avocado tres leches cake

Welcome to Singapore Noodles, a newsletter where I share recipes from my kitchen in the Netherlands. Archived recipes and other content can be found via the index. My cookbooks, Wet Market to Table and PlantAsia: Asia’s Vegetable Wisdom in Recipes, Stories, and Techniques, are available for purchase. Thank you for being here, and enjoy this week’s post! ✨ — Pamelia

AVOCADO CAKE

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. I love tres leches cake. Let me count the ways. One, it is guaranteed to be moist because the cake is drenched with a combination of three milks (evaporated, condensed, and regular) and left to soak overnight for maximal absorption. Two, it keeps terrifically in the refrigerator, making it the perfect do-ahead dessert. Three, for something so lush, it is very light since the cake is a sponge — the perfect dessert for warm weather.

I’ve published recipes of several versions of tres leches cake now: a soursop and passionfruit version in my first cookbook, and more recently a pandan version sprinkled with inti (a rich, caramelised mixture of grated coconut cooked with palm sugar). I want to introduce my new favourite: the avocado tres leches cake. At the sound of avocado in a cake, some of you might screw your face in disgust because you are so familiar with avocado in a savoury context. I, however, grew up associating avocado more with sweet treats in Singapore.

Fruit juice stalls are ubiquitous in hawker centres, and while my go-to was the ABC (a blend of apple, beet, and carrot), very occasionally, I’d splurge and get the more expensive avocado milkshake. This is a tall iced goblet of avocado blended with evaporated milk and condensed milk, and it is a drink enjoyed not only in Singapore, but also its neighbouring countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia. It’s absolutely delicious, the slightly vegetal and buttery quality of avocado enhanced by the sweet dairy. Unlike most popular avocado desserts you might encounter today — such as avocado chocolate mousse — the avocado is not hidden, but brought to the fore.

For the cake itself, I made the same sponge as the one in my pandan tres leches — you need the green sponge to convincingly sell this cake as an avocado cake. And besides, avocado goes beautifully with flavours of coconut and pandan. For the avocado cream that I used to frost the cake, I simply blitzed a perfectly ripe avocado with mascarpone and the barest touch of icing sugar. It frosted like a dream.

Not everything went to plan and the pan actually slid off the glasses it was resting on while cooling, so the cake had a huge dent. I was devastated but continued to soak and frost the cake as planned, and was pleased at how presentable it still managed to look: which is only testament to how forgiving of a cake tres leches is. When I took a bite, I was immediately transported back to those sweltering days in Singapore with a glass of avo milkshake in hand.

Our guests raved about the cake and I even got the following text the next day. There’s no higher compliment!

Avocado Tres Leches Cake
Makes a 22.5cm round cake