The Best Trileçe (Turkish Milk Cake)

Turkish Tres Leches or Trileçe, is a Turkish take on the classic Mexican dessert, Tres Leches. A light and spongey cake is soaked in a sweet decadent mixture of three milks, then topped off with whipped cream. The Turkish twist is adding a final layer of sweet and buttery caramel. This recipe is "the best" simply because anyone who's tried it has fallen in love with it!

What Makes Tres Leches Turkish?

You may be familiar with the popular Mexican Tres Leches cake that this Turkish version is modelled after. The Spanish name "tres leches" means 'three milks' and refers to the mixture of three types of milk that the cake is soaked in.

Most commonly, its a mixture of evaporated milk, condensed milk and whole milk. The cake component is a very soft and spongey cake that is perfect for soaking up the three milk mixture. If you have never had a tres leches cake, the best way to describe the texture is that of a moist (in the best way possible) cake that is light, decadent and creamy.

Did you know? Tres Leches originated in Mexico and was named so because of the 'three milks' (evaporated, condensed and whole) that are used to soak the light fluffy cake. It is Mexico's national dessert!

Now while Turkey is mostly known for its baklava, this dessert is just as popular, always served at Turkish cafes and restaurants, sometimes incorporating local flavours like mastic for a unique Turkish take. In Turkey and Albania, the twist is adding a creamy caramel sauce on top of the whipped cream. The caramel adds a perfect buttery, caramelized flavour that is different from the original Latin American tres leches.

If you love these types of desserts, you also have to try my Pistachio Tiramisu, which features lady fingers soaked in coffee and flavoured with Pistachio cream.

Ingredient's You'll Need to Make This Recipe

There are four main components to this dish but, but each component is fairly straight forward to make. Let's go through it together!

• Cake: The cake base is a simple light and fluffy sponge cake. The eggs are whipped separately to ensure that the cake is as light as possible, and combined with sugar, vanilla, milk and flour.

TIP: You may have noticed that there is no source of fat (apart from the egg yolks) in the cake. This is because this allows us to have a cake with lots of air pockets to soak up that delicious three milk mixture.

• The Three Milks: This to me is the magical trio of ingredients. Evaporated milk, condensed milk and whole milk combine to transform the light sponge cake. The whole milk and evaporated milk ensure it stays super creamy and the condensed milk gives it that perfect milky sweetness.

• Whipped Cream: We need a 35% heavy cream in order to whip it up to the perfect fluffy, creamy consistency. A tiny bit of powdered sugar sweetens the whipped cream just a touch.

• Caramel: To make the perfect caramel, sugar, butter and heavy cream are cooked together to the perfect syrupy consistency to top off this Turkish Tres Leches.

How To Make Turkish Tres Leches

Step 1: Bake the cake. We start by separating the egg whites and the egg yolks. To do this, crack the egg over a bowl and use each half of the shell to pass the yolk back and forth until the egg whites have separated and fallen into the bowl.

Whip the egg whites on high speed until they start to thicken before adding a tiny bit of lemon juice. Continue beating the egg whites until stiff peaks form. It is so important that there is no trace of fat or grease in your mixer bowl. Otherwise, the egg whites will not whip up nice and fluffy.

Tip: Separate each egg separately into a small bowl before adding it to your mixer bowl. This way if the yolk breaks before being separated only one egg will be sacrificed (and scrambled for breakfast), rather than the whole batch.

In a separate bowl, the egg yolks are whipped with the vanilla and sugar until thickened, pale and creamy. The milk is then mixed in by hand until it is well combined.

Sift in the flour and baking powder into the yolk mixture and fold until there are no more clumps of flour that can be seen.

Be careful! Try not to over mix the batter at this stage. When flour is over mixed in a batter, the result can be a tough and dry cake. We definitely want to avoid that!

Now we need to combine the egg whites with the rest of the batter. The best way to do this is to add about ¼ of the whipped egg whites to the batter. Mix it in fairly well, but again, do not over mix. Add in the batter to the rest of the whipped egg whites and continue folding.

Folding in the egg whites allows us to keep as much of the air that we whipped into the egg whites as possible. This ensures the cake comes out light and fluffy with lots of little air pockets. Your batter should look something like this, with no visible streaks of egg whites.

Lightly grease an 11 by 7 inch baking sheet with butter and pour in the batter. You will notice a lot of bubbles and air pockets in the batter - this is exactly what you're looking for. Bake for 30-35 minutes at 330F until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Step 2: Make the caramel. While the cake is baking we can move on to the caramel sauce. Start by pouring the sugar into a thick bottomed saucepan. This is important as we want to have a pot that will provide even heat distribution. Pour the sugar into the saucepan and place over medium high heat.

As the sugar starts to melt, take a spatula or wooden spoon and push the sugar from the middle to the outer edges, bringing the melted outer edges in. This helps to allow the sugar to melt evenly. If you notice small clumps, that's fine. Once it is completely golden we can move on to the next step.

Tip: This is not the time to check your phone or step out of the kitchen. You need to watch that sugar like a hawk! Caramel goes from perfectly golden to burnt very quickly, make sure you keep stirring and do not step away.

Once your sugar is melted and golden, take it off the heat. Add in the butter while whisking vigorously. It will bubble and steam but just keep whisking. Once the butter is combined, place it back on the heat and add in the cream while continuing to whisk.

It will continue to steam and bubble and clump up and will almost seem like it's ruined. Keep whisking! It will almost immediately smooth out. Let it continue to boil for another minute before pouring it into a glass jar to cool to room temperature.

Step 3: Make the milk mixture. Probably the easiest part of this recipe is the three milk soaking mixture. Simply combine the evaporated milk, condensed milk and whole milk together in a large measuring cup and mix until combined.

Once the cake is beautifully golden and a a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, you can remove it from the oven. Allow it to cool for just a few minutes, then poke holes all over with a fork. This allows for maximum absorption of the three milk mixture. You can also run your knife along the edges to release the cake, which makes it easier to cut it later.

Slowly pour over the three milk mixture, ensuring you go around the cake as evenly as possible.

You may feel like there is too much liquid, but the cake will soak it all up. Next, cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour or overnight.

The cake can be made ahead up to this point. When ready to serve, you can whip the cream. For the best texture, ensure the whipping cream is nice and cold. Whip the cream with the powdered sugar until soft peaks form.

Spread the cream over the cooled cake with a spatula or the back of a spoon, and smooth it over the entire cake.

Pour over the room temperature caramel. The caramel should be the perfect pouring consistency. Now traditional Trileçe cake has a webbed caramel pattern on top. I tried to do that, but it was hard to avoid mixing the caramel and the whipped cream. So I went for the easier, yet still very pretty alternative: swirl the caramel with a toothpick.

To achieve the webbed patter, you'd need to reserve some cream and add it to a piping bag. Then pour the caramel over the cream layer and even it out. Then pipe lines of cream across the pan, evenly, then drag the lines with a toothpick.

The way I have done it is much easier. You just use a toothpick to keep switling the caramel and cream together until you have a lovely marbled effect. Now you are ready to slice and serve!

How to Make Ahead and Store Turkish Tres Leches

If you are making this for a gathering, the cake can be made and soaked the night before. The cake will continue to soak up the milk mixture and can stay in the fridge for up to 5 days, tightly sealed with plastic wrap.

The caramel can also be made ahead and stored in an airtight jar. It can be left out on the counter for a few days. To prolong its freshness, you can store in the fridge for a few weeks, then simply warm up the caramel in the microwave in 15 second increments until it has melted and become syrupy again. Just make sure it's not too hot when you are pouring it over the cream. If it's too hot it will melt the whipped cream topping so cool it back down to room temperature if that happens.

Leftovers can be stored for in the fridge for up to a week. It has never lasted more than a day at my home, though.

Other Recipes You Will Love

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