Chocolate macarons are my most favourite macaron. They’re so beautifully rich, and the osmotic-like absorption of the ganache’s flavour from the shell makes them so much more delectable. But they’re also incredibly simple to make… once you’ve got the technique. After I made the macarons for the second time, I knew the recipe and what to do off by heart. It’s not the recipe itself that’s difficult; it’s just keeping an eye on the consistency of the batter (i.e. knowing what to look for), and getting to know your oven!

Perhaps I’ve finally mastered the recipe and got to grips with my oven?! Or perhaps not… just because I’ve made decent looking macarons a couple of times doesn’t mean a thing! Especially as on a more recent attempt, they failed completely.

I ran out of icing sugar, and used desiccated coconut in place of the almonds. When I baked the cookies, they developed no foot at all, and had a completely different texture to regular macaron shells. However, I still sandwiched them with the chocolate ganache and put them forward in the badminton league buffet. I did get compliments though, as they were quite tasty, although nothing like the macaron I was hoping for!

There are many variations of making macarons posted all over the internet; some people try it and have great success, while others try and have little. Sometimes it’s just that the instructions can be quite ambiguous. When a recipe states something along the lines of “now, incorporate the almonds and icing sugar with the egg whites, being sure not to over mix. You know that you’ve over mixed when the batter is dull,” it can mean anything! But for me, the most important part of making macarons was the “macaronage,” which some people use to refer to the part where the almonds and icing sugar are incorporated into the egg whites, and the right amount of air is knocked out of the whites. If the batter is over mixed it will become very runny, and won’t be able to hold its shape when piped. However, if it’s under mixed, you won’t get a perfectly smooth shell and too many air bubbles inside. The piped macaron shells are then left on the worktop for about an hour to air-dry. This helps to create a hard shell, so that when the air inside of the macaron shell expands in the oven, the shell is forced upwards thus creating the “foot” at the bottom. If the shell isn’t tough enough, then it’ll crack and no foot will develop. I have read on a few other blogs that leaving them out to “air-dry” wasn’t a necessity for them, but in my experience, is it a necessity for me!

The following video is a great instructional video on how to make macarons. The part about knocking the air out of the egg whites was what I found the most helpful: if you plop some of your batter onto a plate before baking, and the peak slowly disappears, then you’ve got the perfect batter. It should have a “magma” like consistency. I found that to be a top tip!

I use a roasting tin with parchment paper to bake my macarons, because it doesn’t distort with the heat of the oven, therefore giving lopsided shells. Also, I place the roasting pan on top of a broiler pan in the lower part of my oven. This stops the heat from the bottom of the oven being too harsh on the shells, and also keeps the macarons perfectly at mid/lower-level in my oven! However, I can only bake about a maximum of 12 shells at a time. So macaron baking requires patience!

The temperature at which people bake their macarons is also a hot topic. Too low or too high temperatures result in undesirable consequences, which is why it’s important to “get-to-know” your oven. A further note is that the size of the macaron shell I believe is entirely of your choice, as I’ve seen and bought macarons of varying sizes. Some like them rather large but other prefer them bite-size. Personally, I prefer slightly larger maracons, that require two or three minute bites. But that’s just me.

And finally, macarons do taste better with time, which probably goes against almost all rules of French pâtisserie! But I suppose that as macarons aren’t pastry, the rules of pastry don’t apply. It takes time for the shells to absorb the flavour of the ganache, which gives them a very soft and flavourful interior. Some people recommend eating them after 2 days, but the ones that I bought from Zürich airport (along with other sources) suggested up to 5 days for maximum flavour. In fact, the blog Not So Humble Pie suggests that if you’re leaning towards either over or under-baking your macarons, go towards over-baking them, because if they’re a little too dry, the moistness from the ganache can help to rectify the issue after a few days of mingling!

A great trouble-shooting guide, as well as other tips and discussions, can be found here.

Macarons au Chocolat
Adapted from: Not So Humble Pie and Kokken 69
Makes 8-10 shells (4-5 macarons)

Ingredients
For the shells:
• lemon juice
• 40g ground almonds
• 57g icing sugar
• 10g cocoa powder (or replace with icing sugar and add some vanilla essence instead)
• 35g egg whites
• 11g granulated sugar

For the ganache: (enough for about 15-20 macarons!)
• 200g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
• 200g double cream
• 70g butter, at room temperature

Preparation
For the shells:
Add a splash of lemon juice to a very clean bowl together with the egg whites. Whisk for about 30-60 seconds until very frothy. Sprinkle in the granulated sugar, and continue to whisk until stiff, glossy peaks form (the kind where you can hold the bowl upside down over your head!).

Then sieve in the icing sugar, cocoa powder and ground almonds together over the egg white peaks. Now, this is the part some people refer to as “macaronage” (i.e. macaron-ing). Use a wooden spoon or pastry scraper to knock the air out of the batter. Use the spoon to scoop the batter around the outer edges of the interior of the bowl and then almost scrape the batter down the middle of the bowl in a zig-zag pattern until the final consistency is similar to that of magma. A useful video to watch can be found here.

A test to see if the batter is of the appropriate magma-like consistency is to take a clean plate, and dollop a spoonful in the middle. If the peak slowly disappears into itself, then the batter is ready. If it’s still visible after about 30 seconds or so, then it needs some more air knocking out! If the batter is too runny, then you’ve over mixed!

Prepare a heavy-duty baking sheet with baking parchment. Spoon the batter into your piping bag (or icing syringe, etc.), and dollop macarons onto the parchment paper, leaving at least an inch worth of space between each shell. This depends entirely on how large you want your macarons.

Bash the tray on the surface of the worktop 4 times, rotating each time. This forces air bubbles in the macaron batter to rise to the top. Use a toothpick to pop any large ones. Leave the macarons on the side for an hour to air dry, so that they’re not sticky or tacky to a light touch.

Preheat the oven to 155◦C, ensuring that you do not use fan assist. Pop the tray into the lower half of the oven for 16-18 minutes.

Leave to cool completely before peeling the shells off the parchment.

For the ganache:
Melt the chocolate and cream over a low heat in a saucepan; allow to cool to around 50^◦C. Cut up the butter in a bowl, pour over the chocolate sauce, and whip until smooth. Pop into the fridge until thick enough to pipe. Before piping, leave the bowl out of the fridge for a while to bring the ganache up to room temperature.

Assembling the macaron:
Fill an icing syringe or piping bag with the ganache, and dollop a splodge into the centre of a macaron shell; not too much or too little. It takes a little practice to get the right amount, so that when the two shells are sandwiched together, the ganache spreads to the edges of the shell but no father, and so that there’s a smooth, unblemished edge around the ganache. Pop in the fridge for anywhere between 2-5 days before taking out of the fridge to bring it up to room temperature before devouring.

Bon appétit!!

Shells baked: 19.12.2011, shells filled: 20.12.2011.

For Father’s Day, I asked dad what I could cook for him as a ‘gift.’ He asked for Thai Green Curry and Spotted Dick.

This recipe I found called for a strawberry and rhubarb rather than cherries. I was going for blueberries, but there weren’t any in the fridge, even though I swear that there were! So I opted for cherries! It would have been nice to have had more (so I doubled the amount that I used in the recipe below), as mine only just managed to cover the top.

Ours was with a vanilla bean custard, which was extremely good! But I made mine ahead and reheated it later, but unfortunately it was a little lumpy and not too attractive to the eye. However it still tasted delicious.

Here’s a nice image of dad and his mum on Mother’s Day in 2008. And a handsome image of Tim, just thrown into the mix

Spotted Dick with Cherry Compote
Adapted from: There’s A Newf in My Soup
Serves 16

Ingredients
For the cherry compote:
• 300g cherries, pitted
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 x sachet gelatine
• 2 tbsp brandy
• 2 tbsp lemon juice

For the spotted dick:
• butter and flour, for greasing
• 10 tbsp/170g butter or suet
• 1¼ cups/300g sugar
• 4 x eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2¾ cups/340g self-raising flour
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 1 cup/150g dried fruit

Preparation
For the cherry compote:
Mix the sugar and gelatine in a bowl. Then add the cherries, lemon juice and brandy, and simmer over low heat until thick and syrupy – about 15 minutes.

In the meantime, butter a cake tin, then dust with flour (knocking the excess out).

Pour the syrup in the bottom of the tin, arranging the cherries (without burning yourself!) in a pretty fashion. Leave to cool at room temp. until set.

For the spotted dick:
Trace a circle on parchment paper slightly larger than the cake tin, and cut out.

Melt the butter in a large bowl, add the sugar, and cream with a wooden spoon until pale and smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and mix well.

Sift the flour into the mixture, and beat until well combined. Then add the milk and beat, also. Dollop the mixture on top of the cherry compote, and flatten out.

Fill a large, shallow pan with water, and put some metal cookie cutters or something in the bottom to create a platform on which to place the cake tin, about 1” above the water. Bring the water to a boil, and then turn the heat down so it simmers.

Put the cake tin on top of the platform, cover the tin with the parchment paper, and put the lod on the pan. Steam for about 1 ¼ – 1 ½ hours. If using little ramekins, it will be about 1 hour.

The spotted dick will puff up a lot. I used a bread knife to even the bottom of mine before I inverted it onto a plate, and sliced it, and served it with homemade vanilla custard.

Vanilla Bean Custard
Adapted from: Bite My Thumb
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
• 3 x egg yolks
• 1 cup/250ml double cream
• 1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out (1 tsp vanilla essence)
• 3 tbsp sugar

Preparation
Boil water in a small saucepan.

Whisk the cream and egg yolks in a Pyrex bowl until smooth throughout. Then add the vanilla bean seeds (or vanilla essence) and sugar, and whisk until homogeneous.

Place the bowl over the simmering water (this is known as a bain-marie), and whisk continuously so no lumps form. The mixture should be whisked for about 10 minutes, or until the mixture thickens and forms a custard like colour and consistency.

Remove the bowl from the pan and pour over your dessert, and enjoy

Enjoy

Enjoyed: 19.06.2011

Pains au chocolat! Or chocolatines as they’re known in south western France. I’m so pleased with how this puff pastry turned out; buttery, flaky and crispy goodness…mmm. I even made a white chocolate one especially for mum… I wish I made more! It was a lot sweeter, which complemented the neutral flavoured buttery puff pastry. I only made one with white chocolate because I thought “well, if they’re not in the shops, then they can’t be that good.” But oh, did I think wrong! It was beautiful!

I think that the only thing I would have done differently was to make them about 2/3s of the size that they were, which means there would have been 16 chocolate breads in total. But they’re nice, either way. The only positive thing about them being fairly large, is that if you’re feeling like a pig you can have a big one, or have half fresh from the oven hot, and the other half later cold (i.e. saves on reheating the oven each time you want one/want to heat only one!).

Photo-guide: how to fold them (another useful link for how to make puff pastry and pains au chocolat can be found here:

Pains au Chocolat
Adapted from: Les Gourmandises d’Isa
Makes 12-16

Ingredients
For the pâte (dough):
• 7g sachet dried active yeast
• 200ml milk
• ½ cup/100g sugar
• 1 cup/165g plain flour
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla essence
• 2 x eggs, beated
• 2 ¼/365g cups flour
• 1 tsp salt

For the beurrage (butter block):
• 250g unsalted butter
• ¼ cup/45g flour

To assemble:
• 400g chocolate

To brown:
• 1 x egg, beated
• 2 tbsp milk

Preparation
For the pâte:
Put the milk in a large bowl, and microwave it on high for 30 seconds (until warm/lukewarm). Add the yeast and mix, then leave to stand for a couple of minutes. Weigh 100g/measure ½ cup of sugar, and from that take 2 tbsp and put it in with the milk. Then sieve in the flour and mix well with a spoon.

In a large separate bowl, beat the 2 eggs, add the vanilla essence, remaining sugar, and sieve in the rest of the flour. Mix well by hand (or with a mixer fitted with a dough hook). Add the yeast mixture in, and knead for 5-8 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, and cover with clingfilm. Leave at room temperature for 2 hours, and then place in the fridge overnight.

For the beurrage:
Use the flour throughout the rest of the process to flour the work surface. Roll the dough into a large rectangle (35 x 30 x 0.5cm or 18 x 13 x ¼ “). Spread the butter on 2/3 of the dough (the right and middle portions). Fold the dough in 3 (fold the left flap over the middle, then the right flap over the rest). If it’s not perfectly rectangular, fold the bottoms and top slightly over the make it so. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Then take the dough out of the fridge, and put it back on the counter as it was. Turn it a ¼ to your left (so it’s now facing you lengthways, not widthways), and roll the dough again until it’s a rectangle of the same size as before. As before, fold the dough into 3. Return to the fridge for 30 minutes wrapped in cling film.

Repeat the above step one last time, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Roll the dough into a rectangle of about 60 x 33 x 0.5cm (25 x 15 x ¼ “), and cut into 8-12 rectangles of the same/similar size.

To assemble:
Break up your chocolate into little pieces, and spread across the top of a rectangle. Roll the pastry down to engulf the chocolate. Break up more chocolate pieces, and spread it across the rectangle immediately below the first roll of chocolate. Then use the rest of the pastry to roll up the second chocolate line. Continue to do this with the rest of the pastry rectangles.

To bake:
Beat an egg with a fork, and add 2 tbsps milk. Use a pastry brush to light brush the egg across the the whole pain au chocolat. Put on a baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise for 2 hours at room temperature.

Bake in an oven preheated at 180◦C for 20 minutes, until the tops are browned and crisp. Serve fresh from the oven.

Bon appétit!!

Baked 12.06.2011

I have never made anything with puff pastry before; I’ve been fearful of it after having heard such horrifying things about puff pastry going wrong. However, after having handed in my dissertation and having another badminton league match, I decided to give these Danish pastries a go; something that I simply cannot resist. Well, seeing as this was my first time, perhaps I should have followed a recipe that was in English, not Spanish…but I think it all turned out OK in the end!

There were tonnes of these pastries wherever I went in Buenos Aires. The residence I stayed in gave a choice of pastries for breakfast, from which we were allowed up to three each, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday! Me being me, I always got as much as I could get, and saved some for breakfast the next day, or for dessert, or for the weekends. There would be some delicious pastry horns filled with dulce de leche (which were a favourite of mine!), croissants (or “medialunas”), or Danish pastries with jam and a sort of custard design on top. To be honest, all three we delicious. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we would get two or three small slices of toast on either white or brown bread, with a choice of butter, jam and/or dulce de leche. Or on each day, you could choose to have cereal instead, with juice (“jugo” in Latin America), tea or coffee.

I gave two of these to Ed, ate about 5 throughout the day (eep!), left about 10 at home for the rest of the family, and took the rest to the badminton -> they were all gone (and I didn’t have any there, but there were two matches being played that night so twice the amount of people!). At first, from a distance, they thought they were the Argentinian “pasties” (empanadas) that I made for the match before, but everyone was complimenting them and saying that they tasted really nice! Not only that, but…. we are now Division 1 players for the ladies league! How cool is that? We’ve been promoted!

When making puff pastry, there are two key elements: the détrempe (which is a mixture of flour and water), and the beurrage (or “butter block”). What you have to do, is simply roll out the détrempe, and use it to enclose a sheet or block or butter (the beurrage). Then it gets folded over and rolled, over and over again, to form layers of détrempe and beurrage.

I made the pastry the day before, and left it in the fridge overnight, before rolling it out and baking them in time for the league match the same evening. However, before I made the pastry, I watched the video below; even if you can’t understand anything, it’s incredibly useful to watch:

I’m not afraid of puff pastry anymore! Well, I still am, a little: When I was rolling the dough, it got to a point where I felt like slinging it out the window because it became incredibly sticky and impossible to roll. I think these tips when rolling out the dough will make it easier, as it definitely helped me:

And finally, keep to dough as cold as possible. All of that butter, when it starts to get to room temperature, makes it incredibly difficult to handle.

Although my pastries do look like a 10 year old child constructed them, I definitely want to tackle puff pastry again. This weekend I wanted to make a pear, apple and raisin strudel, but because of the amount of work I have to do I’ll give it a miss and reward myself perhaps the week after. It’s just, this weekend my nanny’s down from London, we’re meeting up with my other nanny on Sunday and my boyfriend is coming to my house on Monday. So if I made a large strudel this weekend, then we could all have it for dessert on Sunday and Monday. Oh well, there will be other times. Perhaps for next week’s match (the last one of the season ) I can try croissants or pains aux chocolate.

Next time I make these, I’ll definitely be filling them up with dulce de leche! So please give this a go, keeping this little tips in mind:

Be persistent and take your time.

Raspberry, Almond & Cream Cheese Danish Pastries
Source: Food and Cook
I made 37 oddly shaped pastries

Ingredients
Détrempe (& beurrage):
• 200ml cold water
• 1 tsp salt
• 150g strong white flour
• 250g plain flour
• 500g butter, at room temp. (the beurrage)

Crema de almendra (almond cream): (taken from Cuinant)
• 100g ground almonds
• 100g sugar (I used 10g of Hermesetas sweetener)
• 60g butter, melted
• 2 x small eggs
• 15g cornflour

Filling:
• crema de almendra (above)
• 120g cream cheese
• 60g icing sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla essence
• 1 x egg, separated
• almonds, slithered
• 1 x jar of raspberry jam

For the glaze:
• milk
• icing sugar

Preparation
For the détrempe & beurrage:
Measure out the cold water in a jug, and put in the salt, letting is dissolve slowly. Melt 75g butter in a large bowl (set aside the rest of the butter and keep it at room temp.). Sieve the flour into the butter, and add the cold water/salt solution. Mix with a wooden spoon until smooth and evenly combined.

Use your hands to form a ball, and score two deep cuts in the dough to form a cross with a knife. Wrap in clingfilm and pop into the fridge for 2 hours.

Remove from the fridge and leave for about 10 minutes to bring the dough back up to room temp. (this will make it easier to handle). Then, roll out the dough, trying to form a sort of cross, suing the scores you made earlier as a guide. It doesn’t have to be neat, just make sure the middle is thicker than the rest of the dough.

Place the remainder of the butter as a large block in the middle of the dough, and wrap the dough around the butter, like a package. Make sure the butter isn’t too warm; otherwise it’ll make the dough greasy.

Then, use a rolling pin and bash the dough down to flatten it out. Fold the dough over, and bash it down again, whilst turning it over. Then fold it once more and bash it down. Do this a couple more times, before folding it over, wrapping it in clingfilm and putting it in the fridge for another two hours. Don’t worry if it isn’t 100% homogenous at this stage.

Then repeat the above step twice or three times more, including leaving it in the fridge for two hours. By this time, the dough should be fairly homogenous throughout. The dough should be fairly springy when pressed with a finger, and can be frozen or kept in the fridge for up to 2 days.

For the filling:
To make the crema de almendra: Melt the butter in a large bowl, and mix in the ground almonds with a wooden spoon. Add the sugar and cornflour, and mix well. Add each egg, one by one, and the vanilla essence and mix again.

For the filling, mix the egg yolk (reserving the egg white for later), in a bowl with the almond cream, cream cheese, vanilla essence and icing sugar until smooth.

Remove the dough from the fridge; roughly roll it out so that you can use a pastry cutter to cut it into 4 pieces. Then, wrap each one individually and put back into the fridge. Keep one out so that you can work with it. It’s a lot easier to handle the dough when it’s as cold as possible. You can keep the dough in the fridge for up to two days, or up to a month in the freezer.

Assembling the pastries:
Use a rolling pin (and plenty of flour) to roll out the dough to about a ¼“ thick, then use the pastry cutter to cut the dough into 10cm x 10cm squares.

Spread a tablespoon of the almond cream filling diagonally from one corner to one the other in a line over the pastry square. Then place a small teaspoon of raspberry jam and mash that across with the other filling, too. Try to keep only a thin layer in the corners, otherwise the filling will spill out in the oven.

Sprinkle the filling with slithered almonds, and brush the rest of the pastry with egg white. Wrap the two other corners (without filling) over the centre of the pastry square, and brush the outside with egg white, and sprinkle a few more slithered almonds on.

Do this for with the next dough piece, and continue until all has been used.

Baking the puff pastry:
When ready, preheat the oven to 180◦C, and pop all pastries on a baking tray, giving each one ample room as they do puff up. You will probably have to do this in batches. Leave them in the oven until the pastry turns golden brown in colour.

Final touches:
Let the pastries cool. Mix together a little milk and a little bit of icing sugar to form a smooth and slightly runny consistency, which can then be drizzled on top of the pastries to decorate.

Bon Appétit!!

3

Parfait is French for “perfect.”I always used to be confused by this term, because I’ve seen parfaits in long glasses, or served in a loaf shape, but it simply refers to a kind of frozen dessert made of eggs and cream. Well, that’s the French version, I believe the American version are those parfaits made in tall glasses with whipped cream and layered fruits, berries and liqueurs.

I saw this parfait in That’s Life magazine, and it looked scrumptious! It was served with raspberries as opposed to strawberries, but obviously you could change the type of berry pretty easily.

I think that the parfait would have had a more appealing look had I have used dark chocolate, which wouldn’t have made the dessert look so anaemic. Also, those light coloured streaks are olive oil; the magazine recommended oiling the inside of the clingfilm, but I don’t think that was entirely necessary as it peeled off quite easily from the bottom of the parfait (where I didn’t oil it). Also, lining with with tin foil may have given the parfait less of a wrinkly-effect.

This dessert did have such a lovely, creamy, rich flavour though, that melted in the mouth and left a wonderful after-taste.

Chocolate Parfait with Strawberries
Parfait au Chocolat avec Fraises
Source: That’s Life Magazine, 24th March 2011, Issue 12, Page 26
Serves: 8-16 (depending on the thickness of the slice)

Ingredients
• 400g milk or dark chocolate
• 4 x egg yolks
• 2 x cartons (586ml) double cream
• 100g sugar (I used 10g of Hermesetas sweetener)

Preparation
Line a loaf tin with clingfilm. Break the chocolate in a large bowl, and microwave until melted, making sure you stir it after every 30 seconds or so to stop it from burning. Or you could melt it over a bain marie.

Separate the eggs and pop the yolks into another bowl, along with the sugar, and whisk with a fork until well combined. Pour the chocolate over the egg yolks.

In a blender, blend the cream until it forms stiff peaks, and then fold into the chocolate and egg mixture.

The dollop the mixture into the loaf tin, and spread the top so that it’s smooth. Cover the top with clingfilm, and freeze for at least four hours, preferably overnight.

Before serving, remove from the freezer 15-20 minutes beforehand, remove from the loaf tin, and then slice into slices using a warm knife (run it under hot water for a couple of seconds).

Bon Appétit!!

Have you ever tried dulce de leche? It’s sort of like the South American equivalent of Nutella in Europe. It’s absolutely delicious. It’s one of those things you can’t buy in the UK unless you go to a speciality shop. However, you’ll be pleased to know that you can make it in your very own home! And all you need is a can of sweetened condensed milk!

It’s impossible to have just one spoonful…

Dulce de leche can be used in many baking recipes, such as alfajores, which are Argentinian confectionery-style biscuits. They’re also found in lots of pastries, and can be used to spread on toast and bread, like Nutella! When I was staying in Argentina, I made a good friend with someone from China, and he would out a spoonful into warm milk every morning for breakfast. My Peruvian friend thought this was weird, but hey, whatever floats ones boat! I have also read of other recipes for making your own condensed milk, which perhaps I’ll try one day…

Alfajores getting ready to be sandwiched together with a generous dollop of dulce de leche.

There are quite a few ways to transform a can of condensed milk into dulce de leche, such as in the microwave, on the stove top or in the oven. The best and easiest way for me, I find, is the oven. All you have to do, is follow the instructions given below. And please, follow them… This is speaking from experience. This weekend, I accidentally forgot to put the milk in a dish containing water, and here was the end result:

My molten dulce de leche disaster!

You’ve probably gathered that the loaf pan was completely unusable afterwards.

The funny thing is, is that our oven had a very good seal, and so we didn’t smell the smoke until we opened the door! Although my mum did comment on a strong smell, she thought she’d just leave me to it.

So, basically, please don’t forget the water…

Here is what it is supposed to look like out of the oven; smooth, creamy and delicious.

Dulce de Leche

Ingredients
• 1 x can of sweetened condensed milk

Preparation
1. Preheat the oven to 210-220◦C.
2. Empty the contents into an oven proof dish, approx. 9 x 5″. Cover with tin foil
3. Put that dish into a bigger dish, and fill with about 2 1/2 – 3cm worth of water.
4. Then leave in the oven for an hour.
5. And voila! You have delicious dulce de leche! Spread on bread, put in cakes, or simply eat straight from the pot…

¡¡Buen Provecho!!

Dulce de leche goes well with:
Banana bread

Recipe ideas with dulce de leche:
Alfajores
Banoffee pie
Puff pastry