There’s something I needed to share with you. This:
Ever since I came across this brownie recipe by a blogger, author, and pastry chef David Lebovitz, I’ve developed a real fascination with dulce de leche – something I had once or twice back home as a child, but never made or had in my adult life. So at first I was going to make his brownies. However, I realized that his particular recipe called for a lot of expensive ingredients, and I didn’t have all of them on hand. This is all about rich food for lean times, remember? I had an idea though – I thought that I would do just as well adding some dulce de leche to my all-time favorite baked fudge from Ree Drummond. I insist that you make it at least once! It’s incredibly easy (just whisk everything together in a bowl) and is very affordable to boot (you only need 2 T of cocoa).
If you would like to attempt this, all I did was dropping a few spoonfulls (maybe eight) of homemade dulce de leche on top of the batter from Ree’s fudge recipe (she’s got a printer-friendly version there!), and then did everything according to her recipe’s baking instructions (water bath and all). Served with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, I thought this was heaven.
Note also that I normally modify Ree’s recipe by cutting the sugar down from one to 3/4 C, because she likes her sweets a tad sweeter than I do, and with the sweet caramel being added to it, you might even want to consider cutting it further, though I didn’t. And it was powerful! Also, her recipe calls for 2 heaping T of cocoa, and I make mine really heaping, so I end up with more like 4 T. As to the choice of cocoa, I use exclusively fair trade baking variety (not the supermarket Dutch-processed kind) – it’s just so much more chocolaty, and I enjoy a whiff of moral superiority that comes with it. It’s worth the money though – the cans are large and they last a long time.
This dulce de leche recipe (or pomatka, as it is known in Russian, as far as I know) came from the wonderful AZCookbook website. I am not 100% sure that it’s safe to boil your condensed milk directly in a can, but I did, and I can tell you that it was fuss-free and the results were superlative. Just don’t open your can until it’s completely cooled down.
Alternatively, if you are ill at ease with the idea of can-cooking, consider using this no-can method from the said David Lebovitz.
I think it will also be wonderful to drop a teaspoon of this magical substance in the center of a chocolate cupcake or a molten lava cake before baking. Imagine already decadent gooey melted chocolate enhanced with gooey, runny caramel.
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That looks sooo good!
It’s so easy and tasty! Try it!
I’m drooling more. Honest I am. Thank goodness for gauze. Genius to put d de l in fudge.
We have can-cooked dulce de leche since I was maybe 7 years old (I’m 29 now). The real trick for anyone with a fear of doing it is to never let the water boil down enough that the can is exposed. LOVE homemade dulce de leche with fresh apple slices, or on apple pie, or inside homemade chocolates with a splash of rum/rum & butter flavoring. Going to have to try pairing it with brownies/fudge in the future
That’s right Lili, that trick is in the original recipe I got from a friend’s site (linked in this post I do believe), about keeping it covered with water.
The fudge is tremendous – it’s so easy and so versatile – I made it with lavender (infused the melted butter with lavender by letting dried flowers sit in the melted butter for 20 min before straining the butter through a sieve to keep out the flowers), and I also made it with fresh berries mixed into the batter another time too.
I bring it to parties and people go crazy.
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