Can dulce de leche be made in the microwave?
The first of a two parter
Hello and welcome back to Bake Experiments - recipes that play with flavour and technique, with forays into baking history and folklore. Thank you for pulling up a chair, and joining me for tea and cake.
And if you like what you read? Please do subscribe, share or like. It will please the baking fairies too.
‘ello loves. Welcome to the first of a two part series.
In part two, we will be investigating the flavour combination that is Dulce de leche & Lime. And I will be sharing a recipe for these delectable lime curd & dulce de leche tartlets, with a peanut crumble.
For today though, we’ll be looking into how we can make dulce de leche at home. And asking, can you really make it in ten minutes in the microwave?
History & Folklore
Ahhh, the sweet, creamy caramelised milk that is dulce de leche.
My first experience of dulce de leche was with the South American biscuit Alfajores. While on holiday in Barcelona for our 26th birthday, my friend and I picked one up every morning from a local bakery, convincing ourselves that this was appropriate breakfast food.
According to Alfajores bakery, dulce de leche is translated from the Spanish, meaning “sweet from milk”. It can also be known as ‘milk jam’.
The Buenos Aires Herald tells us that the first historical reference to dulce de leche appears in 1829, at a peace meeting between Argentinian politician Juan Manual de Rosas and military leader, Juan Galo de Lavall. The story is that his maid was cooking milk and sugar, was called away and forgot all about it, and in her absence the milk cooked to a thick, sweet sauce.
Who knows if the dulce de leche helped, but the pair later signed the Cañuelas pact, ending a civil war in the province of Buenos Aires.
While this origin story is up for fraught debate, the Argentinians are obsessed with dulce de leche - even celebrating an International Dulce De Leche Day on October 11th. Hopefully my combination of dulce de leche & lime won’t result in a legion of pissed off Argentinians coming after me!
If you are already subscribed to Bake Experiments and are enjoying what you read, please consider upgrading to a PAID subscription - everything I personally earn from Substack in 2025 I will donate to The World Central Kitchen, and Food Cycle.
Prefer to leave a one off donation? You can tip me here:
And have you heard about the Bake Experiments Recipe Index? An easily searchable one stop shop for all Bake Experiments recipes and experiments.
An experiment - can you make dulce de leche in the microwave?
Before we begin, in case you are thinking - can't I just buy a jar of it? Why faff about making it at home? Don’t get me wrong, buying it in a jar is great if you need to sort something quick.
But it’s not always readily available. Also, it’s just not the same. Dulce de leche made at home has a deep, rich flavour. That gently caramelised milk, so comforting on the palate, and a lick of salt at the end making it Truly Addictive. I’m not one for verbosity, but home made dulce de leche is something I can wax lyrical about.
Well, now I have convinced you. There are several ways to make dulce de leche at home:
No.1: Stir forever
If you have a spare hour or two to just stir, you can make dulce de leche entirely from scratch, in a saucepan with milk, sugar and baking powder. You stir, stir, stir over the hob until the maillard reaction happens, it’s golden brown, and takes on a thick, spreadable consistency.
No.2: Boiling a tin
I understand it’s quite traditional for many to boil a tin of sweetened condensed milk on the hob for a few hours. The longer your boil, the dark and thicker the dulce de leche will be, so two hours for a lighter dulce de leche, and up to four hours for a darker, thicker dulce de leche.
This is said to create the smoothest dulce de leche and is very hands off.
However, for me it has a real fear factor. You are meant to poke some holes in the tin to avoid a condensed milk explosion. Yet, I can just see myself doing this wrong somehow, or letting the water evaporate, and suddenly there is a boiling condensed milk all over a screaming child, who just happened to run by the hob at the absolute worst moment.
Excuse me while I lie down and recover from even the thought of that nightmare.
No.3: Bake in the oven in a water bath (this is my preferred method)
Simply pour a tin of condensed milk into a small roasting dish, then place that dish inside a larger roasting tray, filling the base with water to the same height as the milk. Cover with foil and bake at 170°C/340°F
It takes a few hours, but, aside from whisking at half hour intervals and adding more water if it boils away, is pretty hands off. The longer you leave it, the darker and thicker it will get. After two hours, the dulce de leche is smooth with a lovely milky flavour.
I sprinkle it with a little flaky salt, before transferring to a jar and storing in the fridge.
No.4: In the microwave!!
When I read that you can make dulce de leche in the microwave in just ten minutes, I had to investigate.
According to Bakers Royale, it’s a case of placing the condensed milk in a microwave safe bowl and covering with cling film.
Cook on a medium heat for two minutes at a time, giving it a thorough whisk between cooks. Apparently, it should take no more than ten minutes to reach the desired consistency.
Let’s test this shall we?
I made a batch of my usual oven baked dulce de leche alongside a microwave version - to test for ease of method, flavour and texture.
The results:
Well, you can make dulce de leche in the microwave. But I wouldn’t advise it.
Unless you are keen on condensed milk exploding in your microwave, and you want dulce de leche with a claggy, grainy texture.
Can it be saved?
Yes, and no.
I attempted a little trick you can use to bring back together a split ganache, which is to add a tbsp of cold water, and then whisk it like crazy with an electric whisk.
This did smooth out a lot of the lumps, and made the dulce de leche kind of passable. It was still claggy, and didn’t have the sumptuous, velvety texture of the oven baked version.
In baking, as in life, some things are just worth the wait.
Just like my love letter to dulce de leche & lime. So, please do stay tuned.
Until next time…
Thank you for another interesting post Shell. Now for all future comments on your posts, just assume I have started the comment with "I'm not a baker myself" or "Baking is not my thing", but I do know about boiling condensed milk in a pot of water for hours, I used to do it as a child. But I didn't know it was called dulce de leche. See Shell, you are my baking guru.
Glad you experimented so we don't have to!