I’ve seen dulce de leche in recipes before; I usually dismissed those recipes because a) I wasn’t sure what it was b)I didn’t know it could be made at home and c) I didn’t know where to buy it. But the other day I saw a recipe that I really thought I’d try that contained dulce de leche, so I did some research.
Turns out, if you use the traditional method to make it, dulce de leche takes a long time and is pretty labor intensive; it’s also a bit temperamental, it seems. BUT there is an easy way! It also takes a long time, between two and three hours, but there’s no labor involved and it’s foolproof (not that anyone here’s a fool, excepting myself)!
There’s no recipe, and the ingredient list is short:
1 can (14 Oz) sweetened condensed milk.
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That’s all! You do need a fairly deep pot, and a lot of water. Bring that water to a boil, remove the label from the can, place it in the boiling water on its side, and let it simmer for two to three hours, checking occasionally to make sure the water level is well above the top of the can. The lesser time will yield a more runny syrupy product, the longer time will give you something more solid and spoonable. There’s a world of desserts out there, many of them elegant enough for a formal dinner party, in which dulce de leche plays an integral role. I can hardly wait to try some of them!
One thing that puzzles me though. The actual name of the milk caramel. If I remember my high school Spanish, “sweet milk” would be “leche dulce.” “Dulce de leche” would translate literally as “sweet of milk.” (Anyone remember that scene in Guys and Dolls in which Brando plies Jean Simmons with a rum laden drink of the same name?) Why such an odd (for Spanish) juxtaposition of noun and adjective, and why the “of?”
Anyway, do any of you use dulce de leche? Do you have any favorite recipes that employ it? Please share!
Turns out, if you use the traditional method to make it, dulce de leche takes a long time and is pretty labor intensive; it’s also a bit temperamental, it seems. BUT there is an easy way! It also takes a long time, between two and three hours, but there’s no labor involved and it’s foolproof (not that anyone here’s a fool, excepting myself)!
There’s no recipe, and the ingredient list is short:
1 can (14 Oz) sweetened condensed milk.
...
...
...
...
That’s all! You do need a fairly deep pot, and a lot of water. Bring that water to a boil, remove the label from the can, place it in the boiling water on its side, and let it simmer for two to three hours, checking occasionally to make sure the water level is well above the top of the can. The lesser time will yield a more runny syrupy product, the longer time will give you something more solid and spoonable. There’s a world of desserts out there, many of them elegant enough for a formal dinner party, in which dulce de leche plays an integral role. I can hardly wait to try some of them!
One thing that puzzles me though. The actual name of the milk caramel. If I remember my high school Spanish, “sweet milk” would be “leche dulce.” “Dulce de leche” would translate literally as “sweet of milk.” (Anyone remember that scene in Guys and Dolls in which Brando plies Jean Simmons with a rum laden drink of the same name?) Why such an odd (for Spanish) juxtaposition of noun and adjective, and why the “of?”
Anyway, do any of you use dulce de leche? Do you have any favorite recipes that employ it? Please share!