Tag: dulce de leche

Meringue, dulce de leche and cream… what’s not to like?

After I’d made the dulce de leche, the important thing was , first of all to use it and secondly, use it sensibly to get as much joy as possible from eating it for as long as possible.

It would be so easy just to spoon it down…. but I resisted and set to, thinking about what to do with it all.

It just so happened that we were going to a barbecue with our friends and I had promised to make the desserts. An ideal opportunity to make something truly delicious…..I had once made a rather delicious meringue, cream and dulce de leche dessert when we had everyone round to out house. I’d bought the dulce de leche then, of course, I wouldn’t have dreamed of making my own.

I’m sure there should be a name for this but I don’t know what it is… think Pavlova base, spoonfuls of dulce de leche, piles of whipped cream, studded with little nuggets of the best fudge you can get…. mouth watering yet?

It’s not a Pavlova, of course, because Pavlova has fruit as a sharp contrast to the sweet crunchy and chewy (yes, a good meringue should be like that!) base and the smoothness of the cream.

This was going to be sweetness personified, mellowed with the whipped cream. That was good though, because the people that were going to eat it have a distinct liking for sweet things. Anyway, it was a good day – we would be meeting with our friends, the weather was marvellous and a barbecue was planned. The fact that the World Cup was on that afternoon seemed to heighten the joy of some people….

So, first things first. I needed to make the meringue base.

Start by preheating the oven – 150 degrees C (130 if it is a fan oven) or 300 degrees F.

Make sure you have a good baking tray and line it with either baking parchment or a silicone liner. You will need something like that so you can peel the meringue off when it has cooked.

The important thing about making meringues is that you must – absolutely MUST – make sure there’s not a speck of fat in the egg whites. So when you are separating the eggs be careful, very careful. Make sure the bowl you will be using is spotlessly clean.

When I make meringue, I use my copper bowl.  My all round hero food-guru, Harold McGee told me to do so because it stabilises the egg whites and makes a better foam with less risk of it all collapsing. It’s not just a wild fancy to have yet more gorgeous kitchen equipment, you know… it does work.  You don’t have to have one but I bought that back in the days when I had a well-paid job and I  could indulge myself.

If you haven’t got one, don’t worry. A pinch of cream of tartar can do the job of stabilising just as well.

The important thing is that you whisk the whites well, no matter what bowl you are using.

Three egg whites in a spotlessly clean bowl can be whisked to meringue perfection in a few minutes. 

Before you start whisking, though, weigh out your sugar – you need 175g/6oz of caster sugar (which for those of you in Canada – Lorraine- or America, means super fine sugar.) When it is time to start adding the sugar, little by little, you want to have everything ready.

Whip until the egg whites have formed soft peaks and you can tip the bowl up without it all falling out. Only then do you start to add in the sugar, bit by bit.

You can see the whites becoming glossy

When everything has been whisked together and you have a mound of glossy, white fluffed up meringue mix, spoon it out onto the parchment or the silicone liner, making a circle as the base. Some people draw circles on the paper to make sure they get a proper circle but I never do. It’s a meringue for goodness sake… it is going to be pillowy and blowsy and laden with whipped cream. We aren’t talking architecturally precise. I like the organic look of it when it comes out – so very obviously not manufactured in an industrial complex.

Once you have the circle, you make a sort of blobbed wall around the edge with more spoonfuls of meringue. You are supposed to twirl each blob round with a cocktail stick to make little pointed swirls of meringue…. but….

And this is a big but.

Normally my meringues are fine. But normally I am not attempting to make then in a boiling hot kitchen on one of the hottest days of the year (31 degrees C) with lots of humidity.

Humidity is the killer of meringues. I waited until 8 at night in the hope the weather would break and the humidity lessen.. but it didn’t happen. I had to have the not-really pavlova ready for the next day. I had to get cracking.

Reasoning that it would be OK, if not as beautiful, I got on with it. Into the oven it went and the temperature was immediately turned down to 275 degrees F/140 degrees C/120 degrees fan assisted.

It was going to take an hour to cook and once that hour was up, the oven is switched off and the meringue left there overnight. That lets it dry out perfectly.

So, the next morning, I opened the oven to take out the base.

Ah. It was as I thought. As I knew really, when I first put it onto the baking sheet. Despite whisking and using my copper bowl that dratted hot and wet air had wreaked havoc. It was OK but it wasn’t billowing into crisp peaks of perfection.

 It wasn’t the most beautiful meringue I have ever made but, what the heck. It was going to be the most delicious meringue I’d ever made and that’s what counts.

The next day was brighter and hotter than ever. I carefully peeled off the silicone paper and put the meringue onto a plate so I could take it to J’s house.

Once there, while he and N busied themselves with the barbecue, I spooned the delicious dulce lecheover the base of the meringue.

Just look at it….. thick and rich and caramelly

Next, great luscious spoonfuls of whipped cream

Then, pieces of delicious fudge scattered over the top….

And more whipped cream on that.

It was delicious. It was a triumph.

Which is more than you can say for the football.

England were out of the World Cup but the not-really pavlova was a winner. Not a scrap left. Depite it not being the most beautiful meringue base ever.

Don’t despair if your meringue isn’t perfect. Looks aren’t everything you know. Taste is.

Dulce de leche – Argentina’s iconic sweet spread.

Every country has some foods that are instantly recognised as being associated with it – for instance, in England  it is going to be roast beef and Yorkshire Puddings, or maybe fish and chips; Japan is probably  sushi. France? Maybe Foie gras or cheeses such as Camembert and Brie.

Argentina is famous for its meat, of course, and especially for the beef, but all Argentineans have a deep longing for sweetness….. because wherever you go in Argentina you will find dulce de leche (literally “sweet of milk”)  – the most delicious caramelised milk, made from sweetened condensed milk. Sweet, sticky, almost softly caramel toffeeish…

When you go to breakfast, there are little pots of it, waiting to be spread on toast… when you have a pastry or a biscuit, there’s usually dulce de leche involved somewhere, either as a filling or a flavouring. You can buy lovely large pots of artisan made Dulce de Leche or commercially produced packets. Whatever you get is guaranteed to taste delicious.

One of our dearest friends is from Argentina and he always looks wistful at the mention of dulce de leche when he is far away in cold, wet England.

The thing is, it’s not difficult to make… it is, however,  (usually) time consuming… and, in my eyes at least, just a bit scary.

The traditional way is to take a large quantity of milk and sugar and, after pouring it in a pan, slowly simmer it until it thickens as the water evaporates and it caramelises to a wonderful golden brown. Thing is, you have to stir it constantly – you can’t walk away and leave it.

Another way is to take a tin of sweetened condensed milk and boil it, unopened, in a pan for a couple of hours. You can’t walk away from that, either. If you let it boil dry the tin will explode and the kitchen (and any unwary inhabitants) will be covered in superheated caramel. If you avoid that fate then you have to take care to leave the tin to cool properly before you open it.

See what I mean about it being a bit scary? And if you went down the boiling tin route, how would you know that it had caramelised perfectly?

So, I was content to eat it but too afraid to try making it.

Until I found, whilst idling around various food blogs, (one of my favourite activities) an article by David Lebovitz telling me how to make it safely and quickly!

He says to make it in the oven in a bain marie and that it only takes one and a quarter hours…… what’s to lose, I thought? I just had to try it out.

I needed an oven proof dish and a tin of sweetened, condensed milk.

The oven needed to be preheated to 220 degrees C/200 degrees if fan assisted) 425 degrees F

I put the oven proof dish inside a large metal roasting dish and then poured in the milk.

A sprinkle of Maldon sea salt was stirred through.

I wrapped tin foil tightly over the dish and poured hot water into the roasting pan until it was half way up the sides of the dish with the condensed milk it.

And that was it.

Into the oven for an hour and a quarter, or thereabouts.

And no standing over it, terrified that it might boil dry and the tine explode… no standing for hours, stirring it slowly. Just as well because this was a Friday night after my first week back at work with jet lag and all I wanted to do was slump on the sofa.

I did check after about 40 minutes that it hadn’t boiled dry (it hadn’t) and I couldn’t resist having a peek at the colour…..

It was turning golden!

And, oh, the smell….. delicious, rich, sweet caramel aromas coming from the oven… Someone should make that smell into a scented candle or room perfume…

And then… just an hour and a quarter after putting it in the oven

It looked good.

But it was too hot to taste so I had to leave it to cool. David said to whisk it to get out lumps out but it was fine.

Oh my word.

Thick, delicious, spoonable delight. It was dulce de leche.

And I had such plans for it…..

But I needed a real assessment to be done – was it good enough? Did I have to go back to the traditional way of doing it?

As I said, we have a very dear friend from Argentina. It was his marvellous mother who organised all of our travels around the country (Thank you, P!) and he was with us for most of them. Who better, I thought, than N?

That was it – when I saw him, I marched up with a spoonful held out in front of me and demanded he tried it.

He liked it! Not only that he said it was delicious!

N’s fiancee, L, had made it the traditional way before now and both of them reckon that this way produces dulce de leche of comparable deliciousness with a minmum of effort.

So, there we have it – quick, safe and easy. Delicious and moreish. Rated by people who know what it should taste like… and by those just want to scoop it into their greedy mouths!