Get In The Holiday Spirit With Hot Cocoa-Inspired Tres Leches

While you can always upgrade your next cup of traditional hot chocolate with a rich ingredient like Nutella or cinnamon, use the comforting flavor of classic hot cocoa to enhance one of your favorite Mexican desserts. Fortunately, with just a few packets of hot cocoa mix, you can alter your tres leches cake recipe just in time for the holidays.

This dairy-rich dessert is often revered for its moist crumb and milky-sweet flavor. Sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and whole milk are mixed together and poured over a tender vanilla-kissed sponge cake. Since most recipes for this unique dessert are made to absorb moisture, tres leches cake doesn't get soggy. The structured crumb is able to soak up excess milk without becoming too heavy. Luckily, with a few minor tweaks to your original recipe, you can easily infuse your next cake with the warm and comforting flavors of hot chocolate.

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Start by making a boxed chocolate cake. Once cooled, use a skewer to poke holes through the surface. Add one packet of powdered hot chocolate mix to the signature three-milk mixture and whisk until fully incorporated. Pour evenly over your cake. Once this chocolatey confection has rested in the fridge for a few hours, cover your seasonal cake in a specialty whipped cream composed of heavy cream, hot cocoa mix, a bit of cocoa powder, and vanilla.

Making a cocoa-inspired tres leches cake is not only super simple to put together but fun to decorate. Consider the ingredients you typically use to upgrade classic hot chocolate and utilize extras that can also work as fun and tasty cake toppings. Better yet, to make this dessert a fun holiday treat, use seasonal marshmallows or candies like crushed candy canes or mini red and green M&M's.

Conversely, for a more simplified topping, once your cake has been sufficiently covered in cocoa-infused whipped cream, add a layer of mini marshmallows and a drizzle of store-bought chocolate sauce. If you want, swap out the marshmallows for chocolate shavings or a combination of white and semi-sweet chocolate chips. Once you feel comfortable making this convenient recipe, feel free to experiment with different sauces apart from chocolate. Try a homemade caramel sauce or berry puree.

Speaking of alternative ingredients, you don't always need to use hot cocoa mix to make a delicious chocolate-infused tres leches cake. Sure enough, you can alter the amount of flour in your favorite recipe to incorporate ½ cup of unsweetened cocoa powder. Instead of adding hot cocoa mix to the pourable milk mixture, use chocolate milk for a game-changing tres leches cake. Lastly, for an alternative chocolate whipped cream, use granulated sugar and cocoa powder. For some extra flair, use a bit of ground cinnamon to give your cake the warming flavor of Mexican hot chocolate.