discover the story of the sweet that went viral on social media

Nicknamed by Brazilians as bolo alagado or cake drowned, a video of the making of a tres leches cake went viral on social media recently and inspired several attempts to recreate the recipe. Internet users’ curiosity was caused by the way the cake is prepared: at one point, it is completely covered in syrup, leaving the cake super wet.

Although there are countless videos on the internet showing how to make the drowned cake, the truth is that its origins are not even Brazilian and it was an immigrant who brought the recipe to the country. Venezuelan confectioner Nelarys Lanz, better known as Nela, currently lives in the center of Curitiba and is responsible for starting, even if unintentionally, the tres leches cake craze in Brazil.

Composed of sponge cake dough, wet with condensed milk syrup, cream and steamed milk, and decorated with meringue and cinnamon, Nela explains that the tres leches cake or tres leches, in Spanish, is very common and well-known in Venezuela. . With the affective power that original recipes carry, the connection between the cake and the baker’s story is much deeper than anyone can imagine and that is why it is impossible to tell their story separately.

The Venezuelan has been working in confectionery for over 20 years. When she came to Brazil, in 2018, she first settled in Manaus and decided that she would continue pursuing the profession, no matter how difficult it was. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Nela decided to leave the northern region of the country and moved to Curitiba, where she needed to start her life over again.

The relationship between Nela and the cake begins in Venezuela, where she lived with her three children: Carlos, Amanda and Miguel. When she started in the profession, Amanda and Carlos, the eldest son who had Down Syndrome, were still young. As she needed to stay at home to take care of them, she decided to make the tres leches cake to sell around the neighborhood.

“I always made (the tres leches cake). I’ve been making it for over 24 years for my children. When my children were little, I wasn’t working because I couldn’t leave the house due to Carlos’ situation and I was thinking about what to do. When I started, I sold a lot. My neighbors were even mad at me because I couldn’t do more for them”, he jokes.

The confectioner was successful, increasing orders and became a distributor of one of the main confectioneries in Caracas, the country’s capital. However, in May 2014 Nela’s life took a very unexpected turn. Carlos, aged 24, died from surgical complications three days after undergoing the procedure.

“When my son died I went crazy. My brother had already lived in Manaus for ten years and said I had to leave there. I left there to forget and it was the best idea. My mind made a switch, I thought that my son was traveling, on vacation, and I was also on vacation.” With the death of her firstborn son and the political situation in the country, the Venezuelan woman began preparing to leave, which happened four years later.

In Manaus, she didn’t sell the tres leches cake. The idea of ​​bringing the recipe to Brazil came about a year ago, already in Curitiba. The professional wasn’t able to make many sales and one night, in the middle of a prayer, she revealed that she remembered the recipe that had such a special meaning.

“For me, the importance of the tres leches cake, besides being a dessert from my country, is sentimental. It’s this connection with them, with my son (Carlos), who was the most loving in the world, continues to be so because he’s here with me. He taught me to be who I am, strong and with a faith that no one can disturb. And I didn’t realize when I started doing tres leches and, that was until something my therapist said, that it’s like the representation of my three children,” he says.

Tres Leiches cake goes viral

The Venezuelan has always been in the habit of publishing videos of her work on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. The tres leches cake went viral when a Brazilian confectioner took one of her videos showing the process of the dough ‘sucking’ the liquid syrup. In an attempt to recreate the recipe, the man called the cake alagado and the name went viral. In a short time, Nela says that the video reached more than a million views and she received around a thousand messages in just one day.

The cake’s virality on social media was great, as orders increased a lot and her work became better known. However, a problem arose: the authorship of tres leches.

“I didn’t know how to digest everything that was happening after so much struggle trying to publicize it. When this happened, another baker took my recipe and recorded it as if it were hers, as if she were the creator of the cake. I was so angry because it was a lie, the cake was mine, she didn’t even have the recipe.” Outraged by the situation, Nela reveals that she went to the professional to say that it was a lack of professionalism.

“The tres leches is a way of honoring my three children”, he concludes. So she was hurt when she saw that people were inventing recipes to try to go viral. “I never wanted to go viral, I wanted to show and sell my product. It is very difficult for an immigrant to enter here, gain trust and win over customers.”

Brazilian tres leches

The original tres leches cake is neither decorated nor filled. In the Venezuelan recipe, the sponge cake dough receives and absorbs the liquid syrup. Then, the top of the cake is decorated with meringue and cinnamon.

To serve the Brazilian clientele, Nela made some changes. Instead of meringue, she uses whipped cream and also makes colorful decorations, as requested. More recently, the baker also started filling the tres leches cake, according to customers’ preferences.

A unit of tres leches cake costs from R$85. Nelarys receives orders via social media or WhatsApp (41) 99174-2026.

Baker teaches online course

Concerned about keeping the original recipe known, Nela decided to take an online course to teach how to make the tres leches cake. “When I saw that this was happening I thought about opening a class. My cake wasn’t that one and I wanted people to know how to make it with my recipe. No one knows how important it is to me,” she explains.

Since the first group, mostly female, the course has had a good response and is now in its third group. Nelarys says that in addition to teaching recipes, the course aims to bring hope to women.

“Our course is about changing lives. It is a humanized course where all my students have direct contact with me. I’m teaching how to make it from the dough, tres leches syrup and steamed milk, which is not common here in Brazil. Furthermore, I formed a partnership with my friend who is a therapist and he gave the gift of mentoring to the students. I want to give them tools so they can connect with ventures,” he says.

Anyone interested in participating can send a message to Nelarys via WhatsApp, at the number: (41) 99174-2026. The course lasts around a month and consultation with the professional is available for six months.

“Owner” of the tres leches cake came to Brazil in 2018

Along with her mother and ex-husband, Nelarys arrived in Manaus in 2018, bringing only a suitcase with kitchen equipment and 1,500 dollars. “When I went to Brazil, my car didn’t pass because it was missing a document and everything we had to start working was left in the car. So I arrived with nothing. It was very difficult to leave my country at that time. They closed the border. Our departure was with great pain,” she recalls.

The family chose to go to Manaus because the confectioner’s brother, married to a Brazilian, had already lived there for ten years. When he arrived, the Venezuelan believed that she could easily sell the cakes and sweets. But it wasn’t like that. Together with her ex-husband, she had to start working on the streets selling water, juice and some foods that she learned to make, such as pastries.

“I came home crying, because I didn’t sell anything. But I didn’t sit still, I thought that if I hadn’t sold today, I would sell tomorrow. In the morning I would make the pastries again and go out to sell them.”

Needing to reinvent herself quickly, she took courses to adapt to Brazilian ingredients she didn’t know, such as whipped cream and brigadeiro. “My dream was to be recognized as a Venezuelan confectioner in Brazil.”

One day he decided to make a pot cake, which was something that didn’t exist in Venezuela. Her ex-husband came up with the idea of ​​selling in restaurants in the city. “There was a restaurant that was one of the oldest in Manaus and whenever I passed by, the three owners were outside, but they didn’t speak to me because they seemed unfriendly. One day, I made 24 cakes to leave at restaurants, explaining that I was a pastry chef. I went to this place and when I handed it to one of the owners he was kind of like that, but he let me leave the cakes there”, she says.

The next day, her ex-husband, who was selling water on the street, ran home telling Nelarys that the restaurant owner was calling her. When she went to the place, afraid of what would happen, she discovered that all the cakes had been sold. He asked her to make new ones and promised that if everything was sold, she would become his supplier. And so it was that after about four months of struggling to pay rent and other expenses, the family began to feel more relieved.

Nelarys’ clientele increased, as did the number of sales. The entrepreneur even participated in interviews on a radio program and also took courses to learn how to manage her own business. But the arrival of the pandemic changed the entire scenario in the immigrant’s life.

“My family, friends, neighbors died. I stopped again. After I was at the top I fell to the ground again. In December my whole family got sick. My sister-in-law’s mother died and my mother didn’t die because God didn’t allow it, but it was such a terrible thing that I said I had to leave Manaus. I thought everyone was dying and no one was doing anything. The government didn’t care. We experienced the whole problem with oxygen, my brother spent twelve hours waiting for oxygen for my mother.” Researching cities in Brazil, he decided to move to Curitiba.

“I loved Curitiba as soon as I arrived. I had another friend who already lived in Boa Vista and told me that Curitiba was a beautiful city, that it wasn’t hot and that there was a lot of entrepreneurship”.

Overcoming the difficulties she encountered in starting over in the capital of Paraná, Nelarys’ situation has now progressed and she has several orders, most of them for the famous tres leches cake. Her mother continues to live in Manaus with her brother, Amanda lives in Argentina and Miguel, the youngest son, is in Venezuela.

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