dulce de leche.

Duuuuudes, what's up?

Besides that absolutely gorgeous spoonful of dripping dulce de leche.

I think the only appropriate response I would have to that question right now is: life. 

Every once in a while, life gets super busy. Other times, you have work to do that ... is annoying so you never do it. And it piles up. And sometimes everything just gets so overwhelming that all you really want to do is sit, be a blob, and ignore everything for the entire day. 

You need those kinds of days every once in while. I'll do that .. when I find time. But in the meanwhile, this dulce de leche has been greatly improving my quality of life. 

I have a friend who's currently in Bolivia, land of loads of glorious dulce de leche.

Just kidding, I'm not really sure what Bolivia is known for (just did a Google search - frog legs??? Divya, get on those.) or what it's even like, but it's probably similar to other South American countries in that it has fresh dulce de leche more accessibly than here, in 'Merica. 

Anyway, that friend asked me to feature dulce de leche on the blog - and here it is! In all its caramel-ly, fragrant, thick, sweet goodness. 

One method of preparing it at home requires boiling down whole milk with sugar, all the while watching it to prevent burning. Another way is to boil cans of sweetened condensed milk (all the while, keeping them completely submerged in water) in a pot. A third method puts sweetened condensed milk in the oven and requires little supervision. 

I will never do the boil-cans-in-water because I've heard they can explode, which ... scares the heck out of me, not gonna lie. For the sake of time, I did the latter, although one day I hope to do the long, from-scratch method.

The beautiful thing about making this (besides the final product itself) is that once you put it in the oven, you only need to check back on it two or three times, to stir & see if it's done. You can shower, eat lunch, do whatever in-between.

Also, it makes a significant amount, which can be eaten with ice cream, over cake, scooped onto a baguette to make le tartine, as the French do. I have a plan for it - will be featured later. 

In the meantime, enjoy!! 

Homemade Dulce de Leche 

thank you David Lebovitz.

• two 14 oz. cans (so, 28 oz. total) of sweetened condensed milk 

1. Find a pie pan (or other pan) that will fit comfortably into a larger pan, such as a roasting pan. 
2. Empty cans into the pie pan. Cover pie pan snugly with aluminum foil. 
3. Put pie pan into larger pan. Fill larger pan with warm water, halfway up the sides of the pie pan. 
4. Bake for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. 
5. Whisk until smooth. Let cool. Whisk again, if necessary.