How do I keep a tres leches cake from forming a huge milk puddle? I've been asked to do a groom's cake tres leches cake and I tried one practice one and it had a huge puddle of milk all around it. How can I avoid that?

Hiya Martsy,
How much milk mix did you put on the cake? sounds like there's just a tad too much in there. Also another thing you might try is to make an icing dam around the bottom of the cake and then on each layer as you fill it.
You want just enough mix in the cake to make it wet but not soaking.
Hope that helps

My recipe called for 6 oz. per layer.

An icing dam? I was using "Perfect whipped cream" from the cake bible for my icing.... would that work? Or, I was using dulce de leche as an icing (and then the whipped cream as an icing layer over that)... do you think I should try a dam of dulce de leche? I was thinking of using it as a filling between the layers, but I was trying to stay "traditional" with the cake.... and if I used it as a filling, I'd have to pour the milk on the layer first and then use the dulce de leche over that... do you think that would work?

will that work?

help? anyone?

Decorating tres leche cakes:

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-413963-.html

HTH

Yeppers, the icing dam will work. It doesn't really matter if it's whipped icing or bc. Just having something there to stop the flow is a good idea. Also another thing is that for the most part, tres leches cakes are NOT storage friendly. Meaning, that they need to be served pretty much within a few hours of completing the decorating. As gravity does take it's toll and the milks will "settle" into the bottom of the cake eventually making a puddle.
The icing dams won't stop it altogether but it does slow down the inevetible.

Your amounts sound correct.

how much milk are you putting on the cake? And how big is the cake?

I use the recipe from La Duni Bakery. It's on their site. I use a fork to poke holes in the cake and let it soak in. I boil cans of sweetened condensed milk to make the carmel filling in between layers. It's covered with merigue about 5 hours before serving and then torched with a butane torch at serving time to carmelize the meringue and for drama. It's a wonderful cake. Just made one for a hundred.