Cream, condensed milk and milk set with gelatine over a layer of biscuits and left in the fridge. Nothing is baked and nothing is a cake: this is the no-bake tres leches.
This is not the cake
Tres leches means two different things and they share almost nothing beyond the name.
The cake is a sponge: flour, eggs, sugar, baked, then punctured all over and soaked in evaporated milk, condensed milk and cream until it is saturated. It is served in slices and it is one of the great desserts of Latin America.
This is the other one. No oven, no sponge, no flour. A layer of biscuits in a glass dish, and over them a mixture of cream, condensed milk and milk set with gelatine. It goes in the fridge and comes out set.
Both are good. Anyone arriving here expecting to bake a sponge should know before they start.
Cool the gelatine
The first three steps are a sequence and skipping the middle one causes the most common failure.
The gelatine dissolves in cold water, that water is brought to a boil so nothing is left undissolved, and then it has to cool. Only after cooling does it go into the blender with the three milks.
Poured in hot onto cold cream, gelatine sets the instant it lands. What you get is fine rubbery threads suspended through an otherwise smooth dessert, and there is no way to remove them.
It takes longer than you think
The recipe says it can take up to a day and that is not padding. A single deep dish of gelatine-set cream has to lose its heat from the middle outwards, and the fridge only works on the surface.
Individual glasses set in a few hours. A large dish is an overnight job. Press the surface to test it: springy and dry, with the dessert pulling slightly from the sides, means it is ready.
The biscuit layer
Laid dry in the bottom of the dish, or moistened first, which the fourth step offers as an option.
Dry biscuits stay crisp and give a distinct base you can cut through. Moistened ones soften into the cream and blur the line between the two layers, which is closer in feel to the soaked sponge of the actual cake.
Milk biscuits are the default. Oreo makes it darker and sweeter; Milo biscuits push it towards chocolate.
More cold desserts
- Passion fruit dessert — the same gelatine method, sharper.
- Chocolate pudding — set with cornstarch instead.
- Banana mousse — whipped and folded.
- Grape dessert — another fridge set.
Three Milks Dessert FAQ
No, and that is worth being clear about. A tres leches cake is a sponge, baked and then soaked in three milks. This is a refrigerator dessert: a layer of biscuits with a gelatine-set cream poured over it. No oven, no sponge.
Cream, condensed milk and ordinary liquid milk. The classic cake usually uses evaporated milk as the third; this version uses cream and plain milk.
Hours, and the recipe says it can take up to a day. A deep dish of gelatine-set cream needs a long time for the middle to cool as well as the edges. Make it the day before.
Press the surface with a clean finger. It should spring back without leaving a dent, and the dessert should pull very slightly away from the sides of the dish.
Your choice, and it changes the dessert. Dry, they stay crisp underneath the cream. Moistened, they soften into something closer to a cake layer, which is nearer to what a tres leches tastes like.
To dissolve it completely. Then it has to cool before it meets the cold milks, or it sets into fine threads on contact and they never blend out.
Milk biscuits are what the recipe suggests, and it also allows Oreo or Milo. Anything plain and firm enough to hold a layer under the cream.
📖 Recipe
Postre de Tres Leches (No-Bake Three Milks Dessert)
Imprimir Pin ComentarIngredients
- 1 can of cream
- 1 can of condensed milk
- 1 cup liquid milk
- 1 packet of unflavored gelatin
- 1 pack of milk biscuits (Oreo or Milo biscuits work too)
Notas
Instructions
- Dissolve the unflavored gelatin in a cup of cold water.
- Bring that water to a boil and then let it cool.
- Once it has cooled, blend it with the three milks: the condensed milk, the cream and the liquid milk.
- Meanwhile, lay a base of biscuits in a glass dish. You can moisten them a little first if you like.
- Pour the blended mixture over the biscuit base and refrigerate until it has set. This can take up to a day.
- Decorate with meringue, whipped cream or a sprinkle of Milo when you serve it.
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