When Daniella García begins baking her Tres Leches cake - three milks - she knows, fully and clearly, her intention.

Her Tres Leches cake will be light, airy and moist, like a cloud filled with milk.

"It's a fluffy sponge cake," she said.

So, she separates the egg whites from yolks, then beats and whips the egg whites as much as possible.

"Egg yolks weigh down the cake," she said, "and you want it to be as light as possible."

As light as possible ...

The Tres Leches cake is beloved throughout central America as the staple, celebratory dessert on Hispanic tables.

Since opening her own business a few years ago, 18-year-old Daniella - "Dani" to her friends - has become arguably Chattanooga's top Tres Leches baker, selling to loyal clients and local restaurants.

"It's the best Tres Leches cake I've tasted in the United States," declared Juan García, her father.

Into the egg-white bowl, she sifts flour, adding vanilla, sugar, pinches of cinnamon, into a beautiful, bright batter.

Then, Dani pours it into a 9 x 13" pan, which she slides into the 350-degree oven for 21 minutes, exactly.

"I found the sweet spot at 21," she said.

She began baking as a young girl; during quarantine, she began selling Tres Leches cakes. She's baked more than 100 since.

She prefers to bake alone. Her dazzling, engaging mind - she's earned a near-flawless GPA - can exhale and rest in the refuge of a singular chop-wood-carry-water activity.

"When I am baking, I am in my own head space, my me-time," she said.  

"I'm always thinking about school. Baking is my avenue to not think about school and grades. It's kind of like: just cut the strawberry."

But, as she bakes, Dani's never really alone.

Flowing within her are the memories, struggles and hopes of three generations of Salvadorian women, beginning with her great-grandmother's stone hearth bakery which then flowed into Dani's grandmother - one of El Salvador's top restaurant managers and chefs - who then poured into Dani's mother who immigrated to America and worked the night shift, day shift, any shift, just so that her daughter - Dani - can flourish.

Flourish, she is.

Dani is one of Hamilton County's best and brightest; graduating in 2024 from East Hamilton High with a mountaintop 3.9 GPA and AP Capstone diploma, Dani - currently a freshman at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) - has also been named Best Attorney at mock trial competitions from here to Nashville to California.

She's also a baker.

Cut strawberries.

Beat eggs.

Sift flour.

She's also a first-generation immigrant.

Be hospitable and generous.

Excel. Work harder than hard.

Love others.

This is the story of Dani García's Tres Leches cake. Three milks. Three generations of women pouring into a fourth.

As light as possible.

In 1958, Miriam Calderon - Dani's abuela - was born in Comasagua, El Salvador. Her own mother - Dani's great-grandmother who they called Mamalita - made sweet bread out of a stone oven for their bakery; little Miriam would sneak pieces of bread and hand them out to friends, scolded, but only gently.

At 12, young Miriam left home for better schooling, living in a dorm-style home in a nearby city. Married at 19, she began work in the food industry, eventually becoming the restaurant manager at La Diligencia, one of the nation's best steakhouses.

She cooks with an inner, almost magical, sense of knowing. How well is a steak cooked? Her hands can feel it.  

"She can tell how well a steak is cooked by comparing it to the tenderness of her palm," said Dani.

One evening in 1999, she hosted a most special guest. At her steakhouse, a small army of suited English-speaking men arrived, with earphones and guns, and gave curt orders: nobody use the phone, nobody leave, nobody comes in.

She dashed off a quick whispered call home:

Creo que el presidente de los Estados Unidos está a punto de venir a cenar.

Minutes later, Bill Clinton - on a presidential visit - stepped into her steakhouse for dinner.

In 2009, Miriam immigrated to Chattanooga, moving in with her daughter and son-in-law - Karla and Juan, who immigrated here the year prior - and young granddaughter.

Daniella.

Miriam began work at Golden Corral, then Chick-fil-A. Cold prep. Salads and wraps.

It was at home, though, that the award-winning Miriam poured out her knowledge, teaching young Dani how to cook and bake.

Juan - Dani's father, Miriam's son-in-law - had taken a job at Chick-fil-A. (He would soon ascend from back-of-kitchen to manager, eventually meeting founder Truett Cathy and, ironically, also hiring Miriam.)

Meanwhile, Karla - Dani's mom, Miriam's daughter - began serving at City Cafe.

"Second shift," she said. "I'd get home around 3.30 in the morning."

While her mom worked, young Dani would push a step stool into the kitchen so she could reach the stand-up mixer she got for Christmas.

With Miriam nearby, hands guiding, voice encouraging, Dani began to bake: custard desserts, Bundts and chocolate cakes.

Just before she crawled into bed, young Dani would leave a slice of dessert on a small plate on the kitchen counter, waiting for her mom.

"I wanted to have something for her to come back home to," she said.

Karla would shuffle home, 3 am-tired, to find a slice of chocolate cake - with a fork - waiting for her on the kitchen counter.

Another Saturday, Karla, exhausted, took a nap.

"When I woke up, Dani surprised me with a chocolate cake," she said. "That was the first cake Dani made for me."

Karla - who today works as a paralegal with Cornejo & Cornejo in Dalton, Ga. - still has the photo. (She also shared a photo of young Dani with her great-grandmother.)

Young Dani would watch the enterprising Miriam and Karla, who would sell pupusas via Facebook, as lines formed outside their East Brainerd home. One day, they made some 800 pupusas.

Dani began making cakes for families and quinceaneras, then, during the pandemic, Tres Leches. Formed her own business - Tres Baking Co., which sells cakes, cupcakes and flan - and, when a loyal client who also worked as a server told her bosses - I know of the best Tres Leches cake in the city - she got her first restaurant contract.

Dani, though, isn't studying culinary arts in college.

She wants to be a lawyer.

"She is the next Michael Jordan of law school," her dad said.

At ETSU, Dani joined the mock trial team and, this fall, helped her team win the Tennessee Inter-Collegiate State Supreme Court's competition for the first time in school history, winning Best Lawyer - the same award she won over the summer at Stanford University.

Her secret?

"Confidence, confidence," she said.

It's also vulnerability.

Dani takes the cake out of the oven, poking holes throughout; this lets the milk seep and soak into the cake, into its pores, its DNA. There is no cake without the milk.

As light as possible ...

Then, she pours the tres leches - evaporated, condensed, whole - into and through the cake.

As the milk seeps, she brings out the icing.

Then, the fruit.  

"This tastes like home," Juan said.

To taste her Tres Leches cake - best served cold - is to go swimming in this, a sweetness that's both delicate and whole, as the milks - tres leches - nourish it all so that the cake becomes what all desserts aspire to be: full of an expanding kindness, generosity and softness.

With softness, there is vulnerability.

So, when Dani begins to gently cry - telling her story, she comes to the heartbreak - the kitchen softens for her.

The lightness - her cake, her family - holds her.

"No school in Tennessee would offer me state tuition or a merit scholarship," she said.

It was last year. She was graduating from East Ham. - star of the show, one of the best young lawyers in the state - and so she  easily assumed her college applications would be met with red-carpet reception.

And, all her hard work - she'd built her whole life around merit - would make college affordable. Accessible. Especially to a first-generation immigrant, right?

"I was not eligible for state tuition," she said.

It unraveled right before her eyes. Applying to multiple state schools, she watched all her acceptance offers carry a millstone of a price tag.

Out-of-state tuition.

"I'm not seen as a citizen or permanent resident," she said.

Dani's lived here for most of her life. Dani and her family - here on work visas - have applied for official green cards; they are still waiting.

"It came down to the language of Tennessee law. To qualify for in-state tuition, you have to be a citizen or permanent resident," she said.

The García family pays taxes and has never received government benefits. They contribute - in immeasurable ways - to the betterment of this country.

Our university system ought to bend over backwards to welcome Dani and affordably educate her towards further greatness. Instead, it charged her $53,000 a year.

"It was really heartbreaking," she said, through tears, "to see all the work I'd put in."

Outside scholarships made ETSU affordable. (Last week, she was still hustling to identify and secure future scholarships to continue her ETSU education.) The Garcías meet the sadness with a deeper sense of faith and hope.

"God has plans," said Juan.

"I feel sad but, at the same time, I feel lucky," Dani said. "God has got us here."

Then, Karla - wherever she works, she's soon offered a management position - reminds the kitchen of the García work ethic.

"People want to come here and don't adapt," said Karla. "We were going to move here and the first thing we learned? To speak English. We're not going to make you struggle to understand us."

At their church, they welcome new immigrant families to live with them, under their roof.

"When people come to the United States and don't have a place to live, we volunteer to house them," said Juan. "Our family has a history of hospitality. We're willing to help people."

As light as possible ...

Dani's Tres Leches cake cools. Karla makes coffee.

"Dani is a gift to us," she said.

We bite into Dani's Tres Leches cake, tasting all the sweetness and light, one dessert somehow able to contain four generations of hospitality and generosity, from little hands passing out sweet bread to 3 am slices of step-stool cake to quinceaneras to immigrant families sleeping in the spare bedroom to beloved steak houses and a 3.9 GPA and Best Attorney awards and, soon, law school.

So that others may live their lives with freedom.

Goodness.

Softness.

With as much light as possible.

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This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.