Paan Tres leches Cake – eggless milk cake with flavors from paan (betel leaves), gulkand (rose petal jam), tutti fruity (candied fruit), and fennel! If you love meetha paan and are looking to add an experience to your dessert, these Paan cake jars are what you need to make!
Garnished with tutti fruity, candied fennel, rose petals, and silver varq, this is a stunning dessert to celebrate Diwali or any festival!
This cake is simple to make, moist, eggless, a treat to the eyes, and a whole new way to enjoy The Meetha paan.
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Last Diwali, you guys loved my Indian fusion dessert recipes Rasmalai cake, Falooda cake, and Gulab jamun cheesecake.
So here is another delicious Indian flavor cake recipe just in time for the Diwali festival, Paan tres leches Cake!!
Eat your Paan with moist cake!!
It is perfect for Diwali gatherings and potlucks.
What Is Paan?
Paan means betel leaves which are popular in South Asia. They are often eaten with tobacco but a non-tobacco version of it known as “meetha (sweet) paan” is popular as a palate cleanser/mouth freshener.
Meetha paan usually has fillings of gulkand, saunf, some chutney, tutti fruity, Dhana dal, etc.
The leaf is wrapped up before serving.
People usually eat meetha paan post-meal.
Our today’s dessert is based on the flavors of meetha paan.
What is Tres Leches Cake?
Tres Leches is a vanilla sponge cake soaked in three different types of milk- condensed milk evaporated milk and heavy cream.
“Tres Leches” in itself means three kinds of milk.
It’s popular in Mexico and Latin America and throughout the United States as it’s often available at Mexican restaurants.
I love making an eggless Tres Leches cake recipe. I have already posted one with Thandai flavor.
And this time around, I thought of making Tres Leches cake with Paan flavor for Diwali and you guys…..let me tell you, this is one of THE BEST cakes I have made!
The flavors are spot on!
I love Paan desserts. They have a very refreshing taste. All that gulkand, candied fennel, and betel leaves make them the perfect after-meal treat.
After a heavy meal, you eat one of these; your mouth immediately feels refreshed.
You can make this dessert easily ahead of time so it’s great for Diwali parties, New Year parties, baby and wedding showers, or even just a picnic in the park or at the beach. Be sure to make plenty, since people will not only go for seconds but thirds and many more!!
This Paan cake is,
- Simple to make, eggless and can be made ahead a day in advance
- Colorful enough to look festive.
- Refreshing flavors make it the ideal dessert to have after a heavy meal.
- Perfect for the festive season or any special occasion
- Looks cute, is a treat to the eyes, and is a whole new way to enjoy Paan.
- Portable, giftable and so adorable!
- Moist and perfect Indian fusion cake recipe
- The flavor of this dessert is TRULY authentic and quite addictive!
Ingredients required
(Ingredient measurement is given in the Recipe card)
Cake base
- All-purpose flour (maida) – Use unbleached flour. Measure flour and other ingredients correctly. Spoon the flour into a measuring cup and level off the top or use a weighing scale for a perfect result.
- Yogurt / Curd – I have used homemade curd. You can use store-bought too. Don’t use greek yogurt.
- Tutti fruity – Gives a nice bite and taste to the cake.
- Leavening agent – Baking soda and baking powder
- Sweetener – I have used white small granulate sugar. You can use powdered sugar or brown sugar as well.
- Fat – I have used butter. Any flavorless oil can be substituted.
For Milk (Tres Leche)
- Condensed milk – Use according to your preferred sweetness.
- Evaporated milk – Regular whole milk can be substituted here.
- Heavy cream – for the cream and rich flavors. You can use half n half for the lighter version.
- Paan leaves (betel leaves) – to give the paan flavor. You need fresh paan leaves aka betel leaves for this recipe which you can find at most Indian grocery stores. I have used 4 large paan leaves here, if you find small ones, then you will need to use more of them.
- Green color – optional.
For Whipped cream
I used heavy cream and added the gulkand(easily available in Indian stores) and confectioners’ sugar. Make sure to use only confection sugar here. I have also added pink gel color but the color is completely optional.
You will also need tutti fruity, fennel seeds (mukhvas) rose petals, and silver varq for garnishing.
Step-by-step process
Pre-prep
- Line a 12 x 18-inch pan baking tray with parchment paper and grease it with butter or oil and keep it aside.
- Preheat your oven to @350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
Prepare a cake base
- Take yogurt (curd) and baking soda in a bowl. Mix it and let it rest for 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, take sugar and melted butter in a bowl, and whisk until sugar is well combined with butter.
- Now add curd-baking soda mixture, in sugar butter mixture. Whisk until well combined. Our wet mixture is ready.
- Now sift the flour and baking powder directly onto the wet mixture.
- Gently fold in the flour and mix until everything is well combined and there are no large flour pockets in the batter.
- Tip – Do not over-mix at this stage.
- Transfer batter to a 12 x 18-inch pan. Spread the batter evenly.
- Place it into the preheated oven and bake the cake at 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) for around 10 to 12 minutes, mine was done in 11 minutes. This is a thin cake layer so it bakes quickly. Check it with a toothpick for its doneness.
- Note – Baking time depends on the size of the baking pan you use. If using a smaller baking pan, increase the cooking time. Or you can divide the batter into 2 small baking trays. Always keep an eye while baking in small trays. The time will vary by the size of the pan.
- Let the cake cool down, and then using a round cutter, cut the sheet cake layer into 32 rounds. Choose the cookie cutter size according to the size of your jars/glasses. Set this aside.
- Note – If you use a smaller baking pan, you will get fewer thick cake roundels.
Make milk mixture
- Take condensed milk, evaporated milk, paan leaves, and green color in a blender jar. Blend until smooth. Now take this into a bowl and add heavy cream. Stir together until combined.
- Take ½ cup of the milk for filling the pipettes in a bowl. Place it in a refrigerator.
- Soak the cake
- Take all the cake rounds on a baking tray. Arrange them in a single layer.
- slowly pour the 1 ½ cups of milk mixture all over the cake roundels. Tilt the pan so that the milk covers all the cake rounds.
- Note – It seems like too much milk. But trust me It’s not!
- Cover it with cling wrap and transfer it to the fridge to set completely, and let the liquid absorb into the cake. This will take at least 1 hour.
Gulkand whipped cream
- Meanwhile, let’s prepare the whipped cream. You can skip this step and use store-bought whipped cream as well.
- Take cold whipping cream in a bowl, add icing sugar and gulkand and beat until stiff peaks form about 2 to 4 minutes.
- Note – Make sure your gulkand is very soft. If it’s hard, then first crush it in a blender a bit and then add it to the cream.
- Now add the pink color and gently fold it in the whipped cream.
- Take 16 cupcake pipettes and fill them with the ½ cup reserved paan milk. Keep it aside. (This step is optional but highly recommended. You may have leftover milk. You can use it in soaking the cake scrapes. It will taste delicious.
Assemble
- Take 16 serving jars(mine was a 4 oz jar) and add one sliced cake layer at the bottom.
- Pipe some of the prepared gulkand whipped cream on top.
- Then top with one more slice of cake roundels. Top with more gulkand whipped cream.
- Garnish with some tutti-fruity, rose petals, fennels, rose petals, and silver varq. some falooda sev. Then place the prepared pipettes. Prepared all jars the same way.
- Chill them for a couple of hours before serving. While eating, squeeze the paan milk from the pipettes and enjoy!
Notes, tips, and quick FAQs
- Before making the eggless cake, make sure you line your baking tray with parchment paper.
- Make sure all your ingredients, are at room temperature when making the cake base.
- The milk mixture needs to be added once the cake is cool.
- To make sure the cake is covered with milk, after pouring the milk mixture, make sure you tilt the pan from one side to another.
- Let the cake rest for one hour in the fridge after pouring on the milk so it can absorb every drop.
- The cake has to be demoulded only when it has been set!
- Make sure to let the cake sit in the fridge for about an hour after assembling.
- Do not overbeat the cream. Beat until stiff peak forms. If you beat it too much, it will separate and curdle. We are not making butter here so we don’t want that.
- Don’t fold the cream vigorously after adding the color; else you will lose all the air that you incorporated into the cream.
- For the pictures, I filled the paan cake jars up past the top. But if you are making it for gifting, give it some space to close the lid on top.
- You can either drizzle the paan milk on top or to make it look fancy, add the paan milk to these cupcake pipettes and place it on the side of the bowl and then serve.
- You may adjust the sugar to taste. The quantity I have shared works for me but if you want to reduce the sweetness, you can reduce it to 1 to 2 tablespoons. It’s up to you.
- I kept the base simple. But you can flavor it up with our choice of extract.
This dessert will stay good for up to 3 days. So you can make it beforehand. But I would encourage you to make assemble them the night before for the best result.
You can make the cake base, gulkand cream, and paan milk everything in advance and assemble them the night before your party.
If you do not want to make everything from scratch for this recipe (and that makes sense considering how busy our lives are especially during the festive season), here are a few things that you can do to cut short the whole process.
Buy store-bought box cake mixture or use plain ready-made sponge cake base: if you do not want to bake a cake from scratch, buy a vanilla cake box mix and add some tutti fruity and bake according to instructions on the package. You can also use readymade sponge cake.
Whipped cream – You may also use cool whip or ready-to-use whipped cream, just add gulkand.
I have used 4-oz glasses here to make these Paan Tres Leches cake jars and I was able to get 16 jars.
If you use bigger glasses you will be able to get less.
It is supposed to be very moist.
As the saying goes, if you want to make a gorgeous dessert, sometimes you’ve got to break a few cakes…well, something like that.
After making this fusion dessert, all that delicious cake scraps don’t have to go to waste.
You can use it in dozens of ways. Like
you can make cake pops,
As an Ice Cream Topping,
Cake milkshake etc.
Or Instead of cutting it into a round shape, crumble the cake with your hands and use it as a layer. This way you can use the whole cake without the worry of leftovers.
In that case, you will need to increase the quantity of the whipped cream layer and you will also need more toppings.
So in the end, you will get around 20 4-oz. Paan Cake jars.
Makes sense? Let me know if any confusion.
More Dessert recipes
- Cheesecake Baklava bracelet
- Brownie burfi
- Strawberries and cream
- no bake mini cheesecake
- Eggless chocolate lava cake
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Paan Tres Leches Cake
Ingredients
For Sponge cake
- 1 ½ cup All purpose flour maida 200 grams
- 1 cup curd plain yogurt Room temperatured
- ½ cup butter melted
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup sugar
- ¼ cup tutty fruity
For milk mixture
- 1 cup evaporated milk You can use whole milk too
- ½ cup condensed milk
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 4 large betel leaves paan leaves
- 2 drops green food gel color Optional
Whipped cream
- 2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 100 grams icing sugar
- ¼ cup gulkand
- Tutti fruity silver varq, flavored fennel seeds (also known as mukhvas) and rose petals for garnishing.
- 2 drops pink food gel color Optional
Instructions
Pre-prep
- Line a 12 x 18-inch pan baking tray with parchment paper and grease it with butter or oil and keep it aside.
- Preheat your oven to @350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
Prepare a cake base
- Take yogurt (curd) and baking soda in a bowl. Mix it and let it rest for 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, take sugar and melted butter in a bowl, and whisk until sugar is well combined with butter.
- Now add curd-baking soda mixture, in sugar butter mixture. Whisk until well combined. Our wet mixture is ready.
- Now sift the flour and baking powder directly onto the wet mixture.
- Gently fold in the flour and mix until everything is well combined and there are no large flour pockets in the batter.
- Tip – Do not over-mix at this stage.
- Transfer batter to a 12 x 18-inch pan. Spread the batter evenly.
- Place it into the preheated oven and bake the cake at 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) for around 10 to 12 minutes, mine was done in 11 minutes. This is a thin cake layer so it bakes quickly. Check it with a toothpick for its doneness.
- Note – Baking time depends on the size of the baking pan you use. If using a smaller baking pan, increase the cooking time. Or you can divide the batter into 2 small baking trays. Always keep an eye while baking in small trays. The time will vary by the size of the pan.
- Let the cake cool down, and then using a round cutter, cut the sheet cake layer into 32 rounds. Choose the cookie cutter size according to the size of your jars/glasses. Set this aside.
- Note – If you use a smaller baking pan, you will get fewer thick cake roundels.
Make milk mixture
- Take condensed milk, evaporated milk, paan leaves, and green color in a blender jar. Blend until smooth. Now take this into a bowl and add heavy cream. Stir together until combined.
- Take ½ cup of the milk for filling the pipettes in a bowl. Place it in a refrigerator.
Soak the cake
- Take all the cake rounds on a baking tray. Arrange them in a single layer.
- slowly pour the 1 ½ cups of milk mixture all over the cake roundels. Tilt the pan so that the milk covers all the cake rounds.
- Note – It seems like too much milk. But trust me It’s not!
- Cover it with cling wrap and transfer it to the fridge to set completely, and let the liquid absorb into the cake. This will take at least 1 hour.
Gulkand whipped cream
- Meanwhile, let’s prepare the whipped cream. You can skip this step and use store-bought whipped cream as well.
- Take cold whipping cream in a bowl, add icing sugar and gulkand and beat until stiff peaks form about 2 to 4 minutes.
- Note – Make sure your gulkand is very soft. If it’s hard, then first crush it in a blender a bit and then add it to the cream.
- Now add the pink color and gently fold it in the whipped cream.
- Take 16 cupcake pipettes and fill them with the ½ cup reserved paan milk. Keep it aside. (This step is optional but highly recommended. You may have leftover milk. You can use it in soaking the cake scrapes. It will taste delicious.
Assemble
- Take 16 serving jars(mine was a 4 oz jar) and add one sliced cake layer at the bottom.
- Pipe some of the prepared gulkand whipped cream on top.
- Then top with one more slice of cake roundels. Top with more gulkand whipped cream.
- Garnish with some tutti-fruity, rose petals, fennels, rose petals, and silver varq. some falooda sev. Then place the prepared pipettes. Prepared all jars the same way.
- Chill them for a couple of hours before serving. While eating, squeeze the paan milk from the pipettes and enjoy!
Video
Notes
- Before making the eggless cake, make sure you line your baking tray with parchment paper.
- Make sure all your ingredients, are at room temperature when making the cake base.
- The milk mixture needs to be added once the cake is cool.
- To make sure the cake is covered with milk, after pouring the milk mixture, make sure you tilt the pan from one side to another.
- Let the cake rest for one hour in the fridge after pouring on the milk so it can absorb every drop.
- The cake has to be demoulded only when it has been set!
- Make sure to let the cake sit in the fridge for about an hour after assembling.
- Do not overbeat the cream. Beat until stiff peak forms. If you beat it too much, it will separate and curdle. We are not making butter here so we don’t want that.
- Don’t fold the cream vigorously after adding the color; else you will lose all the air that you incorporated into the cream.
- For the pictures, I filled the paan cake jars up past the top. But if you are making it for gifting, give it some space to close the lid on top.
- You can either drizzle the paan milk on top or to make it look fancy, add the paan milk to these cupcake pipettes and place it on the side of the bowl and then serve.
- You may adjust the sugar to taste. The quantity I have shared works for me but if you want to reduce the sweetness, you can reduce it to 1 to 2 tablespoons. It’s up to you.
- I kept the base simple. But you can flavor it up with our choice of extract.
Nutrition
Warm regards,
Dhwani.
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