Homemade Dulce de Leche

I love, love, love Mexican food and am so excited about Cinco de Mayo this weekend that I've planned my whole dinner menu this week with almost all Mexican food. I've also got a bunch of Mexican recipes to throw your way to get you in the mood too and give you some ideas if you're like me and love to celebrate.

The first is this dulce de leche. I'm sure most of you have heard of it. It's a dessert sauce, almost like caramel, sweet and creamy. I'm not sure if it's typical in Mexico, but I know they eat it all over South America and I ate it by the kilo when I lived there, so I'm going with it.

This is one dessert sauce you will never want to live without, especially when you find out how easy it is to make. There is one, and only one ingredient: sweetened condensed milk. Now, I know you can do this in your crock pot without ever taking it out of the can, but man, I just can't wait that long. This'll take you just over an hour from start to finish, and you 'll be enjoying this over cake, ice cream, or just by the spoonful (my favorite way)!

Homemade Dulce de Leche
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Open the can of milk and pour into a shallow baking dish, like a pie plate. Cover tightly with foil. Make a water bath by placing the shallow dish in a larger dish; a roasting pan works great. Fill the roasting pan with water until it reaches about half way up the smaller dish. Bake for about an hour, then lift the foil to check the color. If it's not a caramely brown color, let it bake another 15-20 minutes.

Remove pans from oven and transfer dulce de leche into a jar with a tight fitting lid-I used a canning jar. You can let it cool some before doing this but don't wait too long or it will start to set and get too sticky and messy to scrape out of the pan.

Enjoy warm or chilled.