A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

Recent entries:
“You’re legally allowed to park in a handicap spot if you get back with your ex more than twice” (3/18)
“You can legally park in a handicap spot if you get back with your ex more than 2 times” (3/18)
Entry in progress—BP2 (3/18)
“It’s hard to save money when food is always flirting with me” (3/18)
“Don’t use a big word when a singularly unloquacious and diminutive linguistic expression…” (3/18)
More new entries...

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z


Entry from August 29, 2008
Cuatro Leches or Quatro Leches (four milks cake)

“Tres leches” (three milks cake) contains evaporated milk, condensed milk, and whole milk or cream. “Cuatro leches” (or “quatro leches”) is a “four milks cake” that adds another milk to a tres leches cake—often dulce de leche.
 
While “tres leches” is thought to have originated in Nicaragua or Mexico, “cuatro leches” has been popular in Florida and Texas since the late 1990s. “Cuatro leches” is a popular dessert item at Los Ranchos (Miami, FL) and La Duni (Dallas, TX).
 
 
Wikipedia: Tres leches cake
A Tres leches cake, or Pastel de Tres leches (Spanish, “Three milk cake”), is a sponge cake,—in some recipes, a butter cake—soaked in three kinds of milk: evaporated milk, condensed milk, and either whole milk or cream. When butter is not used, the tres leches is a very light cake, with many air bubbles. This distinct texture is why it does not have a soggy consistency, despite being soaked in a mixture of three types of milk.
(...)
At some restaurants in Texas and Florida, the addition of cajeta creates what is known as a cuatro leches cake.
 
Los Ranchos (Miami, FL)
Cuatro Leches $6.95
Our signature dessert. With rich caramel dulce de leche topping. (Four milks)
Tres Leches $6.25
The original and famous los ranchos house dessert. Cake filled with three different milks.
 
La Duni Restaurant (Dallas, TX)
Cuatro Leches Cake
Layered Mantecado Vanilla Sponge Cake, soaked in Tres Leches Sauce, Topped with Caramelized Swiss Meringue and Dotted with Arequipe Reduction. Packed with extra Tres Leches Sauce and Arequipe Caramel
AWARD WINNER
 
17 December 1999, Miami (FL) Herald, “Los Ranchos’ Dishes, Service Are Very Good” by Rochelle Koff, pg. 47G:
Or go for Los Ranchos’ version of tres leches - cuatro leches adds a layer of sweet, syrupy milk. It’s only offered here - restaurant owners invented the ...
 
8 June 2001, Dallas (TX) Morning News, “Tour Latin America for the price of a meal” by Dottie Griffith:
Pastry chef and co-owner Dunia Borga, whose nickname Duni provided the restaurant’s name, realigns the stars when it comes to desserts. Venezuelan chocolate truffle cake with hazelnut praline, almond tuilles (thin, crisp wafers) and quatro leches cake (one-up on the traditional tres leches) look as elegant as… 
 
22 June 2001, Dallas (TX) Business Journal, “La Duni: Get that mojo working”:
A prime example is Quatro leches cake (outdoing the traditional tres leches). 
 
26 September 2001, San Antonio (TX) Express-News, “Milk varies, but cake’s always rich” by Bonnie Walker, pg. 1F:
Sometime the cake is frosted with whipped cream instead of meringue, in which case we might call it a quatro leches cake. We’ve also seen recipes with ... 
   
D Magazine (April 2002)
10 Best New Restaurants in Dallas
by by Nancy Nichols, Nancy and Mary Brown Malouf
(...)
LA DUNI
The Same, Only Different
“A DAY WITHOUT LAUGHTER, LOVE, OR dessert is a total loss of a day.” That’s what Espartaco Borga’s mother used to tell him. Evidently, this is a man who listened to his mama: the first thing you get when you walk into his new restaurant. La Duni, is a pie in the face. so to speak.
 
A lavishly laid table displaying dream desserts separates the entry from the little coffee bar and from the dining room proper. Huge cakes, nearly 2 feet in diameter, tower on elaborate, hammered silver cake plates: rollo de canela y nuez, a double-butter cinnamon brioche roll filled with caramelized Texas pecans, silky, black chocolate truffle cake, ruffled with chocolate; vanilla cake filled with mouthwatering, yolk-yellow lemon curd; and the best-selling quatro leches (four milk) cake. layers of double vanilla sponge cake laced with Cacique rum and soaked in quatro leches sauce, topped with caramelized meringue and served with arequipe leche. Clearly, you cannot count the day lost when you’ve eaten at La Duni.
 
Google Books
Romantic Weekends in Texas
By Mary Lu Abbott
Published by Hunter Publishing, Inc.
2003
Pg. 47:
Rudy & Paco Restaurant & Bar
2028 Postoffice Street, Galveston
(...)
Dessert is a hard choice between two classics, tres (or quatro) leches cake or a bread pudding with divine sauce.
 
American Way Magazine (January 2004)
La Duni Latin Café
moderate
(214) 520-7300.
At this Latin American outpost, we recommend you start with a refreshing margarinha (a tasty twist on the margarita), then savor an entree such as tender picanha steak accentuated by chimichurri mojo salsas. But the sin qua non is the cuatro leches cake. You’ve never tasted anything so rich and so wonderful.
 
Houston (TX) Press
Four’s Better Than Three
Otilia’s

By Paul Galvani
Published on September 29, 2005
We know this, but we don’t know why. Otilia’s (7710 Long Point, 713-681-7203) cuatro leches cake ($3.95) is out of this world, but if you ask the proprietors the difference between their cuatro leches cake and typical tres leches, they clam up, refusing to divulge the mystery ingredient. Here’s what we do know about this sinful dessert: It starts with a one-inch-thick single layer of vanilla-flavored sponge cake that’s so moist, when you press down on it gently with a fork, the liquid filling oozes out. The filling, a rich, sweet mixture of condensed milk, evaporated milk and whole milk, completely saturates the cake, which is topped with a thick, half-inch-tall layer of sweetened whipped cream. Of course, we can’t help but think it’s the secret ingredient that makes Otilia’s cuatro leches so special. Why are you holding out on us, Otilia’s?
 
It’s Your Times
A new take on an old Latin Favorite- Quatro Leches cake
Mon, 2006-06-05 13:22 — hamiltonbay74
What’s better than Tres Leches cake? Well there’s not much. Let me just say that my Quatro Leche cake is not meant in anyway to imply that the original needs improving because Tres Leches cake (3 milk cake)regardless of the recipe is simply decadent. I just can’t help but experiment, so I give you Quatro Leche cake(4 milk cake).
 
Quatro Leches cake
1 can evaporated milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 can dulce de leche (in latin aisle at most supmarkets)
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup brandy(El Presidente from Mexico)
mix above ingredients
 
6 large eggs separated.
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (...)
   
Austin (TX) American-Statesman
Cuatro leches cake adds another dimension to the familiar flavors
Author: Kitty Crider AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF  
Date: March 28, 2007
Publication: Austin American-Statesman (TX)
Page Number: E01
DALLAS - Austinites are familiar with a tres leches - three milks - cake. But here in Dallas, Dunia Borga adds one more ingredient and makes a cuatro leches cake for her bakery’s signature dessert. That fourth milk is a drizzle of arequipe (also known as dulce de leche, a caramel sauce), and attendees at the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival in Austin this weekend will get a chance to sample it. As Borga - the Dallas pastry chef and co-founder/owner of La Duni Latin Kitchen…
 
Best Tres Leches Cake in Austin - CHOW
Another great option is the quatro leches cake at Buenos Aires Cafe located on S. 1st street. It is very moist with a great flavor.
mergar Jul 16, 2007 06:10PM
   
Austin (TX) Chronicle (September 28, 2007)
Paila Peruvian Cuisine
BY MICK VANN
Paila Peruvian Cuisine
5100 E. Seventh, 386-5799
Wednesday-Saturday, 11am-9pm; Sunday, 1-4pm
(...)
For dessert, we tried a couple of the offerings. Quatro Leches Cake ($3.50) is one of the best in town; a huge slab of light cake topped with cajeta (caramelized goat’s milk) in a pool of manjar blanco (a butterscotch-toffeelike sauce made from condensed milk). Excellent.
 
Dishola.com
Quatro Leches cake
Buenos Aires Cafe
2414 S 1st St Austin, TX
(512) 441-9000
silentmeow on 10/22/07, Score 10 (Critics)
Fans of Tres Leches must try Quatro Leches. It is by far the best “leches” cake I’ve ever had. It is a true Dishola! It is moist, icy cold, and topped with the perfect amount of whipped cream plus more caramel leches. So good! For me, there are two things required in a leches cake: 1) the cake must be evenly soaked with the leches and 2) it must arrive at your table super cold. Buenos Aires Cafe consistently achieves both. I am so confident in their Quatro Leches that I even ordered an entire cake for a party. Another plus is that all the employees there are wonderful. When I picked up the whole cake they carried it to my car and included extra caramel leches to put on top. When I went there for dessert with friends the waiter overheard me say I preferred white wine with my dessert, but because my friends wanted red I was happy to share a bottle of red with them: the waiter brought me a glass of white wine on the house. That’s probably the nicest thing that’s ever happened to me in a restaurant.
   
The 2008 Saveur 100
9 Got Cake?
Start with the classic Latin American dessert known as pastel de tres leches (a moist, sweet, spongy sheet cake that’s been drenched in a bath of heavy cream, sweetened condensed milk, and evaporated milk), then add a coating of dulce de leche, the rich caramel sauce made of slow-cooked, caramelized milk and sugar. The result: PASTEL DE CUATRO LECHES, a confection named for its four milky components. We think its parts add up to a splendid whole.

Posted by Barry Popik
Texas (Lone Star State Dictionary) • Friday, August 29, 2008 • Permalink


Commenting is not available in this channel entry.