Cerveza Tres Leches

With a work BBQ coming up, I took the opportunity to try making a new dessert! Tres Leches came up as a favorite dessert among some of my coworkers but it did not grab me at first as a good BBQ dessert. However, it got me thinking and with a quick search for Mini Tres Leches and my recent purchase of jam jars, I was sold on the idea.

My mom has made Tres Leches (“three milks”) multiple times and I have always enjoyed this sweet and creamy dessert but have never tired making it myself. The recipe I found included rum so that made it easy to make a beer substitute. Death By Coconut from Oskar Blues would have been the perfect beer for this dessert but it’s not in season right now 🙁 I will have to make this dessert again!

I ended up using the Tent Pole Vanilla Porter by Bonfire Brewing and it was a great choice! I went out on a limb getting a beer I had not tried before but it did not disappoint. It had nice notes of vanilla and when cooked down with some sugar it made a great sweet, syrupy replacement for the rum. I also added some non-reduced beer in place of part of the evaporated milk and in the cupcakes because the more beer the better! 🙂

This dessert had subtle hints of the Vanilla Porter but was not overly beer-y so even non-beer lovers would enjoy! Cheers!

Cerveza Tres Leches
~Adapted from Williams-Sonoma recipe

Cupcakes:
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
3 eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup whole milk
1/4 cup beer, at room temperature
1 t vanilla extract

Milk Mixture:
1 can sweetened condensed milk
6 oz (1/2 can) evaporated milk
6 oz of beer, not reduced
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup beer, reduced down to a 1/4 cup with 1/4 cup of sugar

• Start by reducing the beer so that it has time to cool. I put a 1/2 cup of beer in a pan on medium heat. Once it was warm, I added a 1/4 cup of sugar and reduced it by half (1/4 cup). Set aside and let cool.
• Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 12 standard muffin pan with cooking spray.
• In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the eggs, milk, beer, and vanilla extract and mix well.
• Spoon the batter into the muffin pans filling it about 2/3 full.
  Note: If using jam jars, going a little smaller will make it easier.
• Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. I believe it took about 15 minutes.
• While the cupcakes are in the oven, combine all the liquids in a large liquid measuring cup (4 cup). Pour a little milk mixture in the bottoms of the jars.
• Remove the cupcakes from the oven and poke each of them several times with a skewer or something similar.
• Remove the cupcakes carefully and put them in the individual jars. I only had jam jars (4 oz), which I made work but a wide mouth half pint jar would probably be the perfect size for this dessert. For some of the cupcakes that were a little large, I trimmed their golden brown edges and then they fit right in.
• Pour more milk mixture over the tops of the cupcakes. Some of them would soak through fairly quickly and for those I would add more.
• Once the cupcakes look like they have a decent amount of liquid, put the lids on and throw them in the fridge. I made these the night before the BBQ. In the morning I added more milk mixture to the tops and then kept them in the fridge until party time 🙂

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