Strawberry Rose Tres Leches

I spend a lot of time conceiving desserts typically through flavor profiles and the imagined aesthetics of the final product. This recipe was no different except the confidence, admittedly smugness, with which I  approached this recipe. Smugly, I believed, this dessert would develop itself because two out of the three parts that comprise this recipe are already cataloged in the recipe archives. All there was left to ruminate over and make adjustments to was the strawberry rose milk, which would eventually become the actual tres leches portion of the cake. With a lack of foresight, I believed blending the roasted strawberries with the milks would be inconsequential. Instead, this first recipe attempt yielded a milk so thick that there was a distinct layer between the tres leches and sponge cake, indicating that this technique was flawed. The rest of the day was spent in quiet desperation. I was so drenched in my own doubts and anxieties that even the most feasible solution was mere inches away from collapse. Here, it was unpleasantly apparent that there is but a marginal difference between a failed recipe and a successful one. 

In describing the vulnerability this failed first recipe attempt elicited, I do not care to spend time detailing what perfect combination of ingredients and order of techniques that made this into a successful recipe. I realized that the successful configuration of a recipe, no matter what nth round it is completed, is not a supplement for the emotional attachment that arises and the knowledge that is obtained throughout the process of developing a recipe. Pivotally, it is in this narrow space between failure and success, where inspiration and uncertainty live and work in tandem with one another. More broadly, a sense of linearity exists between the building of integrity, tolerance, and endurance through the recipe development process, and the ways in which we are societally confronting the uncertainties of collapsing educational resources and infrastructures through technological means. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been lauded for its powerful, predictive analysis and its ability to systematize vast sets of data. Within the last few years, the bridge between AI technology and food has become more readily available to the casual homecook as well. As NPR reported last month, iPhone users are now able to generate recipes through Apple’s own artificial intelligence technology, which has been integrated in its newest operating system, iOS 18. Homecooks can also produce AI-generated recipes through other tools, such as Chat GPT and DishGen. Additionally, it is unclear as to how many AI-generated recipes currently exist on the internet. However, their abundance demonstrates how accessible they have become and, more importantly, how easy they are to replicate. This emergent relationship between AI technology and cooking has certainly made recipe development more convenient. But it is also disconcertingly evident that AI technology at large is deteriorating our sense of integrity, as individuals and a society, through the mass willingness to embrace convenience at the expense of gaining genuine knowledge through uncertainty and vulnerability.

In these intense encounters with failure, I am reminded of David Bayles’ and Ted Orland’s book Art and Fear, in which they describe how both materials and uncertainty are crucial components of making art. Until a concerted effort is made to manipulate materials an artist has envisioned using, both the materials’ potential and limitations will remain unknown. It is in this process where the relationship between materials and uncertainty is revealed. For the artist, materials are one of the few elements that remain in the realm of control. Therefore, the artist must be willing to persist through the mistakes and surprises that arise throughout the creation of a finished piece. As the authors understand, “Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding.”

I learned early on that uncertainties (though they more often feel like doubts) color the recipe development process, from the initial conceptualized recipe up until the final written form. However unbearable these moments of distrust within myself–and between myself and the process–might be, confronting such emotions develops the integrity, tolerance, and endurance that is needed in and outside of the cooking world. The use of computer systems to generate amalgamated recipes fundamentally severs the relationship between the person who makes the food and their medium: the ingredients and techniques that comprise any given recipe. In turn, genuine knowledge of the ingredients is never developed, which only undermines the cook’s confidence in the long term. This uncertainty, moreover, that lies within the transformation of ingredients is an integral aspect to cooking that directly contradicts AI’s predictive analysis. Good cooking is not measured through the reign over the ingredients or the ability to accurately predict how they will respond. In fact, it is the potential and limitations of the ingredients that dictate in what direction(s) the recipe can go. What is at the base of any delightful meal is a genuine sense of how the ingredients work, what best techniques to use to further highlight or manipulate the ingredients, and most importantly, leaving room for improvisation. 

In an age of collapsing educational resources and abounding misinformation, the normalization of AI-generated recipes cultivates a society that encourages a limited understanding of ingredients and cooking techniques, and more appalling, of one’s own identity, ideas, and voice. After all, the final output of AI-generated recipes is a slew of data that has been deliberately reduced to the most concise and predictive sets of averages and patterns. These recipes are, in essence, insipid and depersonalized blackholes that engulf everything except the relationship between a person and a dish because it ceased to exist the moment the recipe was generated. I am not making the argument that one must endure suffering of grandeur to create great, or at least functioning, recipes. It is simply that the convenience of AI-generated recipes, and AI technology at large, does not stimulate creativity, imagination, or endurance, which is especially disturbing in the context of a digital dark age. This convenience, especially as it relates to the abundance of AI recipes on the internet, make it harder to distinguish from and find other forms of non-AI-generated information. This creates a relationship in which we become more reliant on convenient information, rather than building the skills to find and evaluate relevant information from various sources. In the case of recipe development, this includes the information we would gain from the personal experience that is involved in creating a recipe. 

The likelihood that such technology will produce dubious concoctions is not the only consequence we should bear in mind¹. Using AI to generate recipes is defective because its inherent use deprives us from experiencing and processing our own intrapersonal thoughts and emotions alongside the transformation of ingredients and recipe. To put it simply, if the use of AI-generated recipes divorce you from all the minutiae involved in the recipe development process, then it also alienates you from developing a genuine sense of who you are. 

In spite of my critiques towards AI-generated recipes, and the use of AI technology in general, I understand their practicality. It would be negligent of me to ignore the constant exploitation and commodification that engulfs every bit of our personhoods and livelihoods. The abundance of AI recipes that currently exist on the internet unearths the sullied undercurrents that dominate our society. By the day, hundreds of more people across the country are unable to make rent, cannot afford a medical emergency, and go without a meal for the third time this week, in spite of however many jobs they might hold. There is no time to develop or process our identities, recipes, or emotions because time unpaid is, literally, time wasted. Exploitation and commodification are so intricately woven into every crevice of our lives that it should then be of no surprise how well such technological convenience has meshed into our society. 

As I reflect on the failures I experienced with this recipe, I admit that in the turbulence of my anxious thoughts, I was briefly enticed to use AI as a means to quell my woes. Though I ultimately did not use AI to develop this recipe, I also do not care to position myself on some nebulous moral high ground for having refrained from doing so. Over the course of writing this essay, what has become clearer to me is that when such convenience comes at the expense of our own integrity, what we stand to gain from such automated ease is of little to no importance. Throughout the last year of creating iterations of the same or new recipes, I have certainly learned how to be a better baker but, more importantly, my sense of self has evolved alongside each of my recipes–no matter how good or bad they may have turned out. There is no amount of convenience that will replace the uncertainties of recipe development, and certainly not the uncertainties of life. Uncertainty is a door that we are meant to walk through, time and time again, and embrace all of its hardships without capitulation for the chance at being reborn once more. 

1. “Supermarket AI Gives Horrifying Recipes For Poison Sandwiches And Deadly Chlorine Gas”, Matt Noval

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Strawberry Rose Tres Leches

Course: Dessert

Keyword: Rose, Strawberries, Tres Leches

Author: Shawn

Ingredients

For the strawberry rose tres leches:

• 2 lbs fresh strawberries washed and dried
• ¼ cup + 1 tbsp brown sugar tightly packed
• ¼ tsp kosher salt
• ⅔ cup whole milk
• 1 12 oz. can evaporated milk
• 1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ½ tsp rose water

For the cake:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour spooned and leveled
• ¼ cup almond flour spooned and leveled
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp kosher salt
• ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
• 5 eggs room temperature and separated
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup whole milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp rose water

For the toppings:

• ¼ cup sliced almonds
• 1 ½ cups heavy cream
• 1 tbsp vanilla paste or vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp powdered sugar
• 4 oz. mascarpone
• Fresh strawberries for garnish
• Rose petals for garnish

Instructions

For the strawberry rose tres leches:

• Preheat the oven to 375°F.
• Remove the strawberries’ green leaves and stem. Slice the largest strawberries in fourths and the smaller ones in half.
• To a 9 x 13” baking pan, add the strawberries, brown sugar, and salt. Gently toss the ingredients together until just combined.
• Roast the strawberries for 20 to 25 minutes or until fork tender, tossing half way through. Allow the strawberries to cool to room temperature.
• Using a slotted spoon, separate the roasted strawberries from their syrup. Reserve the roasted strawberries in an airtight container and store in the fridge.
• To a large bowl, add the syrup, whole milk, evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract, and rose water. Whisk until everything is well combined.
• Transfer the milk to an airtight container and place in the fridge. In the meantime, make the cake.

For the cake:

• Preheat the oven to 350°F.
• Sift together the flour, almond flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. If there are any remaining lumps, give the mixture a stir with a whisk. Set aside.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, add the egg yolks and sugar. Beat the egg yolks until they’ve doubled in volume and are pale-yellow in color, about 5 minutes.
• Add the whole milk, vanilla extract, and rose water to the egg mixture. On low speed, mix the ingredients together until well combined, about 1 minute.
• Add the egg yolk mixture to the flour. With a rubber spatula, gently fold the egg yolk mixture with the flour until just combined. Set aside.
• Thoroughly wash and dry the bowl of the stand mixer. Egg whites are very sensitive and water or other food remnants can impede on the egg white’s ability to whip up thoroughly.
• Add the egg whites to the stand mixer. With the whisk attachment, beat on medium-low until the whites become very frothy around the edges.
• Once frothy, beat on medium-high speed until you’ve reached stiff peaks. Depending on your stand mixer, this can take anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes.
• Add half of the egg whites to the batter and gently fold them into the batter with a rubber spatula. Fold the remaining half until there are no more visible egg white streaks.
• Gently pour the batter into a 9 x 13” baking pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. The cake should be an even, golden brown color on top and should spring back when gently pressed in the middle. Let the cake cool for 30 minutes.
• With a fork, poke the cake in different areas so that the strawberry rose milk can soak from the top-down. It helps if you wet the fork with the milk every so often, as the cake tends to stick to the fork.
• Pour the strawberry rose milk onto the cake and cover with plastic wrap. Let the cake soak for at least 6 hours, but ideally, overnight.

For the toppings and assemble:

• In a pan over medium heat, toast the almonds until fragrant and develop a light, golden brown color. Remove the almonds from the pan and let them cool.
• Add the heavy cream, vanilla paste, and powdered sugar to a large bowl. With a hand mixer, beat the heavy cream until just thickened, about 2 minutes.
• Scrape the sides of the bowl and add the mascarpone. Beat the heavy cream and mascarpone together until soft peaks form. Do not over beat! The mascarpone can easily split and curdle. Set aside.
• To serve, cut the cake into squares and place on dessert plates. Add a heaping tablespoon of the reserved roasted strawberries on each slice, then put a dollop of the whipped mascarpone on top. Finally, sprinkle the toasted almonds over the top and decorate with more strawberries and rose petals, if desired. Serve immediately.

Notes

I would suggest separating the eggs while they are cold, as the yolk separates from the white much easier at this temperature. Once separated, cover each bowl with plastic wrap and allow them to come to room temperature, which should take about 30 minutes.

Enjoy! <3