Got Leche?

After three months of planning, I am finally getting together with some friends that I haven't seen in way too long today.  I am super excited to see my girls but almost equally excited to entertain.  As Monica said on Friends, "I am always the hostess".  I love having people over as I love the excuse it gives me to cook great food that I might not normally make for just me and Jason.  We decided on Mexican food and I have been craving my chimichangas for quite a while so that was a no brainer.  I struggled to come up with a dessert.  I wanted something that fit with my Mexican theme and normally I would have made some churros or sopapillas but since I have given up my fried foods that was out.  Then I remembered a Good Eats I had seen a while ago where he made a Tres Leches cake so I thought I would give that a try.  I searched on foodnetwork.com and found an even better recipe than the on Alton made on his show, tres leches coconut cupcakes with dulce de leche buttercream frosting!

I started with the cupcakes yesterday afternoon as they need a few hours to cool.  Here's the cupcake part of the recipe:

• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup coconut milk

Preheat the oven to 350.

In a mixing bowl, cream the shortening, butter and sugar until light and fluffy then add the egg yolks one at a time.  Once the eggs are all mixed in add the vanilla.  In a separate bowl, sift the dry ingredients together.  Add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk to the first bowl (butter, sugar, egg mixture).  In yet another bowl (this recipe does require a lot of dirty dishes) whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold the egg whites into the rest of the batter. 

 I used my large Pampered Chef cookie scoop to scoop the batter into paper lined cupcake pans.  This made about 21 cupcakes for me. 

Once they were baked I let them cool for a little bit while I mixed up the tres leches part of the cupcakes. 

I whisked together a half cup of each coconut milk, evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk.  I put this mixture into a food syringe and injected it into the cupcakes while they were still warm.

Then I let the cupcakes cool overnight.  This morning I got started on the frosting.  It was by far the most time consuming frosting I have ever made but it was worth every minute of it in the end.  Here's the ingredients for the dulce de leche frosting:

• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 14 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 425.

The frosting starts by putting the sweetened condensed milk into a glass pie plate and covering with foil.  I put the pie plate into a roasting pan and added enough water to come about halfway up the side of the pie plate.  I put this whole thing in the oven for an hour and 15 minutes (check about halfway through as the pan may need some more water).  When the time is up remove from the oven and let it cool a little bit.  Once it was cooled off a bit I stirred it up until it was smooth.

 Then in a sauce pan I whisked together the sugar, salt and cornstarch and added the water.  I whisked this over medium heat and added the dulce de leche (the cooked milk) and brought the mixture to a boil.  Let this boil for one minute, whisking the whole time.  Then I added a little bit of this mixture to the egg yolks to bring them up to temperature.  If you add it all at once you will end up with scrambled eggs in your frosting (gross!).  Once the eggs were up to temperature I added the rest of the mixture and put this in the fridge for about an hour until it was cooled.  Once the dulce de leche mixture was cool I beat the butter until soft in a mixing bowl and then added the cooled mixture to it.  When that was well mixed I added the powdered sugar and mixed some more.  I would suggest adding some additional powdered sugar as my frosting was a little thin but it tasted amazing.  I put the frosting in a piping bag with a large star tip and piped it on top of the cooled cupcakes.

When all the cupcakes were frosted I added a little toasted coconut flakes to the top for a little texture, and because it looked pretty.  I haven't been hungry enough to try one yet but my guinea pig, Jason, said they were pretty good.