About This Baileys Tres Leches Cake
Baileys tres leches cake is a boozy, Irish twist on tres leches cake, a classic Latin American dessert! This recipe starts with a light and airy Genoise sponge cake. I then instruct you to pour a combination of three different types of milk—sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, AND Baileys Irish Cream—over the cake. Overnight, the cake soaks up the three milks, becoming super moist and flavorful. To top it all off, we make homemade whipped cream and garnish the cake with cocoa and espresso powder.
For more unique sheet cake recipes on Hummingbird High, check out my Sheet Cake Recipe collection! Popular recipes include this White Texas Sheet Cake Recipe For 9 x 13 Inch Pan and this vibrant pink Guava Chiffon Cake with Guava Cream Cheese Frosting.
What does Baileys tres leches cake taste like?
Baileys tres leches cake tastes like classic tres leches cake—that is, vanilla with the milky, slightly caramelized flavors of evaporated and sweetened condensed milks—but with a boozy kick. The boozy kick comes from the Baileys Irish Cream in the tres leches soak. It gives this tres leches cake subtle cocoa, coffee, and whiskey flavors!
Recipe Troubleshooting and FAQ
Help! My egg whites wouldn’t whip to peaks. They stayed liquid even despite me whipping for ages! What did I do wrong?
Did you start with a clean and dry mixer bowl? Egg whites won’t whip if your mixer bowl has any kind of liquid, fat, or soap residue leftover from an earlier step in the recipe or from storage. That’s why in the recipe, I instruct you to whip the egg whites first—this ensures that the bowl is clean and dry!
Help! The cake shrank. What did I do wrong?
Absolutely nothing. This is totally normal! The sides of my sponge cake pulled away from the pan once cooled and left about ¼-inch of space between the cake and the pan. Don’t worry about it!
Help! My cake wouldn’t absorb the Baileys tres leches soak. What did I do wrong?
Okay, there are several things that could be causing this issue:
You overwhipped the egg whites for the cake batter.
First things first: did you overwhip the egg whites? The recipe instructs you to whip the egg whites to stiff peaks. Check out the baker’s notes below on how to test if you’ve whipped them to the right consistency. However, if you go too far, the egg whites will eventually come out VERY stiff and almost clumpy. You can see what that looks like in this Martha Stewart YouTube video. Food52 also has a great article on how to diagnose overwhipped egg whites, and what to do if you’ve gone overboard. But for this recipe, you can tell you’ve overwhipped them if it takes you a long time to fold them into the rest of the ingredients (and despite all your work, you still have some stubborn lumps that won’t go away).
You didn’t cool the cake completely before soaking.
Second of all: did you wait until the cake was completely cooled before soaking? I mentioned above that you’ll need to cool the cake completely before soaking it in the Baileys tres leches soak. Doing so gives the cake a sponge-like quality that allows it to soak all the liquids completely. If you soaked the cake while it was still warm, there’s a chance that the structure hadn’t set fully and will never be able to because of the soak! Also, your cake might be too soggy and I’m sorry.
You poured the Baileys tres leches soak into the cake too quickly.
Third: in the recipe below, I instruct you to pour the Baileys tres leches soak slowly over the cake, a quarter cup at a time. I also instruct you to wait and allow the milks to fully soak before pouring the next batch. Why? If you pour everything in too quickly, the cake won’t have time to absorb any of it. You’ll end up with a fair amount of soak in the bottom of the pan!
That being said, you can help the cake absorb the Baileys tres leches soak more quickly. How? First things first—poke the top of the cake with a LOT of holes. It should look ugly and pockmarked by the time you’re through with it. After pouring the soak over the cake, use an offset spatula to spread it gently across the cake, helping push the liquid into the holes. Repeat this process every time you pour soak over the cake.
It’s normal to have a little bit of leftover soak at the bottom of the pan.
And finally: how much leftover soak are we talking about here? If the cake absorbed 80% of the liquid and you’re only left with a thin layer of milk in the pan, don’t panic. That’s totally normal. In fact, this quality is actually desired in some tres leches cake recipes!
Can you freeze tres leches cake?
Yes, but only the cake. Specifically: you can make the sponge cake, cool it completely, tightly wrap it in plastic wrap, and freeze for up to 3 months. To serve, thaw the cake overnight in the refrigerator, then follow the recipe’s instructions for soaking the cake and topping with whipped cream.
DO NOT SOAK OR TOP THE CAKE BEFORE FREEZING—you’ll end up with a sad, soggy mess if you do.
Best Recipe Tips
- When making the cake, you’ll need to prep your eggs by separating them into whites and yolks. The most efficient way is to crack each egg one at a time into a bowl, separate the yolk from the egg white, and pour the egg white into the bowl of the stand mixer. Why? You’ll be whipping those egg whites in the recipe—might as well save yourself a bowl!
- My take on the tres leches cake recipe below is unique in that I instruct you to whip your egg whites first. Many recipes instruct you to first whip the egg yolks, then clean and dry the bowl and whip the egg whites. Why? If you fail to clean the bowl after whipping the egg yolks, the egg whites don’t whip up (learn why in the Troubleshooting section below)! But this isn’t an issue if you whip up the egg yolks AFTER you whip up the egg whites. There’s no need to clean the bowl or whisk in between each whipping session, either!
- You’ll notice that the recipe instructs you to whip the egg whites to “stiff peaks” and the whipped cream to “soft peaks”. The best way to determine this texture is to do a test with the whisk attachment. Dip the tip of the whisk into the mixture, remove it, and quickly turn it upside down. If the mixture is too soft, it will slide off the whisk, and you’ll need to keep whisking. If the mixture has a cloud-like structure but with peaks that lose their shape, you’re at the “soft peaks” stage. Continue whisking, then test again. If, the next time you turn the whisk upside down, the peaks hold, you’re at the “stiff peaks” stage.
Get the Recipe: Baileys Tres Leches Cake Recipe
Ingredients
For the Cake:
- 1 ½ cups (6.75 ounces or 191 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ cup (4 ounces or 113 grams) whole milk
- 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 6 large eggs, separated into whites and yolks
- 1 cup (7 ounces or 198 grams) granulated sugar
For the Baileys Tres Leches Soak:
- 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk
- ½ cup (4 ounces or 113 grams) Baileys Irish Cream
For the Whipped Cream:
- 1 ½ cups (12 ounces or 340 grams) cold heavy cream
- ¼ cup (1 ounce or 28 grams) confectioners' sugar, sifted if necessary
- cocoa powder, for garnish
- espresso powder, for garnish
Instructions
For the Baileys Tres Leches Cake
- First, make the cake. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously spray a 9 x 13-inch cake pan with cooking spray.
- Mix the dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a small liquid measuring cup or pitcher, whisk together the milk and vanilla.
- Whisk the egg whites. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites. Whisk on low speed for 1 minute, then turn the mixer up to medium-high. Whisk until stiff peaks form, 3 to 4 minutes. Use a wooden spoon or ladle to carefully scoop the egg whites into a medium bowl—be careful not to deflate them!
- Whisk the egg yolks and sugar, then add the milk. Pour the egg yolks into the stand mixer bowl (there's no need to clean the bowl!) and add the sugar. Whisk on medium until pale yellow and doubled in volume, 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce the mixer to low and slowly pour in the wet ingredients, whisking until just combined.
- Fold in the dry ingredients, then fold in the egg whites. Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the egg yolk mixture, then use a rubber spatula to fold in the ingredients until just combined. Scoop half of the egg whites over the mixture and fold them in with the spatula. Repeat with the remaining egg whites and fold them in until no major lumps of egg white remain and the mixture is just combined. At this point, it will be a very light and fluffy cake batter.
- Assemble the cake for baking. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and use an offset spatula to smooth the top.
- Bake the cake. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the top of the cake bounces back when gently pressed and a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out with a few crumbs attached. Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack completely before soaking. The cake will shrink as it cools—this is normal!
- Assemble the cake for soaking. Once the cake is cool, make the soak and assemble the cake. Use a fork or a skewer to poke holes all over the top of the cake.
- Make the soak, then soak the cake. In a large liquid measuring cup or pitcher, whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and Baileys Irish Cream. Slowly pour the mixture over the cake, a quarter cup at a time, to allow the milks to soak fully between each pour. It's likely that the cake will stop absorbing liquid about two-thirds of the way through the mixture. This is normal! It will seem like too much liquid, but trust the recipe! Loosely cover the cake with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours, preferably overnight, to allow the cake to absorb the milks.
- Before serving, make the whipped cream. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine the cream and confectioners' sugar. Whisk on medium-high speed soft peaks form, about 3 minutes.
- Assemble the cake for serving. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the whipped cream over the cake. Use an offset spatula to make large, sweeping motions across the whipped cream to spread it over the cake. Garnish with cocoa powder and espresso powder.
- Serve and store. Serve immediately after garnishing with whipped cream. The Baileys tres leches cake will keep, covered loosely in plastic wrap, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Notes
- Cake recipe adapted from A Cozy Kitchen by Adrianna Adarme
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Weeknight Baking:
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Over the past several years of running Hummingbird High, I kept a crucial aspect of my life hidden from my readers: I had a full-time, extremely demanding job in the tech world. In my debut cookbook, Weeknight Baking, I finally reveal the secrets to baking delicious desserts on a tight schedule.
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