I Know What You Did at The Check Out Line

I seem to be wacky things lately. First, I copied down a recipe off a magazine at the doctor's office. Ok, well apparently, it runs in the family because my mother and sister do it too. But then, as if trying to stand out more than I already do, I had to do another thing; memorize a recipe in a magazine at Albertson's check out line.

I have to tell the truth. I hate those check out lines. Why? Because they are always littered with tabloids usually displaying lewd pictures, and I hate that my children have to see those. So we always tell them to wait for us at the other end of the check out line. At Meijer's they had those coin-eating horses that we could redirect the kids to, but here, there ain't much choice. But the kids seem to know why we always tell them to go, so they do.

I have to tell another truth. i love those check out lines. Why? Because they are adorned with home and cooking magazines usually displaying scrumptious food pictures, and I love that I could pick them up and browse through them while hubby and kids unload the cart and wait to pay. I especially love it when the line is long, though many times, I've had to cut my reading short because customers are coming in behind me. At times I get the question,

"Are you in line?"

I know. I'm annoying.

But this time, I did what I never thought of doing before. I was browsing through this cooking magazine whose name I don't even remember, and I my greedy eyes landed upon a luscious cake. I fell in love. Head over heels. I beckoned for S to come and help me out. I don't remember how it came about, but I whispered surreptitiously to her,

"Ski, you think you can help me memorize this recipe?"

I read and reread the recipe. A cake recipe is quite familiar to me now, and one that involves egg separation, I am also familiar with, so memorizing the recipe was a cinch. It was mostly common sense with a little baking know how. The ingredients was the challenge. So we ended up memorizing the ingredients. Right there and then. I looked up to see hubs completing his payment.

"Hurry, S. You think you got it?"

And like a good obedient daughter, she obeyed me. I could almost see her the clockwork in her brain. She slowly nodded.

As we walked out the store, I quickly rummaged in my messy handbag, looking for a notepad and pen (which I always have anyway). Aha! And on the way to the parking lot, I quickly scribbled the memorized ingredient list, thereby creating quite a sight to behold: an abaya clad woman, face covered, not looking where she was going, hastily scribbling something on a notepad while walking towards her car, following her husband and children. Oh well, who cares? I already am a sight to behold with the niqab anyway.

So for quite some time, the recipe sat in my handbag, untouched. My fervor had dissipated, though it was at the back of my mind. Then a few weeks ago, we bought heavy whipping cream because I wanted to make Swiss rolls. But I only used one carton. The other 1 pint carton was still sitting in the fridge, awaiting a gruesome death at the hands of a neglectful owner. Well, neglectful I am not, for I finally rescued that carton of heavy whipping cream from such an end !

With the help of my lovely children, I made the Strawberry Tres Leches. That reminds me. Getting the strawberry jam for this was not straightforward. I try to avoid non organic berries now, because they are one of the fruits that are high in pesticide. So when we set out to buy jam for the cake filling, we had a dilemma. H, my son, was with me at the time. he forgoed jam for bread and we bought an organic raspberry jam for the cake instead of strawberry because they were out of strawberry. And with that, I present ...

Strawberry Tres Leches Cake

For the cake:
5 eggs separated
1 C sugar, divided 3/4 C and 1/4 C
1/4 C milk
1 ts vanilla
1 1/2 C flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

For the milk combo:
2/3 C milk
2/3 C sweetened condensed milk
2/3 C evaporated milk

About 1 C strawberry/rasberry jam, slightly warmed for easy spreading

1/2 - 1 C heavy whipping cream
1-4 Tbs powdered sugar

1. Preheat over to 350 Fahrenheit and grease a 9 in springform pan
2. Beat the yolks with the 3/4 C sugar until light colored and fluffy
3. Combine the flour with baking powder and mix well, then add it to the egg mixture alternately with the milk in 2-3 additions, beating well after each addition. That basically means, add 1/3 of the dry ingredients, then mix well, stop, add 1/2 of the milk, mix well, stop, add another 1/3 of flour mixture, mix well, stop, add rest of milk, mix well, stop, add remaining flour mixture, mix well
4. In another bowl that is free of grease or egg yolk, beat the egg whites till foamy and then gradually, add the 1/4 C sugar until stiff peaks form.
5. Plop one peaked spatula of egg white onto the egg yolk mixture and fold in gently. Then fold in the rest of the whites until thoroughly combined
6. Bake 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean
7. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Then invert onto cooling rack and cool completely
8. Now this is the fun part: Like a crazed person, poke as many holes as you can in the cake from the top with a cake tester or or skewer. Have a go at it! But just be sure not to tear the cake apart while you're at it. You just want to make enough holes so the milk combo can soak through the whole cake.
9. When you're done a-pokin', place the cake in a container with sides that is slightly bigger than the diameter of the cake. Then combine the 3 milk and pour onto the cake.
10. Refrigerate overnight.
11. By the next day, the cake should be drenched and have soaked up all the milk solution. Invert onto a large plate and prepare to slice the cake horizonatally into half. I used a serrated knife and did some guesswork. It was a little tricky because the cake is so soaked that when I placed my hand on the top while cutting, it wet my hand, so I used a cake insert just so my hand won't get wet from the milk.
12. Spread the jam over the bottom half of the cake and carefully, very carefully (since the cake is wet and can break easily) place the top half inside part down over the jam.
13. Beat the heavy cream with powdered sugar until it looks like whipped cream. Be careful not to overbeat or it will curdle. If it does, you can rectify this by adding more heavy cream, but if you don't have anymore on hand, you're in big trouble.
14. Spread whipped cream on top of cake. Best eaten chilled.



I had made a Tres Leches cake before, but it was a different recipe. I think we all like this one better. Now the next time I'm at a check out line, I know what to do.

Something Milky, Something Cold, Something Mexican...

I have eyed this recipe for the longest time, but I always put it back in the recipe box, intending to try it some 'other' time. So there it sat, in my recipe box, among my other handwritten recipes, lovingly yet arduously copied manually, by hand, at night, after the three kiddoes entered la la land. This was during the times when I was a young mother of three children under the age of 3. My days were exhausting, but my interest in baking, cake decorating, sewing, and cooking was equally high, thereby pushing me to check out cookbooks upon cookbooks from the public library. On the couch I would sit, and I would pick out recipes that appealed to me. Like a good student, (alhamdulillah my college days were over then) I sat and copied the recipes on index cards, which now fills two big 4 x 6 index card containers and 1 3x5 index card container. There are still some recipes that I haven't yet tried to this day, but alhamdulillah I did end up trying this recipe; the Three Milks Cake: Tres Leche, a dessert famous in Latin America. Although it took me about 5 to 6 years to finally try it.

Who would have thought that a simple cake doused generously in three kinds of milk, slathered with whipped cream, and refrigerated, would taste so divinely like ice cream?

Tres Leche: 'Three Milks' Cake

1 1/2 C cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 C sugar

1/2 C butter softened
5 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/3 C milk

Milk Syrup:

1 C sweetened condensed milk

1 C evaporated milk

1 C whole milk

Topping:

1 C heavy cream

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare a 7 x 11 x 2 cake pan by lining it with parchment paper and greasing the bottom and side with butter and then coating lightly with flour. Or you could just spray the lined pan with Baker's Joy.

Cake:

1. Sift cake flour and baking powder
2. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla till foamy
3. Fold in dry ingredients alternately with milk in three additions
4. Bake on middle rack for 30 minutes
5. Cool in pan on rack 20 minutes
6. Invert onto platter (I used a 13 x 9 pyrex dish, slightly bigger than the cake)
7. Pierce cake all over with fork. Let cool completely.

Milk syrup:

1. Whisk to combine; condensed milk, evaporated milk, and whole milk
2. Pour over cake and refrigerate covered at least 3 hours(the milk will be absorbed by the cake and seep in through the pierced holes)

Topping:

1. Beat heavy cream till it thickens
2. Add sugar and vanilla till stiff peaks form
3. Slather topping over cake when ready
   

It may look like a normal butter cake with whipped cream as topping, but trust me, it doesn't taste like one. It tastes better!

Cook's notes:

• Unfortunately, I don't remember where I attained this recipe, but it's not my own.
• Make sure the platter has sides, because the milks will require containment before they're absorbed by the cake.
• Make sure you do use the pan size specified above, because if you use a bigger pan, your cake will be too thin, and if you use a smaller pan, your cake might rise and deflate, or overflow. In my Joy of Cooking, there is a chart for the capacity of different cake pans, that is really a boon when it comes to wondering if a different sized cake pan will do for a recipe that specifies another. Unfortunately, that book is already safely packed away, but there are some resources on the net. Here is a list of some of them:

Home Baking Association

Baking 911 : Pan Size Substitutes

Cake Pans