This homemade dulce de leche couldn’t be any easier to make! You just empty two cans into a pie plate and bake in the oven. That’s it!
Okay… this dulce de leche isn’t healthy. In any shape or form. But you know what? Being as I can’t just drive on over to Wal-mart and pick up a can of dulce de leche, I have to make it myself. And so do the other folks living abroad. What’s ridiculous is that I didn’t know I could make my own until I had been here for a while and had already used my precious luggage allowance to transport dulce de leche.
There are already plenty recipes out there for dulce de leche but the question I had was if you could double the recipe without affecting the cook time.
All you do is pour a can of sweetened condensed milk into a pie pan, which has been placed in a pan of water, and then cook it in the oven for an hour and a half. But I didn’t want to mess around with just one can so I used two. Supposedly this would double the cooking time, but it didn’t. It was exactly the same! Double the amount of dulce de leche for the additional 30 seconds it takes to open and empty the can. If two cans are too much for you, you can freeze any leftovers.
This tastes exactly like the stuff from the store. And if you live abroad, and I don’t mean Central or South America, this is a lifesaver! Or more of a baked goods saver. Sorry it’s not healthified but nothing compares to real dulce de leche. You need sugar. Real sugar. And by the way, I have some healthified Thanksgiving recipes coming up that use a little dulce de leche in them.
There’s another method for homemade dulce de leche where you boil an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot of boiling water for a few hours. I’ve done this before, but the can could explode, which I don’t exactly like, and it’s more high maintenance as you have to make sure the cans are covered by water at all times. So I highly recommend going with the oven version!
Homemade Dulce de Leche
- Prep Time:
- Cook Time:
- Ready in:
- Yield: 2 1/2 cups
Ingredients
- 2 14-ounce (396 grams) cans of sweetened condensed milk1
Directions
- Preheat your oven to 425°F (220°C). Get out a pie pan and a roasting pan, or some other kind of pan that will hold the pie pan. At first, I tried using a tin pie pan, but this didn't work so well as it was too light and thus floated in the roasting pan. Make sure the pie pan is heavy enough! I poured some water in the roasting pan and then placed the pie pan in there to see if worked.
- Pour the contents of the sweetened condensed milk cans into the pie pan and cover the pan tightly with foil. The last thing you want is water in your dulce de leche. Fill the roasting pan with enough water so that it goes halfway up the sides of the pan.
- Bake for 1 1/2-2 hours, or until the a deep caramel color. Check to make sure that the water is still halfway up the side of the pie pan after the first 45 minutes.
- Take the pans out of the oven and uncover the pie pan. The dulce de leche will look a little strange and not smooth like above. Stir it until smooth. It'll thicken a bit while cooling. Cover and store in the fridge.
- This will keep good for a few weeks in the fridge.
Notes
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69 comments on “Homemade Dulce de Leche” — Add one!
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I can’t believe that I am 65 yrs. old and have never heard of dulce de leche!!! I have a can of sweetened condensed milk in my cabinet and even though it is 11pm, you can bet that I am going to make this right now and wait in front of the oven HA!
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH FOR THIS ‘TO DIE FOR’ RECIPE ….
Haha. You’re welcome! I love your enthusiasm. :D I hope that you enjoyed it and that you still have some left over for today. ;)
I don’t have any aluminum foil.. is there anything i can replace it with?
I’m sorry for just now seeing your question! You’d have to use something else that’s oven-safe, like another pie pan.
I read that you had recipes using dulche de leche. Can you please list these? Or even better, provide some links? Any other ideas/ suggestions for using it? Thanks!
Excited for the oven technique as I was never brave enough to boil a can, and do not have a slow cooker.
Hi there! I’m sorry for my slow reply. And I unfortunately only got around to posting one recipe, these dulce de leche apple streusel bars. But here are 17 recipe that uses dulce de leche! I hope that helps. :)
Im slow cooking my for 8 hours it works,
I hope you’ll enjoy it! :)
you can also make this by filling up a large pot full of water and letting the can, unopened, boil for 1.5-2 hours. You need to make sure its a big pot so that the water does not evaporate and the can blows up (happen to me once like 10 years ago)
That’s how I used to do it until I read the stories about the cans exploding. It kind of scared me so I switched methods. ;)
Haha. I like what you said about children playing with it in the sandbox. :D I obviously need to try authentic dulce de leche so the next time I’m in the US, I’m ordering some! Thanks so much for the link. :)
Sorry for the slow reply, Tonette! That sounds amazing with the peanuts and covered in sugar. I just checked out some recipes for “yema balls” and they sounds so good. Thanks a bunch for your comment. :)
Little FYI, if you ever watch The Chew, they gave instructions for making more than one can at a time, stove top, without opening (boiling). I’m sure the instructions are on the web site thechew.com. This way, they can just be shelved, I believe.
Ooh, I didn’t realize it could be shelved that way! That’s how I used to make my dulce de leche but with all the people talking about exploding cans, I decided to try it this way. :) Thanks for the tip!
In Arizona, when you leave the cans of condesed milk in the garage storage shelves in the summer, the heat out there makes the caramel in the can. It was an amazing mistake on my part. but oh, so tasty.
Haha. I’m impressed that you were brave enough to eat that. I would have been going back and forth on, “Is it safe?!” It kind of sounds like the best surprise ever. :)
I too live in AZ and I put my sweet milk outside in the heat for 24 hrs and then have Dulce de Letche. I have 8 cans already to use and boy are they GOODDDDDDDDD
That’s a great idea! Making them in the sun sounds much easier than this method. If only it got hot enough to do that over here in Germany ;)
Oh gosh. That's horrible! I'm sorry. Do you cover it up tightly and it still leaks into the water and then into the oven? Darn. :( I hope it works on your next try! I've never had a problem with this method. Good luck. :)
you can also cook it in your crock pot/slow cooker! I fill mine with water, put the can of sweetened condensed milk in and cook on low overnight. Turn it off in the morning and let it cool to room temp. Turns out lovely, lovely!!
Thanks for the tip! I've tried it that way too but I'm way too impatient. ;)
Do you leave the cans unopened in The crock pot overnight? Or can you open them?
Here’s a recipe on how to make it in a slow cooker. :)