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Home » Recipes » Sweets » Chocolate Tres Leches Cake is decadent and rich

Chocolate Tres Leches Cake is decadent and rich

Published: Feb 6, 2023 · Modified: Feb 6, 2023

Sugar sprinkling over Chocolate Tres Leches Cake

Chocolate Tres Leches Cake is a decadent chocolate cake that soaks in a delicious chocolate milk sauce. “Tres Leches” means a “three milks” – a traditional cake served with blend of 3 different rich sweet milk. The cake is usually a sponge cake which make sense you want a sponge to soak up all of that yummy milk sauce.

A new twist on an old favorite

But our Chocolate Tres Leches Cake is not a sponge it is more of a classic rich chocolate cake. Also, I chose to use a ring mold with a hole in the center so I could pour the chocolate milk sauce into the center hole so I could dip strawberries in the sauce.

woman sprinkling sugar over Chocolate Tres Leches Cake
woman ladling chocolate over cake

You will need a 5-6 cup mold for this recipe – and just so  you know a Bundt cake pan is a 12 cup mold. Most people have Bundt cake molds, but you may not have a smaller ring mold.  I have never tried doubling this recipe to see if I could get it to work in a Bundt pan – if you try a Bundt pan, let me know in the comments below. Or you could simply make the cake in a 9×13” pan

The cake is so wonderfully moist that you can make it a day ahead of time and add the milk on the next day.

You can see from the photos that pouring the milk onto yout Chocolate Tres Leches Cake can be a little messy. I recommend that you use a cake plate that is deeper than the one I am showing in the photos. Sometimes photographers make decisions based on what props look like, as opposed to the practicality of a dish. I did have quite a time cleaning up all of the sticky leftover chocolate!

You can opt to top your Chocolate Tres Leches Cake with berries or with powdered sugar for extra flavor. But this fudgy cake has it all, even without the extra garnishes.

chocolate pouring over cake
hand placing raspberry on cake
chocolate ladled over Cake
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Chocolate Tres Leches Cake is decadent and rich

Print Recipe
  • Author: Melissa Guerra
  • Prep Time: 15 minutes
  • Cook Time: 50 minutes
  • Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
  • Yield: 16 servings 1x

Ingredients

Scale

Cake:

¾ cup butter (172g)

1 cup water (240ml)

3 large eggs

½ cup sour cream (120ml)

2 tsp. vanilla extract (10ml)

2 c. all-purpose flour (250g)

1 ½ cup granulated sugar (300g)

½ cup brown sugar (100g)

¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (75g)

1 ½ tsp. baking soda (6g)

1 tsp. baking powder (4g)

1 tsp. kosher salt (4g)

Chocolate soaking milk sauce:

14oz. can condensed milk (414ml)

5oz. evaporated milk (148ml)

5 oz. whole milk (148ml)

1/3 cup cocoa powder (35g)

2 tbsp. butter (30g)

1 tsp. vanilla extract (5ml)

Fresh strawberries for garnish

Instructions

To make the cake:

Preheat oven to 350°F/176°C. Grease and flour a 5-6 cup cake mold and set aside.*

In a small saucepan, combine butter and water. Heat over medium heat until the butter is melted. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Set aside.

In a separate large bowl, whisk together flour, sugars, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Pour in the butter mixture a little at a time, using an electric hand mixer to combine. Add the sour cream mixture and mix until just combined. Do not overbeat.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for 50 minutes, until a toothpick comes clean out of the center.

Allow the cake to cool for ten minutes before removing it from the baking pan. Cool completely.

To make the milk:

Combine the condensed milk, evaporated milk, whole milk, cocoa powder and butter in a small saucepan. Heat over medium heat while whisking constantly. Cocoa lumps should break up while whisking. Once the mixture begins to simmer, lower the heat, and continue to whisk constantly for 10 minutes. The mixture should become very thick. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool for about 10 minutes. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Whisk the mixture one more time and then pour over the cooled cake. Serve immediately with fresh strawberries.

Notes

*You can also use two 9” (23cm)round cake pans or a 9″x13″ (23cm x 33cm) rectangle pan but reduce the baking time to 30 minutes.

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Filed Under: Recipes, Sweets Tagged With: cake, chocolate, cocoa, dessert, Recipe, strawberries, strawberry, sweet, valentines

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Melissa Guerra is an 8th generation Texan, born and raised on a working cattle ranch in South Texas. She is a self taught culinary expert and food historian, specializing in the food ways of the American continent, especially Texas regional, Mexican, and Latin American cuisine. Read More…

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