While you can make dulce de leche at home by caramelizing a can of sweetened condensed milk, it is a bit less time consuming to buy it if you can find a jar at a local market or specialty store. La Salamandra Dulce de Leche is an Argentinian brand that, for me, is fairly easy to find at stores and online. This dulce de leche has a great consistency, thicker than a caramel sauce and just as sweet, but much less sticky. It will ooze a little bit if you drop a dollop on ice cream, but it will also stick easily to a spoon, even at room temperature, without running off. The latter feature is especially good if you like to eat a spoonful by itself occasionally!
The milk caramel is made with milk, sugar and glucose, and is flavored with vanilla (there is also a little bit of baking soda “as an acidity control agent”). You can really taste the milk flavor in the finished caramel underlying the sweetness of the dulce de leche. The vanilla comes through, too, but is a minor player in the caramel. It’s smooth and very sweet, but it has a richness that keeps you coming back for more, unlike some (cheaper) caramel sauces that just seem to burn your throat with too much sugar.
I really like this brand and would recommend keeping an eye out for it, whether you’ve had other brands or want to give dulce de leche a try for the first time.
Jess
August 6, 2009Hands down, the best dulce I have ever had is Chilean Sweet’s. She’s been reviewed on my sites and is on Etsy. It is to die for.
ANALIA
August 10, 2009I FILLED MY CAKES WITH “DULCE DE LECHE”,LITTLE BROKEN WALNUTS, MATCH REALLY WELL, ALSO YOU CAN USE IT AS AN ICING, TO COVER YOUR CAKES, TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA, WATHER YOU DO WITH PEANUR BUTTER, WE DO IT WITH ‘DULCE DE LECHE”.
Alejandro
August 12, 2009Hi!!!… I’m from Argentina, and “dulce the leche” is the most traditional recipe here, somehow different from the chilean “manjar blanco” (which is a little less sweet and without the dark color of the argentine product), and even with a flavor different from the mexican “dulce de cajeta”.
The traditional recipe for home-made “dulce the leche” is just as follows:
INGREDIENTS
1 gallon milk
1 vanilla bean
4 1/2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
DIRECTIONS
In a large saucepan, bring milk to a boil over medium-high heat. Remove from heat and strain through cheesecloth. Return to pan.
Cut vanilla bean in half and pour the seeds in the milk. Stir in the sugar and replace the pan on medium-high heat, stirring constantly until the sugar is dissolved. Just as the milk mixture begins to boil, stir in the baking soda (be careful at this point, when you add the baking soda, the milk tends to “climb” the walls of the pan). Reduce the heat to medium, stirring constantly until mixture thickens. When a wooden spoon drawn through the mixture leaves the bottom of the pan visible, and the mixture is light brown in color (it will get darker as it cools), remove the pan from the heat. The “cooking” process can be long (some 2 hrs), so the final volume reduces notably.
Place the pan in an ice bath and stir constantly until dulce de leche is cold. Store in airtight container in refrigerator. Pour into sterile jars, and store in the refrigerator.
In argentina we usually use it a a single marmalade, with cookies or bread, or over cheese, or as fillings, and we also mix it with whipped cream to make a diferent filling a/o icing, and even mix it with melted chocolate for a different cream…
If you want a thicker dulce de leche, you can add some corn starch during the cooking process (diluted with some cold milk), or in the final steps, add confectioner’s sugar (but remember then to use less sugar in the initial steps)
Hope it will be helpful…