Or, heaven on a spoon.
I've been seeing dulce de leche recipes all over the place, and while I was desperate to make some I was somewhat turned off by the fact that you have to boil the cans
for three hours. Or bake the sweetened condensed milk in the over
for three hours. Really, anything that involved three hours I wasn't into.
But then, then, I found
this gem of a recipe. It involves a pressure cooker and mason jars, both of which I have because, well, I am an impulsive consumer. And I make jam. But the point is that this is an excellent and quick way to make dulce de leche, and if you have access to a pressure cooker and want some dulce de leche, you need to make it.
The first thing to do is get your supplies together. Pressure cooker, rack, can lifters and lid tightener-gripper thing, magnetic lid picker-upper, hot mitts, jars, lids, and rings.
Oh, and your sweetened condensed milk. I think I had ten cans. Perhaps nine. The next thing I did was fill my measuring cup with the sweetened condensed milk, as much of it as would fit. I wanted to use the measuring cup as an in-between because I didn't think I could successfully get all the sweet nectar out of those cans and into the jars with any accuracy. A spatula is a necessity here, it was very useful for getting every last drop of sweetened condensed milk out of those jars.
I watch hulu while I'm cooking. Don't judge me.
Start filling your jars to about 1/2" headspace.
It's hard to take
photos that aren't blurry when you're pouring sweetened condensed milk into jars in poor lighting. It's unfortunate.
When you think you have about 10 minutes of jar-filling left, throw your rings and lids into a pot of boiling water for that time. This will activate the seal on the lids and allow you to actually seal your dulce de leche. This step is not necessary if you're planning on refrigerating your dulce de leche immediately, but I let mine sit on a shelf for a little while*.
When all your jars are filled, put on the lids and screw on the rings. And put them in your pressure cooker.
At this time you can go ahead and fill your pressure cooker with 3 quarts of room temperature water. Do
not use hot water, because your jars are cool and your sweetened condensed milk is, at best, at room temperature, and if you fill your pressure cooker with boiling water (like you would when canning jam or jelly), you run the risk of breaking all your jars and making a hot mess of sweetened condensed milk all over the place.
Attach the lid of your pressure cooker and turn on the burner. Vent the pressure cooker for 10 minutes, and when that is done turn it to 10-11 lbs pressure. For my Presto pressure cooker that's the highest setting and it's fine. Cook it for 20 minutes, maintaining that pressure, and then turn off the heat and allow your pressure canner to de-pressurize for at least 10 minutes. After that, you can help your pressure cooker along by opening the vent, and allowing the steam to leave the cooker. After the steam is all vented once again, you may open your pressure cooker, and you should be greeted by a most magnificent sight!
Seriously. Beautiful.
Now, your dulce de leche and jars and the whole setup there will be nuclear hot at this point. Observe:
One of these things is not like the others. And it's the bubble rising up through the focal can in the second picture. My dulce de leche was literally
still boiling at this point, and you do not want to go touching those jars anytime soon.
At some point, you can take them out of the canner and allow them to cool in a draft-free area, but I would recommend waiting at least 30 minutes until you do this. Try to wait for your dulce de leche to cool completely before opening the cans. I don't know what would happen if you tried to open the cans prematurely, but I can imagine all kinds of nasty hot caramel going everywhere in a worst case scenario.
* The USDA does not actually recommend canning milk products. But, as
my source recipe points out, there are a few things about this recipe that make me think it's safe to can dulce de leche this way.
1. The sweetened condensed milk came out of a can in the first place, which is theoretically hermetically sealed, and if your jars are clean and you work quickly you will minimize bacterial exposure. Of course, quickly is all relative in bacterial terms, and the difference between one minute and five is probably negligible. What I mean here is don't let your sweetened condensed milk sit around all day at room temperature while the cat walks on the dining table.
2. There is so much sugar in this stuff that it's practically sterile on its own. Well, not necessarily sterile, but there's a hell of a lot of sugar in there.
3. You can can meat products in a pressure canner when taking the appropriate precautions.
So while I can't necessarily condone this, I can point out that I have, since making those six cans of dulce de leche, given away all of them and nobody has fallen ill. Make your own judgment on this one.
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