Coconut Tres Leches cake

This is my other Cinco De Mayo surprise. First, I will be (re)making a yellow cake.

2 3/4 cups cake flour
4 t. baking powder
3/4 t. salt
1 1/2 c. sugar
4 eggs
3/4 c. softened butter
1 cup whole milk
1 t. vanilla


Sweetened condensed milk
Evaporated Milk
Coconut Milk (just to have some fun)

In a small mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt, then set aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine softened butter, 1 cup of sugar and four egg YOLKS (reserving the whites for later) until nice and creamy. Add the flour mixture into the creamed butter and eggs, then add 1 cup of whole milk and the vanilla and mix until smooth. Remove into separate bowl and rinse mixer bowl well. Then beat the 4 egg whites, slowly adding in the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar until stiff peaks from in the merengue. Then, carefully fold into the batter, stirring as little as necessary..

Pour into 9x13 baker heavily sprayed with pam (or greased with butter or crisco). Bake at 350 degree for about 30-35 minutes. When finished baking, allow to cool completely.

In a large bowl combine the three milks, the coconut milk, the evaporated milk, and the sweetened condensed milk. Poke the cake repeatedly across the surface with a fork, then pour the milk mixture onto the cake allowing it to soak down into the depths of the cake.

1 cup Whipping Cream
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 t. vanilla

In a large mixer bowl mix the whipping cream with the sugar and vanilla until spreadable whipped cream forms, then spread over the cake. Refrigerate long enough to cool, then slice and serve with fresh fruit.

Homemade Oreos

Admittedly, this recipe has been around for a long time. I never have made them before, and have barely even eaten them when offered simply because I'm not a fan of shortening, and shortening frosting gives me the heebie jeebies. 

Alas, yesterday my son's second grade teacher spent some time extolling the merits of homemade oreos to her class, and by the time he got home from school he was quite certain that there was nothing else on the face of the earth that he could ever eat unless it was homemade oreos. And I adore my son and his big blue-green eyes with black lashes and dimples in his cheeks, so I said yes.

Which left me to google and hope for the best. I settled on the recipe by smittenkitchen. I take some liberties with the recipe, as I always do, so mine wasn't exactly like the original, and I liked the results a bit more for my tastes, especially on the cream filling. 

Luckily, I had everything on hand so our adventure in oreo-ing began.

To make the cookies:

1 1/4 cups of flour

1/2 cup unsweetened baking cocoa (I used Nestle's Special Dark cocoa, which I am convinced is the best cocoa ever)

1 t. baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 to 1 1/2 cups of sugar (I went with 1 1/4 cups, I love my chocolate dark and almost bitter, my kids, not so much)

1/2 cup plus an additional 2 T. of softened butter

1 egg

For the filling:

1/4 cup softened butter

1/4 cup shortening (yuck)

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 t. vanilla

2 T. whole milk (or whipping cream, but I was out)

In the bowl of my mixer I poured the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar and mixed it up well. 

Next I blended in the butter until it was a mealy texture with the butter blended well into the flour mixture.

Finally, I tossed an egg in and let the mixer run until a soft mass of dough had formed. It ends up being similar to play dough in consistency, and it takes a few minutes with the mixture to get there.

I took small bits of dough, about a teaspoon and rolled them into balls. I baked them on my Pampered Chef round stone. If you don't have one, you can use another baking sheet, but parchment paper lining will likely be very useful.

They baked at 375 degrees for 9 minutes. When they come out of the oven the wafers have to sit for about twenty minutes to cool so they won't break. I also took my serving spatula and lightly smashed them to be more flat.

For the filling blend the butter and shortening with the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk. I whipped mine for about 3 minutes to get a really smooth thick frosting. 

Finally, take a spreader of some sort and spread each the frosting on half of the wafers, then sandwich them together and enjoy. They are delicious, and very sweet. The wafers really do taste like oreos, as opposed to the more "moon pie/whoopie pie" variety I have seen from other resources.

I think next time I make these (which may be today as I have enough of the frosting left over to fill another batch of cookies) I may add a bit of mint to the frosting and some green food coloring. You may also like to add some almond extract to the frosting as well, if you want a more "gourmet" vibe than the traditional vanilla butter and sugar flavor.