Trileçe 🍰

Name: Trileçe
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 2-4 servings
Cuisine: Albanian
Ingredients: sponge: 4 eggs; separated; 120 g sugar; 120 g flour; 1 tsp baking powder; 50 ml milk; vanilla; soak: 400 ml evaporated milk + 400 ml whole milk + 395 g tin condensed milk; top: 400 ml cold double cream, whisked with 2 tbsp icing sugar; caramel: 150 g sugar + 60 ml water (or the Albanian version: bought dulce de leche)

The dessert that conquered Albania's café tables in twenty years: a light sponge soaked through with three milks — evaporated, condensed and whole — then buried under whipped cream and a glossy thread of caramel that trickles down the sides like a slow flagpole stripe. Every tirana pastry counter stacks them under glass; the argument is only ever about how much caramel.

Tirana County Albanian ⏱ 50 min Easy

Method

1

Whisk yolks with half the sugar to pale; fold in flour and baking powder with the milk and vanilla. Whip whites with the rest of the sugar to stiff peaks and fold in gently.
2

Bake in a 23 cm tin at 180 °C for 25–30 minutes — a plain, springy sponge. Cool, then poke the surface all over with a skewer.
3

Mix the three milks and pour slowly over the sponge in the tin; 100–150 ml of the soak can be set aside to thin the cream later. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight — the cake drinks it all.
4

Whip the cream with the icing sugar (loose, Albanian cafés use an almost-pourable cream), spread thick over the cold cake.
5

Cook the sugar and water to deep amber caramel, cool a minute, then draw it in ribbons over the cream so it streaks halfway down. Serve cut into tall wedges, cold.

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Trileçe 🍰

Method

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