I didn't blow up the kitchen!

I should start a new section on this blog about conquering fears in the kitchen. Although, I think there would be more blog entries under that label than any other. Perhaps I'm just a scaredy cat deep down when it comes to the kitchen. Be that as it may, at least I'm taking steps to overcome my fears.

This time my fear was making dulce de leche. I think this fear is completely justified. Making dulce de leche can result in a can blowing up and spewing hot molten caramelized sweetened condensed milk everywhere. If that ain't fear worthy I don't know what is.

I found directions for crockpot dulce de leche on kitchen koala, and that seemed slightly less risky than boiling the cans on the stove. However, I was still scared. I followed the directions, and even put one jar of sweetened condensed milk into a little canning jar so I would know for sure when it had caramelized. I'm glad I did that because after 8 hours on low, there was absolutely no change in color.

After the 8 hours on low, I cranked the crock pot up to high and checked the jars every hour. Lo and behold at 4 hours I had this:
MMMMMMM! Lookie at that lovely caramel numaliciousness! Yay!

The only downside to making this was that the crockpot was coated in this white powdery substance. I'm not sure if it is from something on the can, or minerals from the water. If I make this again I think I'll invest in some of those crock pot bags to see if that makes cleaning the slow cooker a little bit easier.