the eternal curse of the three milks cake

January 4, 2022

At this point tres leches cake is turning into a sitcom's running gag for me. It's my favorite cake, but I seem to never be able to get it anywhere!

Almost nowhere has it in the first place—it's presumably a PITA to make, and it doesn't keep long so if it's not popular it's pretty wasteful I'd assume. The only restaurant by me that has it has been out every time I've went since like 2019—although they claim they usually have it and just happened to have run out every single time I've gone there.

Last year I decided to just fuck it and buy a whole cake, and one of the two bakeries that claimed they had it said they stopped making it and didn't update their website yet, and the other cake place had a $100 minimum purchase and I'm not buying $100 worth of cake for myself.

And just today at a random Southwestern restaurant in Santa Fe, they had it on their menu but ran out since apparently they only make it for the weekend and they said they usually run out by Monday; I was literally one day late (today's Tuesday for future readers).

A few other times I remember it happening at but don't remember specifics: in Utah, it was either in Springdale (by Zion National Park) or Park City, probably ~2019–2020; and somewhere else in New Mexico, I think in Truth or Consequences (by Spaceport America), probably ~2017.

It's happened so often over such a long span of time it doesn't feel like a few coincidences, it feels like a nation-state–sized attack designed to ensure I will never get a tres leches cake anywhere. I've had it once since 2017 and that was at a family member's birthday party—in Northern Colorado, an hour's drive away in the best of traffic so unless I feel like making that drive I can't go get it from that bakery.