The Araya's Chile-Gringuita Yellow Cake

This recipe has been our family's go-to for birthday cakes since I can remember. When my big sister got married she asked for it as the wedding cake. When I visited Austin and Stefanie in Atlanta, I offered to cook them anything for a night and Austin picked the cake immediately. But, after calling my mom for the recipe, I was almost disappointed to find out how easy this is to make... I named it the Chile-Gringuita because it's made from any American box cake but calls for a little (or a lot) of Manjar: a traditional pastry ingredient likened to caramel. It does take a while though mostly because of the manjar.

You'll need:
-2 Box yellow cakes (My mom always uses Pilsburry)
-Ingredients called for on the yellow cake box
-1/4 c. regular brewed coffee (no special flavoring)
-1/4 c. good quality Pisco
-2 can's of sweetened condensed milk
-6-8 cups of strawberries sliced
-16 fl. oz. of Heavy or Whipping Cream
-2 tbsp sugar

Directions:

Making Manjar...
First, peal the paper labels of the cans of sweetened condensed milk cans. Place them in a larg pot and fill the pot with water so that the cans are COMPLETELY submersed. Bring the water to a boil; let the cans boil for 3 hours. As time passes the water will evaporate so make sure to check the cans here and there to add water when needed. If you don't they will become deadly and possibly explode. Seriously. When they're done open a can and let it cool off.

Cake
Follow the directions on your boxed yellow cake. Make sure to grease and flour the pan well so that you don't have to deal with it falling apart when you take them out of the molds. Set the cakes aside to cool for at least 30 minutes.


Cream
DON'T use pre-made whipped cream its too sweet to counter the manjar. Pour your heavy cream into a deep bowl and add 1 tsp sugar to start. Beat the heavy cream until fluffed and taste... add sugar if you want then beat until stiff. We personally don't make it too sweet because it gets to be overwhelming with the manjar, cake, and strawberries.

Strawberries and Cream

Slice your strawberries long-ways and make sure they're fairly thin... about 1/2 cm. Sprinkle them with sugar to taste if they need it and set aside about 1/4 of it to use for the top layer/extra strawberries.  Add one to two dollops of whipped cream to that 3/4 of the strawberries and mix until covered.

Assembly

Combine coffee and alcohol in a cup. Remove the cakes from their molds and cut each of them in half so you can make (4) layers. On the first layer add a little of your alcohol/coffee mix and a thin layer of the manjar. You can put strawberries there too but it tends to get too messy and unstable...Put the top of the first cake back, sprinkle alcohol, layer manjar and now put on a layer of the strawberries mixed in with a little whip cream.  Put the first have of the 2nd cake on top of that and repeat the process. Pile an extra large amount of strawberries on top of the entire cake.  You should end up with extra strawberries, we always use that to pile on the plate with a slice of cake... some with whipped cream and others by themselves...or we eat as a seperate desert later.

Yay! Enjoy!