Cajeta (Crock Pot Method)

Submitted by Sharon123

"The slow cooker allows milk to caramelize to a delicate golden brown with little monitoring. The result is Cajeta, the South American milk caramel sauce also known as dulce de leche. Pour it over fruit or a slice of pound cake, or stir it into vanilla ice cream. Adapted from Country Living magazine."

 

• Ready In: 10hrs 10mins
• Ingredients: 6
• Yields: 1 cup

ingredients

• 2 cups goat's milk (if unavailable, use all cow milk)
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, seed separated
• 1⁄4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch

directions

1. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker. Stir well, and cook on high for 10 hours.
2. Stir occasionally the last hour.
3. Strain through a fine strainer and then store in the refrigerator for up to three weeks.
4. Serve at room temperature. Good over cake, fruit, and ice cream. Enjoy!

Reviews

[Muffin Goddess]

Oh, this is yummy! It made the house smell soooo good, too! I doubled the recipe (we really like cajeta in my house, and I wanted to use up the whole container of goat milk that I bought). I'm not sure if it was because of the doubled recipe, having the lid on the crockpot, or both, but it took almost a whole day to thicken up. It was the right color after 10 hours on high, but still very runny. After about 9 hours, I realized that the mixture was just not thickening, so I removed the lid and allowed it to cook for the rest of the day uncovered. Not a big deal, since all I needed to do was stir it periodically. Besides, the longer cook time meant that my house was going to smell delicious for that much longer lol. I bet that even if I didn't have the time to allow it to thicken, I could have used the liquid to make some positively decadent iced coffee drinks or milkshakes. Definitely a keeper, thanks for posting! Made for ZWT4

 

[rosslare]

Made half the recipe, followed the instructions and cooked on high, covered. Stirred every now and then. Mine was ready, brown and thick, in 10 hours. So delicious, with hardly any effort at all! Got just less than a cup of cajeta, would have been good idea to make the whole recipe. Might take longer time than 10 hours, though.

 

[katew]

This was an experiment for me and after 12 hours on high mine was still very liquid but golden brown in colour. In the end I had to thicken it with cornflour on the gas stove top to get it to a custard like consistency. Flavour was good just like butterscotch pudding.

 

[mummamills]

having read the previous review, I actually didnt want mine to thicken too much :) I used low fat milk, and ended up with a slightly thickened carmel sauce. You cant eat it by itself, it is just WAY too sweet, BUT in an iced coffee, or just mixed with milk it is just wonderful! I expected it to taste like condensed milk caramel, but it doesnt AT ALL. Well worth a try!