Strawberry Tres Leches Cake

Tres Leches is one of C's favorite desserts. So when we had an abundance of strawberries from our two picking trips to Froberg Farms, I decided to try and incorporate strawberries into the dessert. Turns out there is not a single recipe in cyberspace that adding strawberries to Tres Leches, other than as a garnish. I decided that macerating the strawberries and layering them between the cake and whipped cream would be a good solution. It was! My parents recently moved to Texas and had never tasted Tres Leches before, so I brought it with us to a barbecue at their new home. This cake was a comedy of errors during preparation. Our extra refrigerator decided to die and while I was trying to make the whipped cream topping, I was also trying to consolidate our freezer (we had to throw out so much food.) The stress of the situation kept making me forget about the mixer. So I made butter. Twice. Third time was the charm and the cake was done. And it was also decided that we would be eating turkey from the freezer that week, whether I wanted to or not.

Strawberry Tres Leches Cake

4 large eggs, separated
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons whole milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Milk topping:
1 14-ounce can evaporated milk
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
½ cup heavy cream

Strawberries:
1 pound strawberries
1 tablespoon sugar

Frosting:
2/3 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar

To make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease and flour a 9 by 9-inch baking dish and set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer, beat the egg whites on low speed until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually with the mixer running and peak to stiff peaks. Add the egg yolks 1 at a time, beating well after the addition of each.

Sift together the flour and baking powder and add to the egg mixture, alternating with the milk. (Do this quickly so the batter does not lose volume.) Add the vanilla. Bake until golden, 30 minutes.

To make the milk topping: In a blender, combine the evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream and blend on high speed. Whisking works as well and doesn't dirty your blender

Remove the cake from the oven and while still warm, prick the cake with a skewer several times and pour the cream mixture over it. Let sit and cool to room temperature.

Hull the strawberries. Crush the strawberries and toss with one tablespoon sugar. Set aside for 5 minutes. Spread the strawberries over the cooled cake.

Whip the cream and powdered sugar until soft peaks form. Top the cake with the whipped cream. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 4 hours or overnight.

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