Making Dulce de Leche: Oven Method

Welcome to the second post of my brand new series: ‘Making Dulce de Leche’! Up today: the oven method.

Glad you could make it!

Just a heads up: as I’m typing out this post, I’m enjoying – as in: ENJOYING! ENJOYING! ENJOYING!- a dulce de leche brownie, which is so ridiculously good that I find it really hard to concentrate right now. Regardless of the fact that the topic under discussion today is the magical stuff that makes the said brownie – man, it’s good! – so ridiculously delicious. Oh, and it’s a huge brownie too, so this post may be a bit off topic at times.

Just so you know…

But aaaanyway, in the first post of this series, I explained all about making dulce de leche using the closed can method. You remember me blabbing about explosions and thermal energy absorption? You know, just before you most likely dozed of, dreaming about dulce de leche?

Don’t worry, I won’t go all nerdy on you today.

I first read about this method of making dulce the leche in the oven on David Lebovitz‘s – yes, the ice cream king – blog a few years ago.

You’ll need the same ingredients (aka: 1 can of sweetened, condensed milk, which still isn’t the same as evaporated milk) and the process is almost as easy! Sure, not quite as easy as plopping a can of sweetened, condensed milk in a pan of boiling water and practically forgetting about it, but it sure ain’t rocket science either!

There is a can opener involved though, which can be a bit tricky. I had to call in the Rocking Rebel. He’s the muscles in our relationship, you see…

Anyway, after the can has been opened with or without the use of brute strength, the sweetened, condensed milk (I’m getting a bit tired of typing that out…) is poured into a shallow baking dish (or a pie plate) and the dish is tightly covered with aluminum foil.

Like so.

Next, you need to place the covered baking dish in a larger baking dish or a roasting pan. And now it gets tricky again. The roasting pan needs to be filled with boiling water, halfway up to the sides of the covered baking dish. That’s right, this dulce de leche is cooked in a water bath!

And like I struggle with can openers sometimes, I also occasionally struggle with hot water baths. Not the kind I like to take myself – obviously! – but the kind that requires placing a heavy oven rack with 2 baking dishes, of which one is filled with boiling water, into the oven, while a little pup is jumping around my feet, having first pretended to be asleep to prevent me from putting her in her crate while I perform daunting kitchen tasks.

Like I said: tricky…

Try not to get yourself into situations like that and just place the oven rack, with the two baking dishes, into the oven before pouring in the water. Saves you a lot of stress…

Anyway, the sweetened, condensed milk is baked for 2 to 3 hours and then allowed to cool completely before the aluminum foil is removed. This ensures that the dulce de leche does not become too dry.

Once the dulce the leche has cooled, it should look like this. Pudding like.

In fact, it comes out so pudding like, that it needs to be stirred smooth before use.

It already tastes incredible, though!

Speaking of incredible tasting things, I really need to elaborate on this brownie a bit. It is to die for! First of all, the brownie itself is absolutely the best brownie I have ever had! It’s moist, super chocolatey and deliciously fudgy! But right before I baked it, I topped it with dulce de leche to make a gorgeous golden caramel swirl on top!

Just TOO good!

But back to the dulce de leche…

 

The taste of this dulce the leche is the same as the dulce de leche made in a closed can, but there are obviously a lot of differences in preparation. 

– and boohoo, my brownie is gone… –

For one, the oven method takes less time. I cook the cans for 3 hours, but when I make dulce the leche in the oven, I only bake it for 2 hours (the oven made dulce de leche was a little lighter though). Plus, boiling the cans in a pan can leave a weird residue in the pan, probably caused by glue from the label that sticks to the can. It washes off, put this requires some elbow grease.

However, the same goes for the oven method. At least, for me it did. I used two glass baking dishes, and after baking the larger one had some chalky stains in it, caused by minerals in the water. This also washes off.

As far as the negatives go, I don’t like carrying boiling water around too much. Like I said, you can avoid having to carry a heavy oven rack with two baking dishes of which one is filled with boiling water by placing the oven rack and dishes into the oven before filling the larger one with boiling water, but at some point, the dulce de leche needs to be taken out of the oven. This means that you either have to somehow pluck the smaller baking dish out of the boiling water, or that you have to take the oven rack – baking dishes and boiling water and all – out of the oven to place it on your countertop.

Not my favorite thing in the world…

But all in all, a very easy way to make dulce de leche! Especially if I haven’t been able to convince you about that whole cans-submerged-in-water-can’t-possibly-explode thing…

Anyway, eat this stuff with a spoon, slatter it on toast or use it as a filling or a frosting. Or make dulce de leche brownies. Glorious, delicious, perfect dulce de leche brownies… Gorgeously dark with a swirl of golden dulce de leche…

That’s it! I’m having another brownie!

Enjoy!

Oh and don’t worry. I’ll post the brownie recipe tomorrow!

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