Dulce de Heaven.. uh, I mean Leche

I've recently learned to make alfajores (the Uruguayan type) and so have been obsessed with finding/making the perfect filling for them... dulce de leche. For those of you unfortunate souls who have never had the opportunity to enjoy this sumptuous treat, my condolences. Dulce de leche is like caramel but SO much better! It's spreadable or you can eat if right off the spoon if you prefer, which I do! SO so good... seriously.

Anyway, the best dulce de leche in the world is this stuff:

My family in Uruguay owns part of the company, so I may just be a teeeensy bit partial, but still... most of Uruguay will agree with me, this is the best of the best!

Since I can't get that here, I've tried a few alternatives. The first was a ready-made dulce de leche my mom told me about. She warned it it would never live up to my expectations, but I decided to try it out.  This stuff:

She was right, it fell way below the bar... In consistency its just about right, but the flavor is all wrong. Yuck.

I started looking online for easy to make homemade recipes, knowing that the traditional way of making it was going to be a pain. If all else failed I would have to do it, but there was still another option left to try. Tinkering with this stuff:

If you pour this out into a pie plate and bake it long enough, it turns into ooey-gooey caramel! While it was good tasting caramel (seriously good) it didn't taste exactly like the dulce de leche I love. Consistency turned out pretty close though.

Alas, after all these failures, the time had come to go the whole hog! I was rather hopeful but still dreading the process, as I've watched many of my aunts and family friends spend long hours over the stove making this stuff. My dad tried it once... it wasn't pretty... The disaster stories had been enough to deter me until now, but when you're on the quest for the Holy Grail of dulce de leche, you just have to do what you have to do, right? So I rolled up my sleeves and got to work:

 

This is about an hour in. Basically just whole milk, sugar, vanilla beans, and baking soda bubbling away.

 This is 2 hours in... notice the slight color change!

This is 3 hours in... definite color change now! Starting to thicken up.

 This is 4 hours in... crucial point when timing is everything. The longer it boils at this stage, the thicker it will be. However, let it go too long and it will harden as candy, NOT what you want...though it would taste great!

 TADA... the finished product! As you can see (or maybe you can't, I don't know... depends on how you like your DDL) I didn't let it boil long enough, GRRRR!!! It's got the consistency of pourable caramel. I was aiming for thicker (like spread) but I was afraid if I let it boil any longer (4 1/2 hours seems like an eternity when you're hovering over a pot constantly stirring) it would be rock hard when it cooled. Alas, I chickened out. However, the flavor is SPOT ON!!! Hallelujah! 

So... the verdict? Homemade is definitely worth it when it comes to taste! I bet if I did this enough times I could get the consistency down really well too, but since this takes about 5 hours to make, it's hard to know when I'll next be able to make another batch.... I won't be able to use this for my alfajores, but it will make for some good toast-spreading delight! :)