Latin desserts sweeten menus: chefs embrace variations on tres leches, other traditional favorites

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 9, 2002 by Jack Hayes

With certain things I like to follow the old ways," says Ticha Krinsky, partner and chief dessert maker at the pan-American bistro Tierra in midtown Atlanta.

For that reason Krinsky makes her luscious dessert, tres leches, or "three milks," according to Nicaraguan tradition, using scratch-made white cake soaked with heavy cream, evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk. It is topped with sweet Italian meringue.

Honoring a Latin passion for sweetness, Krinsky and her spouse-partner, chef Dan Krinsky, a California Culinary Academy graduate, have been serving tres leches to guests since they opened Tierra's doors three and a half years ago. Their menu incorporates a diverse palette of ethnic flavors and techniques from South and Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico.

"With tres leches, it's a lot like spaghetti sauce," she says, "because families, communities and different Latin-American restaurants learn and make their own recipes. Yet almost everyone agrees that without the three milks, it isn't tres leches."

Thus, the recipe for popular tres leches has been handed down, personalized, and reinterpreted from Brazil to Mexico and throughout the Caribbean, and it gradually is making its way across North America, according to chefs and culinary trend-watchers.

"There is clearly proof of the growing influence of Latin-American cuisine," observes Rick Crossland, Bahama Breeze's senior vice president for culinary and beverage development "Traditional desserts like tres leches are delicious and fun, and there's so much you can do with them."

Indeed, Bahama Breeze developed a top-selling signature dessert called Jose's Chocolate Tres Leches after its creator, Jose Albarracin, the Colombian-born managing chef of the company's restaurant in Pembrooke Pines, Fla. That item has become the No. 2 best-selling dessert for Bahama Breeze chainwide.

"Oh yes, tres leches and Latin desserts in general are catching on," adds Amelia Frazier, pastry chef at Chicago's upscale Topolobampo. There tres leches is on and off the dessert menu twice a year and is one of the group's best-selling desserts.

And at Topolobampo's casual sister concept, Frontera Grill, tres leches "is always on," Frazier explains, adding that Frontera's servers push it "because they know it's a good item."

Both establishments are recognized highly for authentic cuisine representing all regions of Mexico.

"I see flan, for example, in a lot of restaurants now," Frazier says. "These desserts are being rediscovered, and chefs are realizing the potential. There are so many interesting ways you can prepare and serve them."

Krinsky, who grew up in El Salvador and Panama, has lived in Peru, Brazil, Nicaragua, and Mexico, and has eaten tres leches frequently. She and Bahama Breeze's Albarracin agree that the dessert probably originated in Nicaragua.

"Some people think the Italian meringue is a little too sweet, so they just use a whipped cream topping, but of course it's not the same," she says. Krinsky adds it may be that they haven't mastered the art of adding hot sugar syrup, to the beaten egg whites when they sweeten the meringue.

"The trick is pouring [the syrup] very slowly, or the meringue collapses," she says. "But then you must keep on beating it until the bottom of the mixer cools. That's when you add the vanilla."

As for the milks used in the soaking process, Krinsky mixes equal parts of condensed and evaporated milk and about the same amount of cream. Regarding the volume, she says, "You don't want it to run out, but you want the cake to be soaked."

"One of our customers told me her mother made tres leches once and vowed she would never try it again. The first time is always hardest," Krinsky adds. Her 60-seat restaurant sells about two cakes, or 24 pieces, every Friday and Saturday night and another two cakes during the week.

"At the end of every month, tres leches outsells our other desserts three to one," she says.

But Tierra also does well with traditional dolce de leche, a "sweet milk" dessert paste that also is called manjar blanco, or "delicious white." It is cooked down with a pinch of baking soda and used in spreads, flavorings, or toppings and to fill cookies, particularly a 12-layer, butter pastry called alfajor.

Krinsky will put manjar blanco to use next month in a Brazilian dessert called bemcasado, or "good marriage." For that item she'll make traditional batches of light and dark manjar blanco, using cocoa for coloring. From the two batches she'll assemble the "black-and whites" for guests who order Tierra's traditional Brazilian National Day dinner on next month's menu.

"We like to put man jar blanco into an ice-cream base," Krinsky adds. "In Latin America it's more prevalent than peanut butter. It quenches your sweet tooth."

At Topolobampo Frazier prepares tres leches following a two-day process. First, she bakes the cakes and then lets them sit overnight, soaking in the milks. She uses different flavors in the milks, including the Mexican coffee-flavored liquor Kahlua as well as Mexican eggnog liquor.