To any of you who know me personally, you know that I generally DESPISE the stupid cupcake craze/trend/frenzy/silliness…..need I go on?  All that being said, there is a time and place for them.  In certain situations the tiny, individually wrapped vessels lend themselves to a useful out come.  Enter-Tres Leches cupcakes.

If you know what 3 Leches is, then you can see where I’m going with this.  A white cake, that after being baked, is soaked in a mixture of 3 milks (sweetened condensed, evaporated, and 1/2 & 1/2).  You poke a million holes into the cake once it’s cooled, and pour the mixture over the cake, so it soaks it all up.  Here’s why the cupcake form works for this: The paper cups hold all that tasty milk in, no dripping, no spilling, and no dry cake from milk running out everywhere (there is a saturation point here people.)  It beats over baking normal cupcakes and having them turn out mouth-suckingly dry.  The only down side I found was how much of a pain-in-the-ass it was to get those damn cakes to suck in all the milk-took a couple hours of slowly pouring and re-pouring it over them.  Next time I might tear a small, single hole off the top and just pour straight through that.  Or I could use a syringe-if it works for a hunk of meat…… Said hole just gets covered by frosting anyway.

Speaking of frosting, I didn’t stick with tradition, I went with chocolate.  I’ve had this craving for 3 milk cake and chocolate frosting for months, that’s what sparked this whole escapade (side note: every time I think of that word, Janet Jackson pops into my head.  Thank you pop culture.)  It was good, and as my friend Levi said, “I like that you didn’t pile it on 2 1/2″ thick.”  Which, incidentally, is my other huge problem with cupcakes.  Why, do they pile on frosting like a beehive hair do?  You can’t pick up the tiny cake to eat it, let alone take a bite out of it without A smooshing your nose in frosting or B knocking the entire thing onto the floor/ground.  It’s like knocking your scoop of ice cream off the cone when you were 4 and watching it melt on the hot, summer pavement.  Goodbye little bubble gum balls.

So there you have it, aside from these 3 Leches cupcakes, I don’t really get any others.  Thank you to all my guinea pigs who I made eat one.  And to my very good friend who said “This is one of the loveliest things I’ve ever eaten” you are a rock star!  Granted she said that about the Meyer lemon tart I gave her 6 weeks ago, and she took the mini lemon meringue pie to the bathroom in order to eat it in private.  Guess I’m doing something right.

3 Milk Cupcake