Today we are making a delicious recipe that happens to be my absolute favorite—and I’m sure it’s a favorite for many of you, too. We’re going to prepare homemade dulce de leche, a simple recipe with just a few ingredients and an incredible amount of sweetness.
Ingredients for Homemade Dulce de Leche:
- 2 quarts (approx. 2 liters) whole milk;
- 2 cups granulated sugar;
How to Prepare Homemade Dulce de Leche:
- Place the sugar in a heavy-bottomed pot;
- Set over low heat;
- Stir the sugar until it turns into a caramel, being careful not to burn it, as this will make it taste bitter;
- Gradually pour in the milk (be careful, as it may splatter) while stirring constantly;
- Cook while stirring for about one hour and 40 minutes, or until the mixture thickens;
- To finish, use a whisk to make it nice and smooth;
- It’s ready! Let it cool completely and store it in a sealed container, preferably glass.
This recipe yields about 1.6 lbs (750g) of incredibly creamy dulce de leche.
Variations:
You can customize your dulce de leche if you’d like. Feel free to add shredded coconut, prunes, chocolate, or a touch of sea salt—these are all fantastic combinations.
A Brief History of Dulce de Leche:
While the exact origin of dulce de leche remains uncertain, it is closely linked to the rapid expansion of sugarcane production on the Atlantic Iberian islands in the 15th century, and later in Brazil, Central America, and the Caribbean starting in the 16th century. It emerged from the need to preserve milk using the era’s first large-scale sweetener: cane sugar. Used to conserve organic products, including cow’s or goat’s milk, sugar led to the creation of various sweet pastes across Latin America and parts of the Iberian Peninsula.
A popular Argentine legend attributes its invention to Juan Manuel de Rosas, a 19th-century politician. The story goes that he was heating some milk on a winter afternoon when someone knocked at his door. Distracted, he left the pot on the stove, accidentally creating the first batch of dulce de leche (Source: Wikipedia).
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