Divine Tres Leches Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcakes:
- 1 ½ cups (213 g) all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup (113 g) salted butter
- 1 cup (212 g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Milk Mixture:
- 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
Topping:
- 1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream
- ⅓ cup (38 g) powdered sugar
- Dash of vanilla extract
- Fresh berries, for topping
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard muffin tin with foil liners (don't use standard paper liners; the milk mixture will soak through). This recipe makes about 16 cupcakes so you can line another 4 muffin cups in a second pan as well or bake a second batch.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Set aside.
- In a microwave-safe bowl (you can also do this in a pan on the stovetop), melt the butter. Whisk in the sugar and continue whisking until the mixture is no longer warm to the touch. Whisk in the egg, buttermilk and vanilla until well-combined.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and whisk until the batter is mostly lump-free without overmixing (maybe 20-30 strokes of the whisk total).
- Portion the cupcake batter evenly in the tins. Don't overfill! For this recipe, in particular, it is best to have the baked muffins sit slightly below the rim of the muffin cup to help when adding the tres leches mixture. I use my #20 cookie scoop to portion the cupcake batter - about 3 tablespoons batter, or slightly less, per muffin cup.
- Bake the cupcakes for 14-16 minutes until the tops spring back lightly to the touch.
- Remove the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely. When cool, use a thin skewer to poke holes all over (and I mean, all over) the cupcake. Go crazy, but don't poke all the way through the cupcake liner.
- For the milk mixture, in a large liquid measuring cup or in a blender, whisk together or blend the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and heavy cream. The milk mixture needs to be drizzled or spooned over the top of each cupcake one at a time. I find it works best to pour the milk mixture in batches into a squeeze bottle (pictured below) and slowly squeeze the milk mixture onto the top of the cupcake while simultaneously pressing the milk mixture into the top of the cupcake with an small offset spatula. This tedious step can probably be sped up by using a thicker skewer to poke the holes. I use a fairly thin skewer which means the milk mixture doesn't soak in quite as quickly. You'll want to use about 2-3 tablespoons of milk mixture per cupcake (depending how soft and soaky you want them).
- Refrigerate the cupcakes for at least an hour, or cover lightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate up to 12 hours.
- When ready to serve (up to two hours ahead of time but not before that), prepare the topping by whipping the heavy cream, powdered sugar and vanilla extract together until stiff peaks form. Dollop
- the sweetened whipped cream on top of each cupcake and finish it off with a fresh berry. Serve immediately or refrigerate for 1-2 hours until serving.
Notes
Leftover Milk Mixture: just a heads up that there will be left over milk mixture. There's no way around it since the ingredients aren't sold in smaller cans, but since many of you have been irked about leftover components in recipes before, I thought I'd let you know that in advance. You can definitely halve the milk mixture recipe and then decide what to do with the half leftover cans of sweetened condensed and evaporated milk (of course you could just double or triple the cupcake recipe and then, problem solved).
Don't Skip This Step: I know the milk mixture part of the recipe (spooning it onto the cupcakes) seems a bit labor intensive, but these cupcakes are so worth it. Turn on Netflix or have your kids tell you entertaining stories to pass the time. The method I outline in the recipe (and pictured below) really is the fastest way I've found to do it. I use a really thin bamboo skewer to poke the holes but I'm guessing if you use something thicker, the milk mixture will soak in more quickly (just take care not to poke holes so big that the cupcake falls apart).