Chocolate Tres Leches Cake is a decadent chocolate cake that soaks in a delicious chocolate milk sauce. “Tres Leches” means a “three milks” – a traditional cake served with blend of 3 different rich sweet milk. The cake is usually a sponge cake which make sense you want a sponge to soak up all of that yummy milk sauce.
A new twist on an old favorite
But our Chocolate Tres Leches Cake is not a sponge it is more of a classic rich chocolate cake. Also, I chose to use a ring mold with a hole in the center so I could pour the chocolate milk sauce into the center hole so I could dip strawberries in the sauce.
You will need a 5-6 cup mold for this recipe – and just so you know a Bundt cake pan is a 12 cup mold. Most people have Bundt cake molds, but you may not have a smaller ring mold. I have never tried doubling this recipe to see if I could get it to work in a Bundt pan – if you try a Bundt pan, let me know in the comments below. Or you could simply make the cake in a 9×13” pan
The cake is so wonderfully moist that you can make it a day ahead of time and add the milk on the next day.
You can see from the photos that pouring the milk onto yout Chocolate Tres Leches Cake can be a little messy. I recommend that you use a cake plate that is deeper than the one I am showing in the photos. Sometimes photographers make decisions based on what props look like, as opposed to the practicality of a dish. I did have quite a time cleaning up all of the sticky leftover chocolate!
You can opt to top your Chocolate Tres Leches Cake with berries or with powdered sugar for extra flavor. But this fudgy cake has it all, even without the extra garnishes.
Chocolate Tres Leches Cake is decadent and rich
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 50 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 16 servings 1x
Ingredients
Cake:
¾ cup butter (172g)
1 cup water (240ml)
3 large eggs
½ cup sour cream (120ml)
2 tsp. vanilla extract (10ml)
2 c. all-purpose flour (250g)
1 ½ cup granulated sugar (300g)
½ cup brown sugar (100g)
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (75g)
1 ½ tsp. baking soda (6g)
1 tsp. baking powder (4g)
1 tsp. kosher salt (4g)
Chocolate soaking milk sauce:
14oz. can condensed milk (414ml)
5oz. evaporated milk (148ml)
5 oz. whole milk (148ml)
1/3 cup cocoa powder (35g)
2 tbsp. butter (30g)
1 tsp. vanilla extract (5ml)
Fresh strawberries for garnish
Instructions
To make the cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F/176°C. Grease and flour a 5-6 cup cake mold and set aside.*
In a small saucepan, combine butter and water. Heat over medium heat until the butter is melted. Remove from heat and set aside.
In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Set aside.
In a separate large bowl, whisk together flour, sugars, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Pour in the butter mixture a little at a time, using an electric hand mixer to combine. Add the sour cream mixture and mix until just combined. Do not overbeat.
Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for 50 minutes, until a toothpick comes clean out of the center.
Allow the cake to cool for ten minutes before removing it from the baking pan. Cool completely.
To make the milk:
Combine the condensed milk, evaporated milk, whole milk, cocoa powder and butter in a small saucepan. Heat over medium heat while whisking constantly. Cocoa lumps should break up while whisking. Once the mixture begins to simmer, lower the heat, and continue to whisk constantly for 10 minutes. The mixture should become very thick. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool for about 10 minutes. Stir in the vanilla extract.
Whisk the mixture one more time and then pour over the cooled cake. Serve immediately with fresh strawberries.
Notes
*You can also use two 9” (23cm)round cake pans or a 9″x13″ (23cm x 33cm) rectangle pan but reduce the baking time to 30 minutes.
This is a perfect, dark chocolate recipe for Valentine’s Day. The cake is moist even before pouring on the leches. It is beater-licking batter. Neither cake or milk are too sweet. I do caution to thoroughly grease your bundt pan, as my cake was difficult to release.
Thank you so much Debbie! Glad you enjoyed it!
This is a beautiful cake with a wonderful deep chocolate flavor and perfect crumb. The chocolate milk sauce is very nice, but the cake is delicious without it as well.
I will use this recipe again and again; I’m actually baking it for a third time this month today. What a find!
Aw, thanks Scarlett! It’s old fashioned but so good! Enjoy! 🤠❤️
Rave reviews from my friends! Beautiful and delicious. I only had a 9″x 13″ pan. The fluted pan just adds so much beauty to the cake. Please advise as to the dimensions of your pan. Most descriptions only list the dimensions and not the cup capacity. Is your pan an antique?
Hi, I went back and remeasured that mold. It is 8 cups when full to the brim. Sometimes for food styling I cheat a little bit and don’t add all of the batter so I can get a prettier cake. It’s an antique mold with a non-standard capacity. I have a few 6 cup molds too. I simply bake as directed and cut the baking time in half. After the half way point I check every 10-15 minutes with a toothpick to see if the cake is fully baked. Cupcake molds can make use of the extra batter. Beautiful cakes require a lot of fudging! Antique molds too!