lemongrass coconut tres leches cake

Lemongrass is amazing; it has the flavour of lemon, but in the most soft and delicate and slightly herbal way without the tartness and acidity of lemon lemon.

And so for the absolute longest time I’ve had this dream. This dream was to make a lemongrass cake that actually tasted of lemongrass.

It involved some of steeping milk with lemongrass that then went into the cake batter, or mincing lemongrass very finely or trying to grind dried lemongrass into a powder. None of them were particularly successful.

But this one was. In this adaptation of a tres leches cake, I infused the milk mixture used to soak the cake with lemongrass and it came out beautifully–well, at least in the soaked parts of the cake.

I love the taste of lemongrass with milk; lemongrass pairs well with rich and creamy things (lemongrass ice cream is very pleasant, by the way), and so this was perfect.

This recipe is adapted from the rosewater tres leches cake from Morning Brew & Tea, an absolutely delightful blog (and a bit healthier than my own, I do suspect). Keisha’s recipe uses coconut milk instead of evaporated (convenient as we didn’t have any evaporated) and a lovely match with the lemongrass I added. You can see another brilliant coconut tres leches cake from Prachi at the the Divine Spice Box–oh my, the mango!

I mixed a bit of shredded coconut into the whipped cream for texture, and used the toasted black sesame for taste–both help ground the cake which is otherwise quite light!

After reading Lili’s own work with the tres leches cake, I also realized where I went wrong–this should be done in a springform pan as it allows the milk to drain. I noticed my cake was considerably more soggy on the bottom, so next time I would be sure to use a springform. Not to mention, I could also pour the milk overtop a couple times more as the middle of the cake was most definitely not soaked!

The tres leches cake challenge is being hosted by Lili of Lili’s Cakes. So many lovely variations on the tres leches cake, so please do come by!

Lemongrass coconut tres leches cake: Borrowed and moderately adapted from Morning Brew & Tea. I really like this sponge cake; whisking the egg yolks into the whites wasn’t something I’d done before, but it turned out quite nicely and the baking powder ensures a consistent rise even when I somehow manage to flatten the egg whites with my abysmal folding abilities.