This sauce is very naughty, but so good. It is certainly a treat, but keeps very well in the fridge, so you don’t need to eat it all at once (if you don’t want to, mind!)
After University, I spent some time travelling around South America. I spent most of the time in Argentina, a country which absolutely capitvated me, and it was the place that I first really enjoyed caramel, or dulce de leche as it is there.
Dulce de leche is used extensively in Argentina. In our youth hostels, we were served hot black coffee and bread every morning, with a large jar of the stuff plonked on the table for us to spoon from and spread.
The ice cream in Argentina is legendary, and I don’t mind admitting it is so good I was on about two ice creams a day whilst I was over there. Dulce de leche and dulce de leche granizado were my favourite flavours – the former being a uniform dark caramel colour with it mixed into the ice cream, and the latter being dulce de leche ice cream, with more of the stuff swirled through. In a word: amazing!
Another use I loved was in alfajores – unsurprisingly, the artisan ones were always the best. The best ones I had were from Bariloche.
You can get hold of it more readily now, and I have in fact asked for a jar from friends when they’ve been to Argentina, but some of it isn’t the best quality, so I had a go at making some myself, although I had to go for a salted version given my love of salted caramel.
It makes a lovely gift decanted into a small Kilner jar. It is amazing spread on pretty much anything, but I think it’s particularly good drizzled onto ice cream. Or spooned out of the jar.
Salted caramel sauce
Makes around 700ml
Ingredients
1 x 400g (appx.) can condensed milk
Dark brown muscovado sugar
150ml milk
120g butter
1 ½ tsp good quality sea salt (I use Maldon as the flakes dissolve nicely)
Method
Place all the ingredients together into a non-stick pan. Over a moderate heat whisk until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. This should take around 15 minutes. Allow to cool and store in a glass jar in the fridge for up to 3 months.
