Friday, May 5, 2017

Anna Sultana’s Tres Leches Cake and May’s Full Flower Moon


Time to party with some great food.
Too busy to make Alfajores or Churros?
No problem.
Ma’s Tres Leches Cake is easy to make.

Tres Leches Cake (three milks cake) is popular throughout the Americas, and in many parts of the Caribbean.
It is thought to have originated in Mexico, but the idea of a cake soaked in liquids is European, as in the English Trifle and Rum Cake, and in the Italian Zuppa Ingles and Tiramisu.

Wherever the idea came from… it’s another way to get more calcium rich dairy products into the kiddies.
And what Mom doesn’t like that?

Hints:

This cake can be baked ahead of time. 
Cool, top with milk mixture, then refrigerate up to 24 hours. 
Frost with whipped cream just before serving.

Store leftover sweetened condensed milk in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator for up to one week. 
The milk can be served over chopped fruit, a fruit dessert, such as a cobbler, or poured over a cereal, either cold or hot. 
It can also be stirred into a cup of hot coffee or tea.

Or you could use some leftover sweetened condensed milk to make 

Your friends prefer a dessert with a bit of a kick?
Serve Tres Leches Rum Cake.
Just add 
1 1/2 teaspoons rum extract to the cake batter and 
1 1/2 teaspoons rum extract to the milk mixture.

Sprinkle nutmeg over the cake just before serving for an extra bit of flavour.


                        Tres Leches Cake

Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan
Heat oven to 350° F 
Combine in a medium bowl
1 1/2 Cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 

Place in a large mixer bowl
1/2 Cup butter, softened
1 Cup sugar 
Beat until light and fluffy. 

Add one at a time
5 eggs 
Beat well after each addition. 
Blend in 
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla 
Add flour mixture, a quarter at a time, beating until blended after each addition. 
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. 
Bake 30 minutes. Test the cake by inserting a toothpick into the centre of the cake. 

While the cake is baking:
Pour into a medium bowl, stirring after each addition
3/4 Cup canned sweetened condensed milk
5 ounces evaporated milk
1 Cup milk  

When the cake is done remove it from the oven.
Leave the cake in the pan and pierce the cake with a fork at 1/2 inch intervals. 
You want a lot of holes in the cake to absorb the milk mixture.

Pour the milk mixture slowly all over the top of the cake. 
The milk mixture will be absorbed by the cake.
Refrigerate 1 hour, or until ready to serve. 

Before serving, place in a medium mixer bowl
1 1/2 Cups heavy cream
Beat until soft peaks form.
Frost cake with the whipped cream.

Be sure to refrigerate leftovers.


About the sky this week and next, thanks to the folks at The Farmers' Almanac…

May 6 - Get outside to view the Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower. The best viewing is between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., looking to the southeast. The Eta Aquarids get their name because their radiant lies within the constellation Aquarius, near one of the constellation’s brightest stars, Eta Aquarii. These showers come from the cosmic dust of Halley’s Comet. 
        Look for “Earthgrazers,” which are meteors that skip along the atmosphere like stones on a pond, in slow motion. These fireballs are quite a sight to behold, even if you only see one!

May 7 - Right after sunset, look to the southeast to see the waxing gibbous Moon pair up with Jupiter. It will be bright and spectacular! Then as darkness falls, look for the star Spica to come out below them both. On the 8th, the Moon will be directly to the left of Spica, with Jupiter above them to the right.
        Observers with binoculars will be able to locate Mars to the upper right of the brighter orange-hued star, Aldebaran. But Mars is still an easy naked-eye object at dusk — look for it in the west-northwest.

May 10 - Full Moon, 5:42 p.m. May’s full Moon is called the Full Flower Moon. Learn about the folklore surrounding May’s full Moon in this short Farmers’ Almanac video.

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