Day 75: Tres Leches, Four Ways

This afternoon I found myself tromping around in Pilsen, a Mexican neighborhood in a southwest part of Chicago, and stumbled across Bombon Bakery, a charming local place to buy cakes and Mexican confections; check out its website here. I've never ordered Tres Leches cake -- or Pastel de Tres leches, or "cake of three milks" -- at a restaurant so I bought four of them to take back to the office for a sampling. In the photo clockwise from the strawberry: strawberry, coffee, pina colada, and caramel. Each cost $3.95 and the nice lady threw in a bunch of plastic spoons and packed up the cakes in a sturdy box. They are, without question, very pretty. I must say, however, that I don't really get the appeal: The cake is basically sponge cake layered and soaked, so says Wikipedia, in evaporated milk, condensed milk, and whole milk or cream; the entry is readable here. The cake is rarely a butter cake, continues the Wiki entry, because it's supposed to start dry, with air pockets, so as to soak up the liquids. As someone in my office rather tartly commented: "It's the tiramisu of Mexico."

This is a tough call but in the cruelly binary structure of Yummy or Yucky, if I wouldn't eat something again it must be declared: YUCKY.