How to make Dulce de Leche without condensed milk, with just 3 ingredients: milk, sugar, and baking soda.
Recipe adapted from Alton Brown.
Course Dessert
Cuisine Latin
Keyword dulce de leche
Prep Time 5 minutesminutes
Cook Time 3 hourshours
Total Time 3 hourshours5 minutesminutes
Servings 1cup
Calories 50kcal
Author Camila Hurst
Ingredients
4cupswhole milk
1 1/2cupssugar300 grams
1/2tspbaking soda
Instructions
Combine the milk and sugar in a large saucepan.
Place it over medium heat and stir occasionally, until the sugar has melted.
At this point, add the baking soda to the pan.
Continue to stir until the mixture comes to a gentle simmer.
Reduce the heat to medium-low, or low heat.
The simmer should be extremely gentle.
Stir frequently, while the mixture cooks down, for 2 to 3 hours.
Always keep an eye on the heat, if the mixture starts boiling, or if you don’t stir frequently, it will burn really fast and stick to the bottom of the pan.
Once the mixture is very dark in color, thickened, and reduced, remove from the heat and pour it in a heat proof container. If you notice lumps in the sauce, strain it through a fine mesh strainer.
Let it cool down all the way before enjoying.
Store in the fridge, covered for up to 3 weeks.
Notes
Vanilla: Alton Brown’s original recipe calls for a vanilla bean pod and seeds added to the sauce in the beginning of the process. At the 1 hour mark, you’d remove the vanilla bean pod.Stirring: it’s not an overstatement when I say to really keep an eye on the mixture and stir constantly, if you fail to do so, it will burn.Thickness: As it cools down the sauce will get thicker, but won’t be as thick as the dulce de leche made from sweetened condensed milk.