15 Minute Dulce De Leche

I think by now I have fully established the extremes of my laziness. What is slightly lesser known is that I am impatient.  Ah, lazy and impatient.  They go great together, like milk and sauerkraut.

Last year I made Dulce de leche in the crockpot. And while the potential of having molten hot caramel sauce erupt all over my kitchen was thrilling, it took a whole 12 hours.  Ugh.  That is like a half a day.  Then you've got to wait for those cans too cool enough to be opened.  Who has time to do all that waiting? 

All my dulce de leche woes were solved when I found the recipe for Dulce de Leche from Cooking for Engineers.  You cook it...are you ready?  In the microwave!

The first step is to open the can of sweetened condensed milk.  Do not use your teeth to do this.  I recommend a can opener.

The second step is to put your condensed milk in a large microwave safe bowl.  Use the largest bowl you have. The bowl MUST be able to hold a minimum of two and a half quarts. If you don't use a bowl this large you will be very, VERY sad.

Thirdly, you microwave the condensed milk on MEDIUM power for 12-16 minutes, whisking after every 2 minutes.

This is the reason why you want such a hugemongous bowl. While the condensed milk is in the microwave, it is going to bubble up like there is no tomorrow.  Mine more than doubled in volume.  You can see the line on the picture above as to how high the milk got while it was cooking.

I stopped cooking mine after 14 minutes. I could have gone another 2 minutes, but I didn't want it to get any thicker than it already was.

The only down side to this was that the Microwave Dulce De Leche didn't get as dark as the slow cooked version. So there's your trade off.  I think there's a place in the universe for both versions.