Prepare for Pancake Day with a heavenly recipe. An ambrosial delight, dulce de leche is a more than sweet solution to slowing down. Favoured in South America along the River Plata, it’s an intense flavour of national heritage and pride for Argentina and Uruguay alike, and a defining taste that has spread through the world.
While it has recently become popular within America’s globalised desserts and coffee products today, South America has applied it for a sauce to accompany home-baking: pancakes, cakes, desserts and the Spanish churros (sugary fried-dough pastry-based snacks) and use it to fill alfajor – a traditional biscuit sandwich.
So keen to keep its cultural roots highlighted,Argentina unsuccessfully tried to get dulce de leche to be recognised by UNESCO in 2001. Dulce de leche is similar to France’s confiture de lait and manjar blanco, which is found in Peru, Colombia and Chile.
The cheat’s version of Dulce de Leche goes against all Slow Life principles: to simply boil up a can of condensed milk fora few hours, but this can be rather dangerous as many abandon the kitchen hob because you are not part of the process. jorg&olif think that it’s far more fun to make it slowly from scratch yourself and so we share our own delicious recipe with you:
Pour three litres of semi skimmed milk (of either a cow or goat) into a large pan. Bring it to the boil over a medium heat and then strain it through a cheesecloth (a loosewoven cotton cloth that can be bought from most kitchen shops) before putting the remnants back into the pan.
Add one kilogram of good quality organic caster sugar and the seeds of a vanilla pod and stir constantly with a wooden spoon on a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved.
When the milk begins boiling add a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Reduce the heat and continue stirring until the sauce transforms into a thick, caramelised, silky smooth texture that is light brown colour. You will know that it’s ready the bottom of the pan becomes visible as you stir. Then place the pan in an ice bath and continue stirring. You can then pour the dulce de leche into sterile glass jars and store in your refrigerator until use.
Photo 1: Avlxyz
Photo 2: Lovelihood
Photo 3: Kai Hendry
