I love the tiny specks of vanilla in the custard.

I added more sugar to the top and placed them under the broiler on high to burn the sugar and make that lovely crunchy sugar crust. I garnished it with a sliced strawberry and a dollop of fresh whipped cream. I had several extras which I wrapped with saran and foil to freeze. When I'm in a pinch for a dessert now, I can just thaw those, top them with the sugar and broil for dessert instead of using a mix!

Strawberry-Shortcake in a Cookie

I wanted to come up with something to bake for my dad for Father's day and received the "Cookie of the Day" e-mail from Martha Stewart for Strawberry-Shortcake Cookies. I don't always try the recipes or even save them to try later, but it's always fun to see different cookie ideas. Many of them are not traditional cookies, but it's always good to go beyond the everyday chocolate chip cookie and try something different. And, that's what I did.

My dad LOVES strawberry shortcake and could have it for dessert almost every evening (and most likely does most days). So, I thought it would be fun to try this recipe to give him his strawberry-shortcake in a cute little cookie.

I go to the farmer's market at least once a week and sometimes several times a week. With strawberries now in season, this was a good recipe to try. I also ended up buying over a flat of strawberries this past week, so there are a few more strawberry creations on their way. Fresh Michigan strawberries are SO much better than the grocery store variety shipped in from California or who knows where else. Even just having the flat of strawberries sitting out on the counter in my kitchen for a few hours, the sweet fresh smell was permeating through the house and brought me back to the days when my sister and I would pick strawberries as a summer job growing up.





This was definitely more of a biscuit-cookie and included the dry ingredient in which butter was cut in and then the fresh diced strawberries.



I made them without the use of the Kitchen aid as I didn't want to crush the strawberries. I cut in the butter with my pastry blender and then the cream was added. This was making the making of the shortcake and the whipped cream is just folded into it to give it a nice rich creamy flavor.




I used my cookie scoop to measure out the batter and place on the pan. I was careful not to have the fresh strawberries end up on the bottom of the cookie so they wouldn't burn while the cookie was baking. Before they went in the oven, I sprinkled some caster sugar (really fine sugar) on top which adds a nice glistening sugar and crunchy texture to the cookie.



Here are the cookies just out of the oven. They turned out nicely and tasted great, but were best warm. They also don't last too long with the fresh strawberry, but I suppose you could try freezing some, which I suggested to my dad if he wasn't able to finish them off very soon.




I have a few of the pretty strawberry quart baskets and chose to package them in there like the lovely quart of fresh berries used to make them.

Chocolate Truffles

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Valentine's day is approaching and I had mentioned I was in the mood to make chocolates. I was pushed over the edge with recent visits to a few chocolate shops and wanted to try my hand at making truffles again as it's been a few years since I've made them. They are pretty easy to make and only take a few ingredients. You start with chocolate and mix in hot heavy cream to make it creamy and more pliable to make the round truffles. The key is to melt down the chocolate appropriately so it's completely melted. Then, you pour it into the container (I had a purpose for the heart shaped pie plate my dad got me as a gift) and scoop it out to harden a bit more in the refrigerator. Then, you can roll them in cocoa and make the round truffles. They may not look perfect, but they taste perfect and are so smooth and rich. Pure indulgence! I packaged them in small boxes for a few special people. Happy Valentine's Day!