Dulce de Leche

I'm completely serious when I say that one of my bigger regrets in life is that I didn't come around on dulce de leche sooner. I don't know if this says more about how wonderful my life has been, how well I can let things go, or how really really amazing dulce de leche is. Maybe its all three?

I grew up in a fairly hispanic part of the United States. I grocery shopped at little corner tiendas, buying peppers I couldn't find at the chain down the road or home made tortillas. There's even an adorable little abuela who sells tamales on my road once a month. I've had every opportunity to befriend dulce de leche, but I somehow got it in my head that I didn't like it. I didn't know what I was missing.

There's no epiphany to this story, no one event that changed the course of my dulce de leche loving life. But now that I've come around I crave the stuff. So far, none of the store brands have come close to the rich caramel creaminess I've had before, so I started looking for recipes to make at home. There are plenty out there, but I'm more than a little apprehensive about boiling a canned good on my stove for hours. I found a great recipe from David Lebovitz that calls for baking, rather than exploding simmering, the sweetened condensed milk.



Dulce de Leche

Adapted from here


1 14oz can Sweetened Condensed Milk


Preheat the oven to 400 F

Pour the sweetened condensed milk into a shallow baking dish. Stir in a few shakes of sea salt.

Set the dish in a larger pan and pour water into the larger pan until it reaches halfway to the top. Cover the smaller dish with aluminum foil. Bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until browned and caramelized.

Remove from oven and let cool. Store in the refrigerator until use.