I always make my own Dulce de Leche, and it is one of my favorite ingredients to use in dessert recipes. Dulce de Leche is basically a very dense sweetened milk with caramelized sugar. It is usually prepared by heating sweetened condensed milk for many hours until it thickens, and the sugar in the milk caramelizes, creating a confection of darker color and quite exquisite flavor. It’s basically candied milk, which is what Dulce de Leche actually means, when translated.
It’s hard to find the “right” kind of Dulce de Leche in the stores, and I always prefer homemade version anyway. I plan to use it a lot in my upcoming recipes – in fact, I just made these wonderful peach shaped sandwich cookies with Dulce de Leche and walnut filling – my first recipe in Dulce de Leche series (clicking on the photo will take you to the recipe of the cookies):
How to make homemade Dulce de Leche from sweetened condensed milk
Prep time: 20 min
Total time: 3 hrs
Ingredients:
- 2 cans sweetened condensed milk
Note: Before making any desserts that require Dulce de Leche, I usually prepare the Dulce de Leche (cooked condensed milk) one day in advance, to allow it to completely cool. Always make your Dulce de Leche at least 1 day in advance.
1) Open 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk and pour it into 2 small glass jars, such as Kerr, covering each jar with just a loose flat round lid, without a part that screws it in.
2) Fill 2 small pans with water and put each of those glass jars (with loose lids, not screwed) into each pan, so that water level is at or above the level of condensed milk in the jar.
3) Bring both pans (with water and glass jars) to boil on stove top. Boil condensed milk this way, for a total of 1.5 to 3 hours (depends on the thickness and consistency you want to achieve). If you want more runny consistency, boil it for 1.5 hours, if you want it very thick (that’s how I like it because I use it as a filling in cookies) – boil it for 3 hours. After 1 hour of boiling, start mixing the insides of each jar with a spoon every 30 minutes. Also, make sure to take these important things into consideration:
- Do not screw the top lid to the jar – just let it loosely hang on top, allowing a little bit of air to escape. If you screw the top in, you risk creating too much pressure in the jar, which might lead it to explode / break.
- Also, since you will be boiling the water for 3 hours, you will need to add water regularly as it evaporates. For that purpose, I usually heat the water in the kettle to a boiling point and then pour the boiling water from the kettle into the 2 pans with glass jars. Do not pour cold water into the pans, as adding cold water to boiling hot glass jars will break them.
- As water boils around the glass jar and cooks the condensed milk inside the glass jar, the color of the condensed milk will be progressively getting darker and its consistency thicker. Make sure to stir the condensed milk inside the glass jar every 30 minutes.
- After you have cooked condensed milk this way for 3 hours (or less if you want more runny Dulce de Leche), remove the glass jars from the pan to the counter and let them cool for 2 hours at room temperature.
- After 2 hours of cooling, put glass jars with dulce de leche (cooked condensed milk) in the refrigerator for about 5 hours. After 5 hours, the consistency of Dulce de Leche will not be runny, and it will be thick enough to fill various types of cookies without being too runny and leaking out.
4) Making Dulce de Leche is not difficult at all, but it is important to be in the kitchen during the whole process, as it requires stirring every 30 minutes and adding boiling water as it evaporates. I usually cook or bake something else in the kitchen while my Dulce de Leche is being cooked.
Dulce de Leche should be stored refrigerated in an airtight container. I like to store it in an airtight glass jar with the lid on. It stores well for at least a month.
These photos are illustrating major cooking steps:
Sweetened condensed milk in cans
Transfer sweetened condensed milk to glass jars
Place each glass jar with sweetened condensed milk in it into a small pan with water
Cover the glass jar with a loose lid, without screwing it in
Boil sweetened condensed milk in a pan for 3 hours, with lid just loosely resting on top of glass jar (not screwed in)
While you boil sweetened condensed milk for 3 hours, stir it with a spoon every 30 minutes, and add hot water to the pan, as it evaporates
After 3 hours of boiling and cooking, Dulce de leche is ready – cool it for 2 hours on the counter and then for several more hours in the refrigerator
I’ve seen this made in various different ways, but this is a clever one because it means it’s fairly hands-off and is already in its jar. My M-I-L makes it by leaving it in the tin and boiling it until the tins are spherical (contradicting what it says to do on the tin) – whilst the rest of the household either flees the house or cowers in a corner! I tend to make toffee sauce with a recipe (cream, butter, sugar, vanilla) which I boil for 5 minutes. My mother on the other hand takes cans of condensed milk and cooks them in a pan until golden and then puts them in jars. I was thinking that this might be something that could be done in a slow cooker? Particularly as you could waterbath the jars using your methods yet it might be a little more hands-off.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to stop the dulce de leche from being eaten ravenously straight from the jar with a spoon … !
Boiling unopened can of condensed milk works too, but I personally have a hard time submerging anything closed in boiling water for hours. I also have this (probably unfounded) concern that the metal in the tin will interact with dulce de leche in the making when boiled. So, I use the method I am most comfortable with
. Plus, I like being able to stir it to achieve even consistency. I also like to observe the progression of dulce de leche to get the desired thickness (by boiling fewer or more hours).
That’s exactly what an Indian friend told me to do, oh, maybe 40 years ago, to make one of those achingly-sweet Indian desserts. After the long cooking, the (now brown and thick) milk is cooled a bit and then pistachios and cardamom seeds are stirred it, and then it’s frozen like a sorbet.
This is great, I’m a big lover of dulce de leche but always to lazy to look for it or buy it on the internet… I will give this a try! I hope I don’t blow anything up…
I did blow up a glass jar once, but only because I screwed down the metal band on top the lid. I’ve learned my lesson, and now I don’t use those metal bands, I just place loose lids on top of jars, without screwing themdown. That way, there is no pressure build-up and everything works!
I love how easy this looks!!! I haven’t made dulce de leche but now I really want to!
I love it! It makes such a great filling for cookies!
Yum! I love dulce du leche but I’ve been put off by the boiling the caramel in tins and fear of it exploding all over my kitchen hehe. This looks like a much safer method and love that its done with the jars already there. I was thinking about making something like this for Christmas hampers – so thanks so much for posting this!!
And, by the way, you can boil it for 1.5 to 3 hours – depends what consistency you like. 1.5 hours would be enough to produce a runny type of Dulce de Leche. I like it really thick and dark (because I use it to fill cookies and hold sandwich cookies together), which is why I boil it for 3 hours.
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Always a great tip, this, even though Nestle now sell tins of it for the same price as the condensed milk, it’s much more satisfying to make it yourself at home.
I always have a hard time locating Dulce de Leche in stores. Part of the reason I make it at home ….
Hi there,
I just recently made this as well, I also boiled the condensed milk cans for 3 hours!
No explosions here and a delicious caramel at the end!
I’m using it for the rolo cake i’m making next week!
What a cool idea! To use it in a rolo cake!
Such gorgeous cookies and thank you for the ‘how to’ for dulce de leche! YUM! So glad to have found your blog to follow along!
Thank you for visiting!
We used to make this all the time in my childhood down in Brazil. The only difference is that we boiled the condensed milk in its own can without transferring to a glass container. I remember that I used to eat it on toast or on top of my fresh sliced bananas. Anyways, it is soooo delicious and brings me so many nice memories. xx
I am not surprised: dulce de leche seems to be very popular in Brazil and South America. I used to eat it when I was a child, too, many memories connected to boiled condensed milk.
If there were to be any leftovers, how do you suggest storing it? Can you put it in the pantry or does it need to go in the fridge? Do you know how long it stays good?
I store it in an airtight glass jar with the lid on, refrigerated. It stores really well for at least a month. I’ve been known to store it for longer than that, and dulce de leche tends to get hard and sugary if you store it for longer than a month.
I tasted my dulce de leche 20 minutes after removing off the stove and for some reason it tastes like honey not the normal sweet DDL I’m used to tasting. Any ideas why this could be?