Cajeta Kaboom—With or Without Goat’s Milk

A while back, after coming into a quart of goat's milk, and with the memory of the smoky, sweet-and-sour Coronado brand Cajeta de Cabra Quemada still lingering somewhere on the back of my tongue, I decided to boil the milk down and make my own cajeta.

Dulce de Leche, the popular Latino caramel, is called cajeta in Mexico, and the Coronado company, among others, makes the goat's milk type. This rich caramel dessert is usually flavored with vainilla, but Coronado also features envinado (flavored with red wine) and quemada (flavored with burnt sugar).

The Recipe, briefly

I started by heating the goat's milk over a medium flame. (If you would prefer the less-sour cow's milk type, use a quart of that. I prefer goat because of the sweet/sour combination.) Then, in a small saucepan, I melted a cup of sugar over a medium-high heat, swirling it around until it was liquefied. (It’s best not to stir, as it’ll reharden, or crystallize, even on a wooden spoon; but if you must, you must.) Liquify and watch it all darken, and when it is about the color of dark corn syrup, like Karo, it will be a “burnt” flavor. For anyone who’s ever made a flan, this process will be familiar.

After the goat's milk reached a simmer, I turned off the melted sugar, then poured a cup and a half of the simmering milk into the melted sugar saucepan and stirred it around until it was completely mixed. I poured this into the remaining, simmering goat's milk, stirred it to mix well, and then gradually poured in two more cups of sugar, stirring all the while.

As soon as the cajeta was consistently thickened I turned down the heat and, still stirring, waited for a slow rolling boil. As soon as it boiled I lowered the flame and kept it at a simmer. 
There’s a lot of stirring needed. Stir until it’s the consistency of an uncooled pudding. It will have reduced by about a third of its original volume. (If I'd felt it was too loose, I’d slowly reheat it. It might take two or three reheatings to get it right.)

NOTE: If you follow these simple instructions, keep in mind that you’ll have to be tending the pot from two to three hours. Don’t let it go more than five minutes without stirring, because sugar burns. (Or--of course--buy a jar of this:)

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Then—if you don’t mind settling for cow’s milk cajeta--there’s also the “Boil-a-Can” method. But stay awake if you use it.

THE “BOIL-A-CAN” METHOD

You’ll need:

          Water  

One 14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk                                                         One saucepan—deep enough so that it is more than two inches higher than the can, but it shouldn’t be more than twice as wide as the condensed milk can.

          
Directions:
   

 Stand the can in the center of the pot full of water. Make sure the water comes up to a level that's two inches over the top of the can.

           Boil the water and settle the boil to medium. Watch the pot, and when the water boils down (about 2 inches) to the top of the can of sweetened condensed milk, add two more inches of boiling water from another pot. Do this one more time, or for 3-4 hours, then turn off the flame and let water and can cool down.

          When you finally open the cooled-off can, the sweetened condensed milk in the middle may have stayed whiter than the rest of the final product, but you can stir this together until the "instant caramel" is a rich, dark color—a dulce de leche. A cajeta!

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               I know what you’re saying. “Boil the can?” Crazy, right? Boil an unopened can?! But it’ll explode, won't it? (Two months ago, Details magazine had a blurb that recommended this method. So if you screw it up, sue them.)

               Earlier, I warned you that if you use this method you should "stay awake". And, no, it will not explode—if you watch your pot. 

               ....Or else it’ll explode:

               It was fifteen years ago, and I was cooking up my three dozenth can of my favorite Mexican treat, when I unfortunately did fall asleep. The water not only boiled down, but the pot became a white-hot launching pad for the can. (I didn’t actually see this, but I know the consequences--and I saw the results.)The explosion at the bottom sent the  can rocketing to the ceiling, where it smashed through plaster and cracked the lathing beneath. The saucepan had a scorched and rounded bottom. The cast iron trivet that supported the pan was bent downward over its burner and could not be re-bent by any force known to man. (Or, at least, this man!)

   And the kitchen! Oh, the kitchen! 
   It was a leopard--a maniacal monotone Jackson Pollack that would take days to un-gum from the ceiling and walls. A caramel nightmare.

              When it went off my mate awoke and called out, wanting to know what the loud noise was. “No big deal,” I said to her. “Just some plates that fell off a shelf. Go back to sleep. I’ll…clean…up…”

               (Don’t fall asleep!)
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POST SCRIPT--On October 19, 2013, I noticed that the Nestle Company has picked up on this and is now offering the above product pre-made by them under the La Lechera label, calling the product, of course, Dulce de Leche. It costs about 75 cents more, and instead of a 14oz can, the usual weight of their sweetened condensed milk, it's 12.5 oz. So, to spare yourselves a hole in the ceiling, this might be the safer option.

POST POST SCRIPT--On the October 22nd show, The Chew co-host, Michael Simon showed how to boil cans of sweetened condensed milk to create dulce de leche. To borrow from his method, he gets a deep brown color by boiling for 4 hours, keeping water always over the tops of the cans. The trend goes on!