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| (not as pretty as Mel's but looks aren't everything) |
Ingredients:
for the cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups (7.5 ounces) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) butter
1 cup (7.5 ounces) granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk (I used the homemade 1 Tablespoon lemon juice + milk trick)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
for the tres leches mixture:
(Mel said there will be leftovers of this, so I halved it to begin with. I froze the rest of the sweetened condensed milk for future use and used the evaporated milk in place of some of the water in breadsticks the next week.)
14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk (I just eyeballed half the can)
12-ounce can evaporated milk (ditto about half)
1 cup heavy whipping cream (1/2 cup)
for the topping:
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup powdered sugar
Dash of vanilla extract
Fresh berries, for topping
Directions:
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 - I didn't read this note until after I had bought the foil liners "because they looked fancy" - phew!). 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. Mel uses #20 cookie scoop to portion the cupcake batter - about 3 tablespoons batter, or slightly less, per muffin cup. (I just used a measuring spoon three times, but I think mine could have been ever so slightly less full.)
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 she means, all over) the cupcake. Go crazy, but don't poke all the way through the cupcake liner. (I used a bamboo shish-kebab skewer.)
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. Mel finds it works best to pour the milk mixture in batches into a squeeze bottle (see her blog) 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. (I didn't have a squeeze bottle, so I used a soup spoon to drizzle the milk mixture over the poked cupcakes and then sort of pressed it in with the back of the spoon. I had no idea how much I was adding, but I think I did about 6 or so spoonful-presses per cupcake. Sometimes I lost track so I'm sure some got a little milkier than others. It's messy, and takes a while, but it's not hard per se.) 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. (I was a little worried about this "up to" limit because I milked mine around 9 pm and we weren't going to be eating them till 1 or 2 pm the next day (or possibly later?). They were fine! And the leftovers were great for a couple days more, actually, though they definitely got more soft and soaky as time went on.)
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:
I got to bring dessert to our Mother's Day lunch with the Blanchard clan. Mel had recently posted these lovlies on her blog, and I knew we were having Cafe Rio chicken salads/burritos/however you get that deliciousness into your face for lunch, so I thought they would be kind of the perfect companion. Well, they were. I love me some strawberry shortcake and these were like a super fancified version of that. Deeelish!
