Dulce de Leche

My mother’s side of the family are from Argentina and until I was about nine, every Christmas we would spend a month on the other side of the world at my grandparents’ Estancia, spending Christmas Day on the beach and enjoying an asado almost every evening. Being a kid, the fact that we were doing this outside in December never lost its magic!

I’ll never forget the taste of the honey produced by wild bees on the Estancia – thick, golden and delicious, perfect for dripping slowly onto freshly made bread.

But, better than an asado, better than honey is Dulce de Leche:

Dulce de leche … is a milk-based sauce. Found as both a syrup and a caramel candy, it is prepared by slowly heating sweetened milk to create a product that is similar in taste to caramel. It is also the basis for the elaboration of many sweets and desserts which form part of the classics of the Argentine gastronomy.

You can buy it over here but it’s ridiculously expensive and having done numerous taste tests with tins sent from Argentina, I can honestly say it really isn’t the same.

I’ve got it on my mind at the moment as we bought some Dulce de Leche ice cream ages ago and had it with our Cake in a Mug. Last night, I left a comment over at LittleFfarm Dairy about it and now it’s in my head!

So, if not to buy, the only option left is to make it and that sounds like a great project.

Mum claims she and her brother and sister used to make “perfect” dulce de leche using tins on condensed milk when they went camping in the mountains in south Argentina. Basically, they’d carefully pack their ponies and the mule so that some tins were in the position where they were most likely to get shaken about and at the end of each day’s ride along rocky mountain paths, the condensed milk, heated by the sun and shaken to death, would be pure sugary goodness.

Sadly, that option is not available to me so I’ll have to find another and these recipes look like the best candidates:

• Chez Pim has a recipe using cow’s milk
• eHow explains how to make it using a tin of sweetened condensed milk (note: pierce the tin before placing it in boiling water!!!!)
• David Lebovitz says to make it using goat’s milk
• Finally, here’s an idea for dulce de leche cupcakes!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Waistline, beware! 😀