Almost Right Ice Cream

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm working on a recipe for Dulce de Leche Ice Cream. (If you're not familiar with Dulce de Leche, it's a kind of milk-caramel flavor used in Mexican sweets.) Thing is, the Dulce de Leche that I knew from Mexico was a thick liquid, about the consistency of Caramello filling. What I found in the can was a stiff semi-solid, like "hot fudge" topping in its cold state. So I wasn't able to do the drizzle-and-drag trick like I wanted; it was more like "drop blobs and hack at them with a table knife until more or less blended." The flavor is about what I was aiming for; the texture remains to be seen. I'm not sure how well those largish blobs will marry with the vanilla ice cream.

I was planning to try adding milk to the Dulce de Leche next time. Doug suggested heating, and also thought that different brands might have different consistencies.

So ... does anyone know a brand of Dulce de Leche that will pour straight out of the can? I bought La Lechera at a Mexican grocery store. There are international stores elsewhere I could try for other brands.

Comments

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Sounds a lot like creamed honey, which becomes a lovely soft consistency if you heat it a little.

[dianavilliers.livejournal.com]

You can make it out of sweetened condensed milk - here are a couple of methods
a)potentially explosive (http://www.thecookinginn.com/tcirecipes/canmilkb.html)
b)not potentially explosive (http://www.laurasaur.com/2008/04/08/dulce-de-leche-or-caramelized-sweetened-condensed-milk/)

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I've made dulce de leche using both methods.

The can has never exploded on me, ever. I keep it at a bare simmer and completely submerged, resting on a folded kitchen towel inside the pot.

The dish of milk baked in the oven boiled over; admittedly, I didn't use the water bath, so it boiled over and burned onto the oven floor.

I always end up with the solid texture, not pourable. If I've needed a thick pourable dulce de leche I whisk in milk, a tablespoon at a time, until I get the right consistency.

OTOH, heating undiluted dulce de leche and drizzling it into the ice cream maker might be more likely to give thick ribbons weaving through the ice cream matrix, rather than having it blend in more evenly than wanted.

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

That actually gives me another idea. I didn't put the dulce de leche directly into the ice cream maker because I was afraid it would blend in too much -- but I was thinking of liquid goo, not this fudgy stuff. What I have might actually work well if dropped into the churn one blob at a time. It's stiff enough to have some cohesion against the paddle. I still have half a can of it left; I could try that in another batch.