Tres Leches Cake

Tres leches cake is a Latin American sponge soaked after baking in a mixture of three milks, evaporated, sweetened condensed and whole milk or cream, until it is saturated and cold, then topped with whipped cream or meringue and often a few strawberries or a dusting of cinnamon. Mexico and Nicaragua both claim it and neither can prove it; the dish spread across the region in the mid-twentieth century along with canned milk, and recipes printed on the labels of evaporated and condensed milk tins did much of the work. It belongs to the same family as the trifle and the European milk-soaked cakes, but the three-milk soak and the fact that the cake is served chilled are its own. It is the standard birthday and celebration cake across Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, sold by the slice in bakeries and by the whole tray for parties.