My goal was to make dulce de leche, a South American sweet spread. Traditional recipes boil milk, sugar, vanilla bean for some time, then strain, lots of sticky work. People also boil or bake sealed cans of sweetened condensed milk immersed in water, bringing to mind the thought of potential explosions. Then I discovered blogger Mangio da Sola’s crockpot technique – can, water, crockpot for 8 hours.
In a crockpot, the temperature gently rises and holds, cooking gently, unattended. But it turns out my ‘70s appliance only hits 180 degrees on the LOW setting. Not hot enough to produce dark, thick dulce de leche. When I opened my cooled can, it was a creamy caramel sauce, somewhat darker than what it started as but a whole lot more CARAMEL-Y in flavor. Not what I expected but still worthy of apple slices. The rest is in the fridge, it will be great over ice cream.
Crockpot Caramel Sauce
- One 14 oz. can Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated milk). Don’t use the can with the pop-top, either.
- Remove the paper label.
- Place on a saucer in the bottom of a crockpot (the can leaves a rust ring).
- Add water to fully submerge the can.
- Cover the crockpot, set on LOW for 8 hours. Go to bed.
- In the morning, turn crockpot to OFF and let cool on its own, at least 3 hours. Then retrieve your can, open and mmmmm.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Kelly, so sorry for that experience. Kind of a dumb question from me… did you check the Best If Used By date on your cans? Old milk in a can is going to turn into Old Cooked Milk in a can. And just to confirm, it needs to be sweetened condensed milk, not evaporated milk. Just a thought. The photo you see in my post is from that day’s crockpot recipe.
So I’ve tried this in the slow cooker. On low for TEN hours and when I let it cool completely in the morning I opened the can to find an almost rotten runny smelly condensed milk. I then proceded to spend the day with another brand on the stovetop with continually boiling water for six hours and the same thing. The water line covers the can at all times, too. SOOO frustrated!
You can also do this on top of the stove in a pan of simmering water. Again you would remove the paper. Place the can in water to cover the top and bring to a boil after pring to a boil lower to simmering and cook for 45 min to 1 hour. This will give you the same result in much less the time. I know because I do this when making mine.
Angie, thanks for pointing out that I wasn’t clear. I fixed it.
how do you cover a can
I think the only time it explodes is when it is left unattended on the stove, and the water level drops below the top of the can. (Also when one tries to open a can that has not cooled completely. It acts almost like a pressure cooker that someone tries to take the lid off of before releasing the pressure. Hot caramel can go every where. In this time of sue happy people, Eagle Brand felt saying don’t do it was better than getting sued because someone got hurt not following the directions properly.
…the only fear of the can exploding is when the can is not completely cooled off before opening…lol…I had this happen when I was in home economic class in school and tried to duplicate a recipe later at home…but left out the step to cool off the can first!! ooopppsss!! needless to say we were cleaning caramel off our ceiling…lol…ALWAY COOL CAN COMPLETELY before opening!!
My husband is a truck driver. He came home one night talking about making caramel out of cans of sweetened condensed milk. It sounded hard to believe, but we gave it a try. What a surprise!! It turned out better than we ever pictured in our minds it could be. Two years later, we’re still cooking caramels.
I make mine in the oven by baking it for about an hour in a water bath. Always comes out thick and wonderful. I made it & blogged about it a couple of months back.
The crockpot method sounds really easy (and safe). Thanks for sharing. Will have to give it a try some time!
I grew up in South America and loved having ducle de leche. I would eat it by the spoonfuls!!! I was excited to try making it in the crockpot, since I experienced disasters trying to make over the stovetop. I followed the directions, except one minor detail. . . .I forgot about it and let it cook on low for almost 20 hours (oops!). Actually the oops was perfect . . . when I opened the cans, they were nice and thick and caramelly, just like the dulce de leche in South America. So, the longer you cook it, the better is works. FYI: I cooked one can of regular sweetened condensed milk and one can of Fat-Free sweetened condensed milk and they both worked great.
My mom always made dulce de leche (we called it cajeta) when I was growing up, but I too have been leery to try it myself fearing the can explosion. I’ll give this method a try. Thanks for sharing! =)
I have been boiling canned condensed milk in a pressure cooker (cuts the cooking time in half if not less) all my life, and never once had an explosion or anything close to that
Basically you put the cans in a pot and cover with water, boil for about 2 hours on medium-low. OR if you’re using a pressure cooker, just do the same thing, only cook it for 40 minutes from the time the water starts boiling
This is awesome!! I had no idea you could do this! I’m definitely going to try it…maybe the next time we have a party I’ll put together an dessert bar to include this! Thanks!
Have you ever heard of a case where the can has exploded? I have not. I have made this by boiling many times without any problems. I’d think if there was even a chance of explosion that the can would bulge or something during the simmering time. Give it a shot! It’s ok
Oh no!! I’m sorry it didn’t come out perfectly, but it still looks insanely good! I guess you could put it on high next time. I need to try it again and cook it for half the time to try out this flavor. I love the color. Wow!
I first tried David Lebovitz’ method, but this looks even more interesting! Looking forward to Camp!
It’s so funny you posted this. I came to the web looking for this technique and was so pleased to see it offered from a friend! Thanks GREG
I knew of the boiled can technique, but it also frightened me. I’ve practically set the house on fire (more than once) because I forgot the rice was on the stove. This sounds like the method I’ve been looking for – thanks! I’ve got to try it.