Chocolate Tres Leches Cake

Hello baker friends! Let’s make a delicious dessert today! Chocolate Tres Leches Cake, which would be perfect for any special occasion!

chocolate tres leches cake

This Chocolate Tres Leches Cake is seriously so easy to make, you will be impressed!

In this post I will show you step-by-step how to make this scrumptious, moist Chocolate Tres Leches Cake!

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It will impress all your guests, friends, and family!

chocolate tres leches topped with whipped cream chocolate curls and raspberries

To make the Chocolate Tres Leches, here are some simple steps you can follow:

steps on how to make chocolate tres leches cake
  1. Pour hot coffee over chocolate and butter.
  2. Whisk until combined and chocolate and butter have melted.
  3. Add sugar and whisk. Set aside to let it cool slightly.
  4. In a measuring cup, mix milk, eggs, and vanilla together.
  5. Pour milk and egg mixture in the bowl.
  6. Whisk to combine
  7. Add sifted dry ingredients to the batter and whisk until incorporated.
  8. Pour in a greased and floured 8×8″ pan.
steps on how to make chocolate tres leches cake

If you don’t want to use hot coffee in this recipe, you can use hot water instead. You can either add espresso powder (1/2 teaspoon) to the dry ingredients to make up for it, or leave it out altogether.

The coffee helps enhance the chocolate flavor and richness in the cake, but it’s not mandatory, so can be definitely left out.

Once the cake is baked and cooled down, you can make the chocolate milk mixture to pour over it.

You only need chocolate (either chopped chocolate, or chocolate chips), milk, condensed milk, and evaporated milk.

how to make the milk mixture to pour on chocolate tres leches cake
  1. Heat up milk until hot, don’t let it actually come to a boil. Turn the heat off before it start to boil. Then pour it over chocolate and whisk until chocolate has melted entirely.
  2. Add condensed milk to the chocolate.
  3. And then add evaporated milk, and mix.

Don’t forget to only pour this mixture over the cake when the cake is cooled.

steps on how to pour milk on chocolate tres leches
  1. Poke holes on the cake with a fork.
  2. Pour chocolate milk mixture over the cake. Make sure to pour specially in the middle, because the cake tends to absorb more around the edges.

After you pour the liquid over the cake, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rest in the fridge for at least 6 hours or overnight.

chocolate tres leches cake

I don’t know about you all, but Tres Leches has got to be one of my favorite cakes, and Chocolate Tres Leches Cake oh my! It was a dream!

chocolate tres leches cake

Now let me tell you about the chocolate curls I put on top of the cake.

For years, and years I have tried to make chocolate curls! I’ve watched youtube videos by chocolatiers, I have tempered my chocolate, I have tried it all! My curls would always turn out less than appealing. They would break, shatter, I could never get the chocolate in the right temperature.

After a while, I sincerely stopped trying!

Until I found this post by my friend Jennifer from Beyond the Butter. Seemed way too easy and good to be true!

But since it was only going to take me 10 minutes, I decided to give it a go.

And voila! Amazing results! And the chocolate curls turned out amazing, and were a beautiful addition to my Chocolate Tres Leches Cake!

chocolate curls

Have you ever attempted to make Chocolate Curls? Check out Jennifer’s post, I promise you will be surprised with how easy and effortless her method is!

Here are some more recipes you might like if you like this Chocolate Tres Leches Cake:

chocolate tres leches cake

As always, thank you for reading my blog! It means the world to me! Tag me on instagram if you make one of my desserts! I hope you loved this Chocolate Tres Leches Cake as much as I did! Much love!

chocolate tres leches cake

Chocolate Tres Leches Cake

Camila Hurst
Chocolate Tres Leches Cake is a chocolate sponge cake soaked in sweet chocolate milk mixture, topped with whipped cream. So delicious!
5 from 3 votes
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Resting Time 6 hours
Course Dessert
Cuisine Latin
Servings 12 servings
Calories 260 kcal

Ingredients
  

Chocolate Sponge Cake
  • 1/3 cup hot brewed coffee* 78 ml
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter 3 oz, 85 grams
  • 1/3 cup chocolate chips or chopped chocolate (2 oz, 56 grams)**
  • 2/3 cup whole milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup granulated sugar 7 oz, 200 grams
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour 3.37 oz, 95 grams
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder 1.41 oz, 40 grams
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
Chocolate Tres Leches
  • 2/3 cup whole milk 157 ml
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped chocolate (3 oz, 85 grams)
  • 1/2 cup evaporated milk 118 ml
  • 2/3 cup Magnolia Brand condensed milk 157 ml
Whipped Cream topping
  • 1 cup heavy cream 236 ml
  • 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions
 

Chocolate Sponge Cake
  • Grease and flour a 8×8” square cake pan. Pre-heat the oven to 350ºF.
  • Mix the hot coffee, with butter, and chocolate. Whisk together until the chocolate and butter are melted. If the chocolate and butter aren’t melted, feel free to place the bowl in the microwave for 15 second intervals, whisking in between until the mixture is smooth.
  • Let it cool down slightly.
  • Whisk milk, eggs, and vanilla together in a measuring cup.
  • Pour it over the coffee, butter, and chocolate mixture.
  • Add sugar to the bowl with the liquid ingredients.
  • Whisk to combine.
  • Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.
  • Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients.
  • Whisk until a smooth batter is formed, without lumps.
  • Pour it over prepared pan.
  • Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the cake.
Chocolate Tres Leches
  • Heat up milk until very hot, but don’t let it boil. Turn it off the heat before that.
  • Pour it over chocolate, whisk until chocolate melts.
  • Add evaporated milk and condensed milk.
  • Whisk all milks and chocolate together until smooth and incorporated.
To assemble
  • Let the cake cool down completely. Leave the cake inside the cake pan.
  • Once cake is completely cool, poke holes all over the cake with a fork.
  • Pour Chocolate Tres Leches mixture over the entire cake.
  • It will seem like a lot of liquid, but don’t worry, the cake will soak all of it up.
  • Cover the cake pan with plastic wrap. Place it in the fridge for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight.
Whipped Cream
  • Whip cold heavy cream and sugar with an electric mixer for 2-3 minutes, until soft and firm peaks form.
  • Add vanilla and mix briefly to combine.
  • Use a spatula to spread the whipped cream over the cooled cake.
  • Slice, serve, and enjoy!
Storage
  • This cake will store well in the fridge for up to 4 days.

Notes

*Coffee: You can use hot water instead of the hot coffee. If using water instead of coffee, you can either add 1/2 teaspoon of espresso powder to the dry ingredients, or just leave it out. The coffee helps enhance the chocolate taste and richness, but it will be completely fine without it.
**Chocolate: I used bittersweet chocolate, feel free to use whatever kind of chocolate you prefer, just don’t use unsweetened.
Keyword cake, chocolate

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12 Comments

  1. So my friend and I tried making this over Zoom together but we kept having to leave the cake in for longer and longer because the consistency would not harden. I ended up cooking mine for a total of 3 hours and it’s still muddy and gooey. I’m going to pour the milk combo over it and leave it in the fridge overnight to see if any sort of magic happens, though I doubt it will change. Any ideas as to why this happened? My friend bakes almost every day at home and also works at a bakery and she can’t figure out what went wrong especially since it happened to both of us. Oddly enough, both of us used 1 or 2 different ingredients based on what we had so it’s strange for them to both come out the same way. (Nothing major, I used almond milk instead of whole milk, and she used an egg substitute) its possible that these changes caused this but it’s odd that it would give us both the same effect.

    Would love some feedback as to why this might have happend so we can try again. Thanks!

    1. I can see why the egg substitute wouldn’t work too well, but with the milk it shouldn’t be too bad. I don’t know what could have happened, I’ve made this cake three times, and it worked fine all three times. Sorry I am not sure how to help you here. But definitely shouldn’t have to bake the cake for 3 hours. I will try to bake this again this week and see what’s going on.

  2. Hi! This looks delish, planning to make it for my daughter’s birthday. Could you please tell
    1. What is the baking temperature for this cake?
    2. Can brewed coffee be replaced with instant coffee?

    Thanks for the help

    1. Hello, by baking temperature for the cake do you mean the cake’s internal temperature or oven temperature?
      Oven temperature would be 350F, and the cake will be baked when it’s internal temperature is 200F.
      And yes you can totally use instant coffee instead. Id add one teaspoon.

    1. in recipes that take baking soda you always want to use natural cocoa powder instead of dutch processed if possible, because they don’t react well together.

      1. There are many recipes that call for the use of Dutch process cocoa and the use of baking soda together. I was just looking to find out what your specific recipe used to be consistent. Thank you for getting back to me.

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