Dulce De Leche recipe and storage

The easy way to make Dulce De Leche is to put an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk into a small pan. Add water to bring it to about 3/4 the way up the can. Bring to a boil and simmer for about an hour. Let cool completely before opening. You can turn the can over after 30 minutes. Store in a jar or plastic container. It should keep for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator, maybe more

A quicker method is to use a pressure cooker. Cook at pressure for 30 minutes -- 45 minutes if you want it darker.

[non-food groups removed -- to the OP, please don't cross-post into unrelated groups and, indeed, try to keep cross-posting to a minimum]

I have to say that boiling unopened cans is way past my personal risk threshold. No criticism of those who do it; just a different point of view.

You can also take the long way around and make dulce de leche from scratch. Following are a couple of recipes that entered my collection in 2001, from rec.food.recipes, posted by linda/tennessee.

-j

*** Dulce de Leche Makes 1.75 pounds Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 1 Hour "This is a typical sweet from Argentina. You can eat it alone, use it to fill cakes, or serve over bananas, ice-cream or any other dessert!"

1 gallon milk

1 vanilla bean 4 1/2 cups white sugar 1 teaspoon baking soda

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 heat, stirring constantly until the sugar is dissolved. Just as the milk mixture begins to boil, stir in the baking soda. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring frequently, 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, remove the pan from the heat. Place the pan in an ice bath and stir constantly until dulce de leche is cold. Store in airtight container in refrigerator. Makes 1.75 pounds

Dulce de Leche This recipe is adapted from an article which appeared in the daily New York Times. Dulce de leche (pronounced DOOL-say duh LAY-chay) meaning "sweet from milk." Is an Hispanic term for a caramel sauce, which is a traditional flavoring "south of the border" and has been adopted recently as an ice-cream flavoring in America. The flavoring is made by simmering sweetened milk until it turns thick and amber. Reprinted here are a recipe for the basic sauce as well as two recipes using this flavoring.

1 quart whole milk 2 cups sugar 1/4 teaspoon baking soda Pinch cinnamon.

Combine ingredients in a large heavy saucepan. Place over medium heat and cook without stirring until mixture boils, 15 to 20 minutes. Briefly remove from heat. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon,

45 minutes to one hour. When mixture becomes a caramel color and is thick enough that you can see the bottom of the pan as you stir, remove it from heat. Use at room temperature or cover and refrigerate. Yield: 2 cups.

This was a hot topic of discussion amongst a group of avid cooks that included several engineers. The consensus was that as long as it was allowed to cook completely before opening the pressure cooker method was completely safe and that if care is taken the water bath method is safe.

The water bath method was deemed safe as long as the cans were kept completely covered with water and the cooking held to a simmer. The condensed milk inside the cans has a higher boiling point than the water around them and as such will never reach boiling point. As such the worst that could happen is that a rare can might burst but would never explode. I have done this several times and not seen a hint of a problem. If you forget about it and the water boils away that is a whole 'nother story.

Much cross posting snipped Only thing I can think of is even cooking of the contents. If the can is out of the water, it will be exposed to steam at 212, but no higher. I don't see how else the contents would be affected. Am I missing something? Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net

I don't think so. The post that I quested said that the can would explode if it wasn't completely submerged. It seems to me that having part of the can exposed would actually reduce the internal temperature and the pressure. The can would act like a radiator. Since PV=NRT, the pressure would have to be lower in a cooler can since the rest of the parameters (V,N, and R) would be constant.

So it doesn't explode because the contents overheat, just like Dimitri explained. A can by its nature is a sealed container--i.e., it will become a pressure cooker.

Surrounding it with water that _cannot_, under normal pressure, ever exceed the boiling point at that pressure alleviates that concern.

Of course, there are some people who wish to demonstrate evolution in action....

B/

The procedure that I posted said to bring the water up 3/4 of the way on the can. I don't see how leaving the TOP 1/4 of the can exposed to the atmosphere which is going to be far cooler than 212F will cause the can to overheat. I'm not saying that you are wrong, but I can't think of any reason why you would be right. I can see how the contents of the can might not cook evenly if isn't fully covered, but that is the opposite of having the can explode.

Vox Humana wrote: > I can see how the contents of the can might

Making sure the can is fully submerged doesn't do anything except give you more water in the pot so it takes longer to boil dry while you're not watching it.

It's a harmless but needless precaution. Just like sterilizing your jars before you fill them when you're gonna pressure-can them anyway.

I think pressure cooking several unopened cans at once for an hour at 15 pounds makes sense; the extra cans can be stored on the shelf ready-to-use.

Best regards, Bob

ready-to-use.

That all makes sense to me.

(snip)

Please tell us how it works out.

B/

I'm sure that Roy Basan can explain it far better than I could. He is a wizard when it comes to food science.

Thanks for the info -- gotta love engineers (my Dad is a retired engineer, my sister dated engineers all through college, I dated engineers, I was even married to one -- for a while, anyway :)). While I will probably pass on making dulce de leche by boiling the can (personal risk thresholds are just that: personal), it's nice to know that it's not as risky as it feels to me.

-j

s/food/industrial baking of yeasted breads.

David

I don't think it's about exploding. I think it's to make sure that the whole can is cooked. Sweetened condensed milk is thick and would have very little convection activity inside the can. That would mean that the top of the can being cooler, it would cook differently than the rest.

In any event, I've done it dozens of times both stovetop and in a crockpot. Worked fine every time.

Pastorio.

Or, if you're the patient sort, buy a few cans every year. About five or ten years down the road, the first ones you bought should have reached that state on their own.

(Just opened a 6 year old tin of SCM for my coffee - it was darkened and thick. The longer it sits, the better. :-))

I had that happen to me once. I don't use much SCM and when I opened an old can it was dark. I threw it away thinking it was spoiled!

And you don't even live in a warm climate! Imagine how quickly that would work for me?

All this talk now has me wanting to open the can that's been sitting in my cupboard for years and years (I think it got bought by mistake, probably by my spouse who thought he was buying evaporated milk).