Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Dulce de Leche ...

Happy Birthday Meeta !
Dear foodies,

Dulce deLecious !
This is the recipe for the most sinfully good ice cream. From the moment I got the first taste of Haagen Daaz Dulce de Leche, I was hooked. All my frnds here were hooked, we have bought sooo many boxes of it and none lat for more than a day or two. If you have not yet tasted this flavor yet, I urge each one of you to go find it ASAP !! It has a smooth caramely taste to it and as you can see in the picture on their site, it has twirls of caramel in it too. As if it were a treasure hunt, we would dig out all those pieces of caramel the moment the box was opened. Once I got the hand blender and knew I could make ice cream with its help, I just had to try making dulce de leche at home. And I must confide with you guys that I think I have come up with a perfect recipe for it. Yayyyyyy

The nuts are only for the contrast in the pic, the ice cream needs no such embellishments :P
Now such a delectable dessert is a perfect present for an even more gorgeous person. A very Happy Birthday to you Meeta ! It is wonderful to have known you through your blog. Your warmth, your passion for food, photography and life with all its varied colors comes through to us by your posts. You have surely raised every day food to the level of an art form ! The love and thoughtfulness with which you treat each dish inspires me to treat it the very same way in my kitchen too (and I must add it is a tough thing to do ;)). I have learnt a lot from your recipes or more so from your method of cooking, to keep it simple, accenting a few main flavors to bring out the beauty in a dish and also to be extremely daring at the same time ;). The next step now is to get hold of a good cam so I can seek your tutelage in that area too :)

When I had dulce de leche for the first time I was reminded of the taste of theratipaal or kalakhand, the flavor of milk reduced to more than 1/4th its volume. I was curious to see how it was made and did a google search. And the most common method seemed to be the most weird and craziest way ever. The can of condensed milk was to be punched with a hole and then immersed in water and set to boil for about 1-2hrs. I am not sure if I understood what they said. How can u pierce it and immerse it in water and still make sure it does not ooze out ! There was also a warning about chances of the cans exploding, now how much more crazier could it get. All that needed to be done according to me was cooking the condensed milk with indirect heat. I am not patient enough to set it on a double boiler and baby sit it for hours, so I choose the easier way out and used the oven instead. The result was an amazing caramel and I had to hold my self from eating it by the spoonfuls so I could save some for the ice cream :P. All of you just have to try this ice cream. And have you tried eating the plain sweetened condensed milk ?? I guess I have to change the recipe to 1 1/2 cans only ...:))

Ingredients:
Equipment needed:
  • Ice cream maker or Hand Blender & plastic container big enough to store the ice cream
  • Pyrex dish & a larger Baking pan to hold the pyrex dish (I used a 8" x8" x2" pyrex & 11" x 7" x 2" rectangular pan)
  • Sauce pan to boil the cream in and a wooden spatula.
For the dulce de leche you need:
  • 2 cans - Sweetened Condensed milk (14 oz each) at room temp
For the ice cream:
  • 1 pack - Half & half, ( I used the traditional one) (32 oz, I think)
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp - Corn starch (corn flour)
  • Sugar as per taste (I used about 5-6 tsp)
Method:
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 375deg C.
  2. Empty the two cans of condensed milk into the pyrex dish. Fill 3/4th of the larger baking pan with water and place the pyrex dish in it. Place these very carefully into the oven. I placed them on the upper most rack.
  3. Bake for about 40-50 mins stirring with a wooden spatula every 10-15 mins. The cream colored condensed milk will turn into a nice brown caramel color.
  4. Meanwhile empty the half & half into a saucepan and bring it to a boil.Stir some cold water/cream/milk into the corn starch and add it to the cream in the saucepan. Simmer for a little while till it starts to thicken. Turn off the heat and allow it to cool.
  5. Once the condensed milk is cooked turn off the heat in the oven. The water in the baking pan if going to be boiling hot so be extremely careful while moving the pans. I left the oven door ajar for abt 20mins and waited till the temperature of the pans was comfortable enough to handle. Very carefully remove the baking pans out of the oven. Do use oven mits at every stage.
  6. After both these mixtures cool down a little (luke warm), bring them together in a plastic container and blend for a few minutes. Taste the mixture and add sugar if required.(Transfer to the Ice-cream maker and follow the manufacturers instructions at this stage)
  7. Place the ice cream in the freezer and blend it in intervals of 30-45 mins for about 3 hrs before allowing it to set.

The ice cream was absolutely delicious, it tasted exactly like the store bought one, or infact better than the store bought one....I urge each one of you to try it, no matter how small a batch !! Like I said, the original has twirls of caramel in it, which is the best part of the ice cream, but this one has that flavor all through....in every little bite or lick or slurp :) This ensured that none of us had to fight to get all the caramel bites in our spoonfuls, but could peacefully enjoy our bowlfuls :D Another thing with this ice cream is that it came out perfectly creamy unlike the mango ice cream that was more of a sorbet. From the tips I got in the comments section of the Mango ice cream post, I decided to boil the cream and milk and also thicken it a little to help build the creaminess. I hope I have convinced you all to try this one, even if I you are not convinced do make it and then you will be charmed for life !! ( I hope this one did it ;))

Meeta, this bowl is for you, I would have wanted to do some thing filled with chocolate but this one is definitely comparable :D I can't wait to see this months MM-Big Birthday Bang round-up..I can already see so many yummy dishes on their way there in the blogosphere :)


25 thoughts:

Lata said...

OH! this one has a special place in my freezer all the time. I love that too...Also try their White Chocolate with Rasberry ...

Meeta K. Wolff said...

Priya, you have managed to bring tears in my eyes and made me blush all at the same time. Thank you so much for your kind words. I heart you girl!! The ice-cream sounds like pureheaven!!

bee said...

so priya, you made this without an ice cream machine? wow. the consistency looks just perfect. i think it's a good idea to make it at home, 'cos the store bouht one is too sweet for my liking.

Priya said...


Lata, will surely try that one this time.

Meeta, I am sorry for the tears, but the blush I would surely love to see :D Love you loads

Bee, I don't have a ice cream machine, used my hand blender instead. It was perfectly creamy, do try it at home.

Manasi said...

Looks perfect!!! and without the ice cream maker ! WoW!

Suganya said...

Wow! You are on an ice-cream fling gal! But you know what, I have never tasted Dulce de Leche :(.. Vl do this over this weekend.. One more reason to visit the creamery :D

Sreelu said...

Priya,

Oh my such a lovely icecream, never tried dulce de leche flavor, just stuck to my dear old chocolate in many forms and shape,
Your recipe inspired me to make a trip to the store to taste one right away !!

Seema Bhat said...

Priya, Oh the ice cream looks sooooooooooooooo yummy. Beautiful and mouth watering. I am gonna book mark this and try it out. Just can't believe you got it so perfect with the hand blender. Thanx a bunch Priya
hugs
Seema

Sana said...

Dulce de Leche is my favorite flavor in Haagen Dazs too and so, ends up being my most favorite ice cream ever :) great to know that you were able to recreate it at home

Nabeela said...

oh I'm dying to try out this ice cream from david's book....it is pretty weird with the danger of cans exploding and everything

Sudha said...

The icecreame looks very tempting priya..thanks for sharing..

DEEPA said...

ohh priya ..this is so very nice ..yummy one lady ...very tempting ..

Savithri said...

Priya,
Glad you used the recipe from my blog and enjoyed it. The ice cream looks great!

Yes Paris was amazing:) I will post all the other lovely things I tried there as well.

Happy cooking:)

Anonymous said...

Hi Priya,

I tried the recipe and sure enough it was a big hit with me. The only mistake I made was I didnt see you said 2 4 ounce containers of condensed milk. and I used 2 14 ounce containers instead. so I have left over caramalized condensed milk and it tastes heaven :) also

This recipe is a sure keeper as far as I am concerned and the other thing I tried was I thinned out the caramalized condensed milk and tried to spoon it into the icecream maker. I didnt try it hard enough and didnt get perfect ones but next time thats something I would definitely try to master :) thanks for sharing the recipe... IT IS DELICIOUS :))))) Everybody in the family is sick except me and I have the whole batch for myself :))))

Priya said...

Hi Suma,

Thank you sooooo much for trying out the recipe and getting back to me with the results too :) I am sooo glad you liked it.

I have to apologize for my mistake of not mentioning the right amount of Condensed milk initially. I used about 1 1/2 14oz tins of condensed milk(since I ate the rest !!).

I don't have a ice cream maker and so mixed the milk-cream and caramelized condensed milk mixture with the help of a hand blender.

Did you mean you used just the thinned out caramelized condense milk for the ice cream ?? I am not sure I understand what you meant by "did not get perfect ones" was it about the texture of the ice cream. I did not use any water in the recipe and so had a nice creamy texture. I feel that water imparts ice crystals and makes the ice cream feel more like a sorbet.

Do email me if I have not answered your question well.

Anonymous said...

Hi Priya

Sorry I wasnt clear on what I said in my last post. I actually tried making those caramel ribbons like in the hagen daaz icecream. The caramalized condensed milk wasnt the right consistency to get those ribbons. so I added some milk and water and thinned it out....

I read on one of the blogs as to how to make those ribbons ( by spooning the caramel when the ice cream maker is running and in the last stages. But for me the quantity was more in the icecream maker so the caramel ribbons got blended with the icecream.

The texture, taste and everything else was awesome. The icream didnt have any crystals even after 10 days.... By far the best ice cream recipe I have tried so far ....

Priya said...

Thank you so much for trying it out and for your feedback too. I am so glad you loved it like I did, I am blushing :) :)

I seem to have totally missed the point with the ribbons :) I did not even attempt the ribbons as I was using the hand blender. You could may be try it out without thinning it. Let me know if you find the best way to do it too :)

tiana said...

Hi,
I don't have an ice cream maker or a hand blender. I do have a regular blender, and I'm wondering if I can make this recipe by putting the mixture into a blender. Please help! Thank you,
Tiana

Priya said...

Hi Tiana, Welcome to my blog :) I think you can use the regular blender to make this. I used a hand blender and am guessing a regular blender will serve the same purpose. Do let me know how it turns out. Hope to see you here more often, I am now off to check your link

Anonymous said...

Hi Priya, thanks for the prompt response. I will try the ice cream again sometime. I have told Sundar (my husband) to leave his own compliments. So he may drop by. He calls u a chamathu ponnu always because u are so enthu and reply promptly and no one liners. No we dont have Varalakshmi Puja - about the only one we miss out on I guess. It starts off te festiva season does it not. Have a great time.

dina said...

thanks for the info yaa.
i love it so much u know.

Minu said...

What is Half & Half?

Minu said...

Whats Half & Half?

Priya said...

Mina , Half & half is a mixture of equal parts cream and milk that we find in the stores here.

Minu said...

oh ok, thanks!

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