Tag Archives: Recipe

Cinco de Mayo: Cuatro Leches Cupcakes

Posted on by
Reply
cuatro leches cupcakes
OK, so I’m going to share with you an extra special, top secret, super-d-duper delicious recipe you’re gonna love!  Cuatro Leches cupcakes!  Tres Leches is a Nicaraguan desert that is popularly served in many different Latin American restaurants whether they be Nicaraguan, Cuban, Mexican or Argentinian, etc.  Latins love sweets and this is SWEET.  Tres Leches literally translates to “three milks” in Spanish.  What makes mine cuatro leches, or “four milks”, is that I have added a fourth milk, Dulce de Leche, as the icing.  (The traditional icing for this desert is whipped merengue.)   I’ve also made mine extra special by adding my little Cuban touch of coconut.  I’ve substituted a cup of half and half with a cup of coconut milk in the tres leches mixture.  Oh, yeah 😉
Ingredients: 
tres
Cake:
  • Coconut Supreme cake mix or, if you can’t find Coconut Supreme cake mix, use French Vanilla cake mix and add 1 tsp of coconut extract.   Ingredients as indicated on package directions.
The three milks:
  • 1 can of sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 can of evaporated milk
  • 1 cup of coconut milk.
Icing:
  • dulce de leche.
Directions: 
  1. Prepare cupcakes following package directions.  Most boxed mixes say that they yield 24 cupcakes but I find that they yield a perfect 18.  ** Important note for these cupcakes:  You must use very thick/ foil lined cupcake wrappers.  Regular, thin paper wrappers will not be able to hold up to the weight and moisture of the “tres leches” we will be adding later.
  2. While these are baking, in a separate bowl combine milks and whisk until combined.  Pour into any container with a lip to make easier to pour later.
  3. While cupcakes are still warm, cut a cone out of the top with a small knife and lift top.
  4. Fill this hole gently to the top with the milks and allow to soak into the cake. Replace top and repeat to all cupcakes.
  5. Ice with Dulce de leche and top with some cute picks as I’ve done here…. Mariachi mustaches for Cinco de Mayo!  Arrrrrrriba!tres 10

Irish Creme Berry Trifle… Let the holidays begin!!

Posted on by
Reply

20130628_131203

The Holidays are a time for being with family, enjoying your friends and… eating. A LOT. And, as much as I love eating, I have to say that I almost enjoy baking and preparing holiday foods even more. I always loved helping my mom in the kitchen when I was younger and some of my fondest memories are those that include the amazing smells of certain dishes that MUST be served yearly in our household. Now, I love making those recipes myself (or heading over to mom’s and helping her out like the good old days).

Although I have been sworn to secrecy and have promised my mother to never divulge the details of our most prized recipes, there are some yummy things I can share with you. Namely, those things that I have created myself and have become NEW traditions. I’ll be honest, I can bake a mean cake from scratch by following a recipe but, I’m not a chemist so I’m no good at coming up with recipes on my own. I take recipes that already exist, add a few things, omit others and put my spin on them. A lot of times, they are “semi-homemade” but they are never “semi-good”… They’re always totally amazing 😉

The first yummy recipe I’m going to share with you is almost not a recipe at all. Its more like a set of directions on how to put together something that is both gorgeous and delicious: Irish Crème Berry Trifle. You are guaranteed “ooooohs and aaaaaahs” every time you bring this to the table and it is the desert that inspired my friend Kris to name me her “most Martha Stewart-y friend I know.”

20130628_124354

Ingredients:
1 box of prepared yellow cake mix (follow directions of your favorite brand)
Irish crème
I pint each: Blue berries, raspberries and strawberries
Small cool whip
1 box of vanilla Jello pudding prepared (I add a teaspoon of vanilla extract to make it special)
Raspberry jam

Directions:
1. Slice the prepared cake into rectangular pieces and place one layer on the bottom of your trifle dish. (yes, you need to invest in a trifle dish to make this recipe. They’re really inexpensive and easy to find at discount stores like Marshalls, TJ Max, Homegoods or Ross.)
2. Drizzle ¼-1/2 cup of Irish crème over the cake so that it gets absorbed.
3. Spoon and spread raspberry jam over cake.
4. Carefully spoon pudding on top, making sure that the layer is clean at edges of trifle dish.
5. Layer berry mix
6. Layer of cool whip
7. Repeat until you are at the top!
8. On top of your last layer of cool whip, decoratively place some berries.

Let set over night so that the irish crème has time to absorb and the flavors meld.
Gorgeous!!

20130628_131148

Let the holidays begin!! More festive recipes to follow.