Angel Cakes

By: Jen Angel

Jun 02 2010

Tags: angelcakes, Buttercream, Chili, Chocolate, cinnamon, Cupcakes, dulce de leche, Fillings, Lime, Mexican Chocolate, Vanilla

Category: Birthdays, Cupcakes

3 Comments

For a Mexican-themed party, three flavors: lime, chocolate dulce de leche, and Mexican chocolate (with cinnamon and chili). Pictured above are the dulce de leche cupcakes, which I also made in a vanilla version.

Now, let’s talk for a minute about dulce de leche. A favorite flavor in the global south (particularly Argentina), it’s sweetened milk and sugar – sometimes confused by US Americans (like me in my youth) with caramel. Yes, similar, but caramel has no milk and dulce de leche is (um, obviously), creamier. You can certainly buy it in a can in a store that sells Mexican or Latin American foods, but it’s pretty easy to make at home. If you search the Internet for a recipe for how to make dulce de leche, there are several otpions:

1. The stove top or double boiler method. Though I *really* love my vintage pyrex double boiler, the constant stirring is, well, constant stirring. I don’t have time for that.
2. There’s the in-the-can method that involved submerging an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in water in either a pot on the stove or a pressure cooker. Um, red flags all over the place!!! Putting a sealed can into a pressure cooker just seems like a bad idea. I know people have done it a million times all over the world, but really, I think you can see my concern here. Any recipe with multiple warnings that a can might explode – well, take your chances.
3. The oven method. Last year I came across this post on the RecipeGirl blog about making it in the oven, and this is now my recipe of choice. Really, really, easy – no constant stirring, and no danger of explosion. Two thumbs up in my book! The only drawback is that if you are using the dulce de leche in a baked recipe, this can tie up your oven for a while, so planning ahead is necessary.

So, what have we learned today? No explosions = good.

More photos on Flickr or in the Archive.