Canned dulce de leche

[Malawry]

I have a couple of cans of dulce de leche--the Nestle "La Lecheria" stuff. Can I turn this into a dippable consistency or a sauce for fresh fruit somehow? Are there other dessert ideas I can make with the stuff? I know I can just spoon it out of the can but I'd rather serve it to others in some other form than digging in directly.

[andiesenji]

This one is a favorite with my friends.

I tried

this one after seeing the episode. It was very good.

I also make a topping for summer fruits, peaches, etc.

I slowly heat the dulce de leche in a stainless steel pan set over simmering water up to the point where it becomes quite runny. For each can I add 1/4 cup sherry, and a tablespoon of ginger syrup, whisking until it is incorporated.

I then remove the pan from the heat and beat it vigorously until it is becomes frothy.

I spoon the fruits onto a slice of pound cake and ladle the dulce de leche over it.

[amclaud]

As far a no-work desserts go, dulce de leche warmed and spooned over good vanilla ice cream is about as easy as it gets. It's also good with caramelized/roasted pineapple under the ice cream.

Remove the skin from your pineapple and cut into rings, then cut out cores. In a large saute pan, combine 1 cup of sugar with a bit of water and caramelize just to a light amber color. Place pineapple rings in a single layer in pan and just barely cover with apple juice. Bring up to a simmer so the caramel dissolves and throw into a 325 degree oven to roast. Once the pineapple is cooked through, let the whole pan cool. The pineapple will absorb the flavor and color of the caramel liquid. Cut into chunks, top with ice cream, top with dulce de leche!

[amclaud]

You can also make your own dulce de leche by simmering an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot of water -- it takes about 3 hours though....

[andiesenji]

Here is an authentic Mexican recipe as made by Mrs. Obregon, my neighbor, who loves her slow-cooker which she says is muy sympatico.

DULCE DE LECHE - SLOW COOKER

1 Mexican (or other) vanilla bean, split lengthwise

2 cups regular goat milk, do not use low fat

2 cups regular milk

1 2/3 cups cane sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

dissolved in

¼ cup water

Mix the milk together in a quart measure.

Pour 3 cups of the milk (refrigerate the remaining cup) into the slow cooker and add the vanilla bean and sugar and turn heat control to high and mix with a whisk to make sure the sugar has dissolved.

As soon as the mixtue has warmed to about 140 degrees, add the water with the baking soda and whisk again.

Do not cover the cooker.

Continue cooking for about 8 hours, gently stirring about every 2 hours.

Remove the vanilla bean, wash it and set it aside to dry and stick it into your sugar canister to flavor the sugar.

Meanwhile, with a silicone high temp spatula, scrape down the crust that has formed on the sides and stir it into the mixture.

If foam forms do not remove it, simply stir down into the mixture.

Reduce the temperature to medium and continued cooking. Stir occasionally, about every 15-20 minutes until the mixture has thickened, it should pour like honey.

This should take about 2 hours.

Near the end of this time, warm the remaining cup of milk in a small saucepan then stir into the mixture in the slow cooker. Mix well and transfer to a sterilized quart jar and place the cap lightly on the jar, do not seal.

Allow it to cool to room temperature then tighten cap and refrigerate.

It will keep for three months in the refrigerator.

[Gifted Gourmet]

You can also make your own dulce de leche by simmering an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot of water -- it takes about 3 hours though....

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I remember this so well! My family was incredulous when I made it but no one wanted to try it when it cooled off .. so I ate the whole thing .. amazing!

[Malawry]

FWIW, I cracked open the can, mixed it with some cream over medium heat in a pan, and then stirred in a hefty shot of rum. I served it with some fruit and pretzels for dipping. I ate a few too many of the pretzels myself--they were goooooood.

[fifi]

Wow! Andiesenji does it again. I have always made the simmered cans of sweetened condensed milk. I now have a source of really good goats milk and the slow cooker method sounds like a winner. I will be trying this on some cold and drippy day and see how it compares.

Please make a note to add this to RecipeGullet when it is restored.

I have used a warmed version of the canned product, with some added good bourbon, as a sauce for a classic bread pudding. It got raves.

[andiesenji]

Mrs. Obregon makes her own, in spite of the Mexican supermarket carrying about a dozen different brands of the product in glass jars, cans, tins, little flat tins and in a plastic container in the dairy section with a sell-by date....

I can say from experience, after tasting them all, that hers is by far the best I have ever tasted.

And if you like sweet potatoes, try peeling them and baking them in a baking dish, just with a little butter then drizzling some of the dulce de leche over them and putting them back into the oven for about 10 minutes.

[Mrs. P]

A friend uses dulce de leche with cream cheese to make a "caramel" dip for fruit, and it is really quite smooth and delicious. The cream cheese cuts some of the sweetness and pairs nicely with the fruit.

To make your own dulce de leche, I can vouch also for the boiled can of condensed milk - it works fabulously.

There is a wide variety of dulce de leche across countries. Andiesenji's recipe is for Mexican cajeta, which is a goat milk-based dulce de leche and has a bit more "bite" to it than cows milk dulce de leche. I am not familiar with other countries that use goat milk as a base. In Colombia rice is soaked overnight in whole milk, then strained, and the rice-milk is used to add a starchy consistency to the dulce de leche. It is fun to experiment!

As for desserts, there are tons! We had a Chilean party last night, and people brought crepes filled with dulce de leche. We also had a cake called "torta mil hojas" in which you make several rounds of sweet pastry layers and fill in-between with dulce de leche. I have also seen it with intermittent layers of marzipan. You can also make a kind of roulade cake, a thin layer of yellow cake covered with dulce de leche, rolled into a log and sprinkled with powdered sugar and nuts (in Chile called a brazo de reina, or queen's arm). You can use it as filling between sandwiched cookies, or fill several layers of meringue disks, layer on fruit, then sprinkle it with coconut. Ther are tons of ways to use it!

[bushey]

My husband's favorite dessert is Panqueques -- warm, buttery crepes filled with dulce di luche and topped with fresh whipped cream. He made it on one of his guys' weekends and they were all duly impressed. I like to heat up the dulce di leche in the microwave for about 15 seconds and use it as an ice cream topping.

A local market used to carry the Nestle brand, but they stopped . I have yet to try the simmered condensed milk method but that might be a good Sunday afternoon project.

[Misa]

I've been told that the thing about the canned condensed milk method is that if it doesn't stay covered in water, the sucker could explod on you. I'd rather not find out the hard way. ;o)

[fifi]

I've been told that the thing about the canned condensed milk method is that if it doesn't stay covered in water, the sucker could explod on you. I'd rather not find out the hard way. ;o)

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I buy a bunch of cans when they go on sale around Thanksgiving. Then I submerge them in a stock pot under plenty of water. You only keep the water at a bare simmer. I also put a dish towel in the bottom so I don't have to listen to the bump bump of the cans. I check the water level over the 3 to 4 hours that it takes. In a deep pot, this is never a problem. The next thing is that you never try to open one of the cans until it has cooled to room temperature.

[andiesenji]

See my latest post on the pumpkin thread where I mention a combination of dulce de leche and pumpkin.

I thought of this on my drive home today.

[Mrs. P]

Also, try using dulce de leche as a swirl-in to brownie batter. Yum!

[FistFullaRoux]

Instead of pouring it over ice cream, make ice cream with it. Replace a can or two worth of the milk or cream with the Dulce de Leche. Proceed as usual...

[andiesenji]

One of my buddies makes a butter pecan ice cream using dulce de leche as a base. I have to see if she will part with the recipe or see if she posted it in our little private group files on Yahoo and will let me post it here........

I made it once and it is super rich and very, very tasty.

[andiesenji]

If you go to this site Melinda Lee's recipe archives.

You will find Rick Bayliss' recipe for Tres Leches Cake and his version of dulce de leche.

It is something to do with your homemade dulce de leche.............

as if you had a problem...

Edited October 31, 2004 by andiesenji (log)

[chocophile]

I use a pressure cooker to make dulce de leche when I need it. Instead of taking three hours in an open pot, cooking time is about 30 minutes once the pot is up to pressure.

Don't put the can directly on the floor of the pot; mine has a perforated disk that's raised about 1/2 above the bottom. Remove the labels from the cans, fill to rim (make sure the cans are completely submerged, of course), and put the top on.

It's very important to release the pressure immediately when cooking is done and remove the cans from the hot water otherwise they will keep on cooking and you'll be left with a solid congealed mass of caramelized milk. Tasty, but not dulce de leche, and sometimes the sugar crystallizes which is not cool.

I tend to use the dulce de leche I make mostly as a flavoring for milk chocolate ganache, but I've also used it straight as a sauce for ice cream, as a filling for crepes, and as a glaze for cakes, etc.

:Clay