Tag Archives: sugar

White Chocolate Shortbread

11 Nov

I am in full on cookie baking mode. I just put about 200 Starry Starry Night cookies into the freezer, waiting to be baked tomorrow, and I decided to sit and think about what other kind of cookie I could make. I love shortbread – full, rich, simple and classic, but I wanted to give it a twist. As I looked in my store cupboard, I realised I had about a kilogram of Valrhona white chocolate waiting to be made into something fabulous.

I wanted to make white chocolate chip cookies, and I still may do that, but I wondered if there was a way to get white chocolate into a shortbread without making a shortbread with white chocolate chips. I wanted the white chocolate to be in every bite, to permeate the shortbread – to live in its essence 🙂 So I thought about it some more, and looked at the ingredients list – pretty simple, really. Butter, sugar, flour. Vanilla for additional flavour if needed, and a touch of salt. Thats it.

Well, I thought, if I were to add white chocolate, I could bring the sugar content down. But how to add the chocolate without melting it? Melting the chocolate and adding it to shortbread would, I thought, mess with the essential crumby-ness of this classic biscuit. It would make a nice cookie, but it wasnt what I wanted. I was still thinking about the sugar though, and then it came to me… Could I somehow crumb the white chocolate so that it was mixed in with the flour? I could blitz with my immersion blender – and lo! It worked!

This cookie is astoundingly good. Its surprising too – white chocolate just oozes out of its very heartbeat – but you dont see it when you bite into the cookie, so it taste is unexpected and wonderful. Crispy, rich, scented with vanilla and white chocolate, this cookie is so much more wicked than it looks. Enjoy it very soon, with someone you love very much 😉

Makes 8 triangles from a 9 or 10 inch pan

  • Approx 1 cup (5 oz/150 g) good quality white chocolate (I used Valrhona disks – otherwise, use a good chocolate bar and roughly chop), cold from the fridge
  • 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup (8 tbsp) butter, softened
  • 1/4 cup light brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp vanilla

Place white chocolate, flour and salt in a large bowl. Using your hands, mix together until all the white chocolate is completely covered in flour. This is important for the next step, so please dont skip it!

If you are using a food processor or blender, place the flour chocolate mixture into the machine, and pulse lightly until the white chocolate has crumbed and completely integrated into the flour. If you are using an immersion blender, as I did, place the blender into the flour chocolate mixture, and pulse quickly. Move the bowl around, until all the chocolate has been incorporated into the flour. Set aside in the refrigerator while you prepare the butter mixture.

In a stand mixture, or using a hand held mixer, cream the butter until it is light and fluffy. This usually takes about a minute or two. Add the light brown sugar and cream until it is incorporated into the butter. Add vanilla and mix again.

Remove the flour mixture from the fridge, and add to the butter mixture, adding it in a few batches. The dough will come together quickly.

Butter a spring form pan or a tart pan (about 9 – 10 inches across), and place the dough in the centre. Using your hands, quickly push the dough so that it covers the entire bottom of the pan. Score wedges with a sharp knife (I cut it into 8 pizza wedges – you could do it however you wish), and poke holes in it with the tines of a fork.

Refrigerate the prepared dough for at least an hour, or overnight.

Once youre ready to bake the shortbread, preheat the oven to 175C (350F). Bake the shortbread for about 25 – 35 minutes. Check after about 15 minutes, and if its browning too fast, cover with a little aluminum foil to prevent it from burning. After about 25 minutes check again – it should be crumbly and firm to the touch.

Cool, in the pan, on a rack for about ten minutes. Re-score and re-hole if you feel the shortbread needs it! After about ten minutes, cut the shortbread through with an offset spatula or sharp knife, and allow to cool for a further ten to fifteen minutes. Serve immediately and enjoy!

If you have any leftover, cover and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.

 

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Pink Vanilla Cupcakes + Frosting!

28 Sep

Cupcakes!So I promise, this will be the last of the pink party smushed fairy postings … at least for this round! 😉 I loved the chocolate cake with that incredible white chocolate frosting, and we are still munching on (and sharing) the pink heart cookies. But the cupcakes were really special. M ordered the cupcake paper cups from Wilton – little pink flower cups. And I baked about 60 cupcakes – half were decorated with glitter and sprinkles and hearts and gumpaste/royal icing flowers ordered from a professional bake shop online. The other half were left iced for the children at the party to decorate – and they did a wonderful job! I love projects that get young people involved with and thinking about the food that they eat – even if its just from an aesthetic point of view.

Most of the decorations and the food colouring came from India Tree. Who knew beet food colouring could produce such gorgeous shades of pink – soft and pastel, natural and beautiful. The recipe for the cupcakes was adapted from a Meyer Lemon Raspberry Cupcake recipe by Amy Berman from the Vanilla Bakeshop. And the frosting was a basic garden variety confectioners frosting, but I made sure to use organic ingredients. I figure if we are going to feed young ones such rich foods, might as well make them free from pesticides and hormones and the like.

This recipe makes about 25 – 30 cupcakes. To double, I made two separate batches because baking is such a specific art – you dont want to mess up the measurements, and sometimes when you double a recipe, it just doesnt take as well. Please do try and use vanilla pods if you can – they imbue the cupcakes with such a pure vanilla scent and flavour. Nothing else comes close. I doubled the vanilla hit by adding vanilla essence as well. If you really cant find vanilla pods, double the amount of vanilla essence.

The cupcakes will keep for up to 3 days in an airtight container or in the fridge. After that, theyre still edible, but may start to wilt a little. 😉 Enjoy!!!

Vanilla Cupcake

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter at room temperature
  • 2 cups light brown sugar
  • 1 vanilla bean, about 3/4th scraped plus 1 – 2 tbsp vanilla essence
  • 5 large eggs, separated
  • 1 3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cup cake flour (not self-rising)
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 175C (350F) and line your cupcake tin with paper cupcake cups.

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. The butter and sugar really need to combine well – it needs to look like a thickish cream.

Add the vanillas and beat well. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating after each addition.

Mix together the flours, baking powder and salt. You can sift if you like (this makes a much finer crumb) but its not totally necessary. Add to the butter mixture and beat well. You will have quite a thick dough. Add all the sour cream and beat again. Set aside.

In a clean bowl, with a clean whisk, or cleaned beaters, whisk the egg whites until they are shiny and hold stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites into the dough.

Drop by heaping tablespoons into your cupcake cups. You should get about 25 – 30.

Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. I would check at 20 minutes, but it took me the full 25 to bake them.

Let the cupcakes cool in the tins.

Pink Vanilla Frosting

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
  • 4 cups confectioner’s or icing sugar, sifted
  • 1 – 2 tbsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 vanilla bean, scraped
  • 4 tbsp heavy cream or milk
  • India Tree food colouring (red for preference 😉 )

With an electric mixer, beat the butter until it is smooth and creamy.

Sift 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar onto the butter, and beat it in on low speed. Repeat for the additional 3 cups of sugar.

Measure in the vanillas and 2 tbsp of cream, and beat well. If the consistency is to your liking, start adding food colouring, otherwise keep adding cream, 1 tablespoon at a time. I would imagine you would need the entire amount of cream, but I leave it up to you (and the heat, humidity and elevation of your kitchen!).

Beat in the food colouring 1 drop at a time. I made 2 batches of frosting and coloured them slightly differently so I had some contrast in the icing.

Beat for at least 3 – 5 minutes. What you will find is that the frosting gets a really light and fluffy, yet thick and solid consistency. I cant explain it, but frosting that has not been beaten for as long just has a different feel to it. The food colour is incorporated totally, and the frosting is very whipped if you beat it for long enough.

Once the frosting is of your desired consistency, fill a pastry bag and ice your cooled cupcakes.

If you dont have a pastry bag, do as I did. Fill a small plastic ziploc bag about 1/3rd full with frosting and cut the tip off one corner. You can use this as a makeshift bag, though be careful. The heat of your hands will start melting the icing quickly.

Decorate the cupcakes with sparkles and glitter and hearts and flowers immediately. Let everything set for about 30 minutes before refrigerating or serving.

Enjoy!

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Pink Heart Cookies

24 Sep

cookieSo I was sitting in the kitchen this morning, minding my own business when this very pink fairy flew in through the window. She had glitter dust all over her wings, sparkles in her hair, and she had the most annoying whiny buzzy sound … So I smushed her. And she exploded. And the entire kitchen was filled with pink glazed sugar cookies, bedecked with hearts and sparkle and glitter. This is what happens, apparently, when a pink fairy explodes.

Actually, I spent most of the morning baking these cookies (I tripled the recipe so I ended up with about 100 biscuits) and most of the afternoon glazing them. These are not quick work if you want to roll out the dough and then cut patterns out with a cookie cutter. They are however quite simple if you want them for easy log slices – if you want to roll the dough into logs about 2 – 3 inches thick and then just slice rounds and bake. Either way, they are very very delicious – crumbly and yet sturdy, very buttery and not too sweet. I based the cookie on Cook’s Illustrated Sugar Cookie – but I used my hands rather than a stand mixer. It worked out fine.

I used royal icing to glaze the cookies – a basic confectioner’s sugar and water mixture with the addition of meringue powder (basically freeze dried egg whites). The addition of the egg whites makes the glaze harden extremely well. If you have access to meringue powder, use it – there is a huge difference. You can also make royal icing with egg whites, but since they are raw, and I am making the cookies for a children’s birthday party, I decided to go with the powder.

I used the India Tree dye – and as you can see from the image – it was gorgeous! Very easy to work with, very strong colour, and an almost imperceptible taste. I love this stuff, and I love that I can bake wildly colourful cakes and cookies for young people, and not worry about poisoning them with too much food dye. Decorating these cookies by hand took a lot of time and work – but they are so pretty, it was worth it!

Sugar Cookie

This cookie is basically much like the basis for a sweet tart shell – butter (so much butter!), superfine sugar (which gives a more tender cookie and a finer crumb), a touch of salt, flour, vanilla and cream cheese. Thats it. You have to be quite gentle with the dough, and once it comes together, you shouldnt really handle it a lot. Its very very tender. I made the dough the night before, refrigerated it well wrapped, and baked the next morning.

This should yield you about 30 – 40 cookies

  • 2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
  • 3/4 cup light brown sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 16 tbsp butter (2 sticks) – at room temperature. It should be soft, but not totally giving, if you know what I mean. You want it to still hold its shape – so take it out of the fridge about half an hour before you mean to use it, and dont leave it in the heat.
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 2 heaping tbsp cream cheese

If you are baking immediately, preheat your oven to 170C (375F).

Whizz the light brown sugar in a food processor or with your immersion blender so that the sugar becomes superfine. Its not 100% neccessary but it does make a difference in the finished product.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar and salt.

Using your fingers, work the butter into the flour mixture. You want flakes of butter to be completely incorporated into the flour – it should look like oatmeal. Do this as quickly as possible, but also as completely as possible. When you are happy with the mixture, use your whisk to just combine everything together again.

Pour over the vanilla and cream cheese, and again using your hands, quickly and evenly work these two ingredients into the mixture. You will see that they bind the flakes together and you will have an extremely soft dough.

Take the dough out of the bowl, and on a clean surface, knead a couple of times, using the palm of your hand to smear the dough away from you. This will lengthen the butter flakes within the dough.

Roll the dough into a ball, and divide into two.

If you are making slice cookies, fashion each half into a log, and wrap well with parchment paper or plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes before slicing and baking. These also freeze bloody well, so you can always have a fresh baked cookie to hand!

If you are making cookie cutter cookies, wrap each half in parchment paper or plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 20 minutes.

Take dough out of fridge, and centre each half between two sheets of parchment paper, about the length of a jelly roll pan. Using a rolling pin and light movements, roll out the dough between the sheets, to about 1/4 – 1/8th inch thick, and refrigerate again. If you are working in an extremely hot climate, you can freeze the rolled out dough for a few minutes so it is quite stiff.

Place the parchment on a flat surface, and gently peel the top layer of parchment off the dough. Use cookie cutters to cut shapes out of the dough, and gently transfer the cookies to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Any scraps, you can re roll and recut into cookies, but make sure you rest the re rolled dough in the fridge or freezer before cutting cookies out of it!

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the edges just begin to brown (I burnt one lot, by the way, and they were DELICIOUS!).

Cool on a rack before glazing.

Royal Icing

  • 2 cups confectioner’s (icing) sugar
  • 2 tbsp meringue powder
  • 3 – 5 tbsp warm water
  • 3 – 7 drops of food colouring (I chose red – because PINK is our theme – of course!)

Sift the confectioner’s sugar into a medium bowl. You dont have to do this, and it usually turns out fine, but this just makes sure there are no lumps!

Add the meringue powder, and stir to combine. Add 3 tbsp of water, and whisk well. You can whisk with a balloon whisk or with an electric whisk, but you really want to combine the mixture until the icing is thick, and forms gentle peaks. Add more water if you need it – I like quite a liquidy glaze – dont worry, with the addition of the meringue powder, it hardens!

Add food colouring, a drop at a time, and whisk well to combine, until the royal icing is tinted to your desire.

Do note that I added a drop of vanilla to the icing – it made it taste quite good, but it did change the colour from light pink to darker pink.

cookieAssembly

  • Sugar Cookies
  • Royal Icing
  • Decorations – I used sanding sugar, pink and silver glitter, sparkling sugar, and sugar hearts – optional – you might want the beautiful elegance of a glazed cookie – but I was looking for exploding fairy pink!

You need to work systematically when icing these cookies.

Arrange the un-iced cookies in a tray lined with parchment paper. Have next to you the royal icing in a bowl, covered with a tea cloth (to keep it liquid), a mug, half filled with warm water, a tea spoon, and whatever decorations you want to use.

Ice 4 – 6 cookies at a time by taking a teaspoon of icing, and pouring it over a cookie, using the back of the spoon to smooth the icing over.

Once up to 6 cookies have been iced, decorate them with your sparkly sugary delights. Then go on to the next 6. The reason you do this is so that the icing does not harden before you can decorate it.

Add more water to the royal icing if it becomes too stiff – but do this literally half a teaspoon at a time – you will be amazed how it reacts to just a few drops of water.

Let the icing harden for at least 2 hours before packing the cookies into an air tight container. They can be refrigerated for up to 3 days before serving.

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Cinnamon Sugar Cookies

11 Aug

perfect happy memoryI wrote in an earlier post about my late father’s love of white buttered toaste with a sprinkle of sugar. He ate it as a treat, even though he could have most any gourmet food he wished. This taught me that food is about memory as much as it is about taste… And one of my earliest memories is staying over at an Aunt’s house, one sharp sparkling autumn day, with my sister. We woke up in the morning, and she offered us cinnamon toast. We had never had it before (I think I was probably 6 to my sisters 4 years), and eagerly accepted.

What a taste. What an amazing combination. White toast, crispy and warm, melting butter, crackling sugar … and cinnamon. Its a dark scent, almost woody and powdery. Hits of spiciness, sweetness, flowers. Its not a description that comes easily, but when you taste cinnamon, especially for the first time, its as if your taste buds wake up. I have always loved the scent and taste of cinnamon, and its warming fragrance brings memory of autumn, cider, Christmas. When I sat down to write about the actual taste of cinnamon, I realised this is another taste which is intricately wrapped in memory for me.

So today, on the first day of the Ramadan, after an exceedingly hot, busy day, I wanted comfort. Food that is a combination of memory and laughter, and wonderful easy taste. I turned to this recipe for cinnamon sugar cookies which I think I have been making as long as I can remember cooking. These cookies are really delicious, quick to put together, and delightful to give away. The recipe makes a very soft dough. Dont over beat it or you will get tough cookies. Just let it sit, in its creamy buttery sugary-ness, and handle with care when you dip in cinnamon sugar.

Enjoy with much love, and the memory of warmth during the cold…

Makes about 32 cookies, depending on how big or small you want them!

  • 3 tbsp fine granulated white sugar
  • 1 – 2 tbsp cinnamon (depending on how deeply cinnamon you like your cookies – I always use 2 tbsp!)
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar – a mix of dark brown, light brown, and white (I use 1/2 cup of each)
  • 1 cup / 2 sticks butter, slightly softened
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
  • 2 1/2 cups pastry flour
  • 1 scant tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Preheat your oven to 160C.

Mix the 3 tbsp sugar and cinnamon in a little bowl, and set aside. Make sure you combine thoroughly – the sugar will be a dark brown when done. You will roll the cookie dough in this just before baking.

In a stand mixer bowl, combine your three sugars. I usually beat the sugars together to ensure they are combined well. If you dont have a stand mixture, use electric beaters.

Once the sugars are combined, add the butter, cut into chunks. Let your mixer beat the sugar and butter together until very well combined. This could take a few minutes. Just have some patience.

Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat until completely combined. The mixture will be a little soft and fluid. Let it sit for a few minutes minutes. This gives the butter and sugars time to melt into each other.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl, and little by little, mix into the butter sugar mixture. I use a spoon or spatula at this point as I dont want to over mix the cookies! A tender cookie is one which is allowed to come together of its own accord! Again, let sit for a few minutes before moving on to the next step.

Line baking trays with greaseproof paper.

Using a tablespoon, measure out spoon sized pieces of dough (you can make bigger or smaller, according to your preference – this is just how I like to do it!). I usually get about 8 cookies to a sheet.

Using your thumb, drop the dough straight into the sugar/cinnamon mixture, and gently roll it around to coat it completely. Place on baking tray, and pat down gently, so it is not a ball shape, but a little flatter.

Bake for about 15 – 18 minutes. The cookies will rise, and then fall. They are done when they have turned a slightly darker shade of brown.

Let cool in trays for at least 5 minutes before cooling completely on racks.

You will have a wonderfully soft cookie with a crispy crunchy crust. Perfect balance.

Share! These are too good not to – and you can make sure other people will make wonderful cinnamon memories too 🙂

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Rice Pudding

23 Jul

with a raspberry curd rippleRice pudding. At its best, its a quietly satisfying indulgence, clean, smooth, delicious. There are so many different ways to make rice pudding, and I probably have tried them all. Its one of the things I make when friends are feeling poorly, or when I am cooking for someone who is very ill and needs to get their weight and stamina up. Rice is food of the Goddesses. If, like me, you have that Asian gene in you, life is incomplete without rice almost every day. I crave rice when I havent had it in a while, and I eat it every which way. I love all the different kinds of rice – black, red, brown, arborio, jasmine, basmati… Pulut, nasi lemak, risotto, fried rice, buttered rice, plain rice with a touch of sambal and some soy sauce, rice with a fried egg on top, dripping golden yellow yolk into the pristine whiteness. I can eat rice in a myriad of ways, and one of the things I love about it is its just so good for you.

Rice pudding is a very friendly food. You dont have to make it fancy for it to be received with great pleasure and its incredibly easy for invalids to consume. And, if you want to dress it up and put on dancing shoes, it can take a dollop of raspberry curd, as in the photo, or some shavings of chocolate, or even be bulked up with smooth pumpkin – and suddenly, a new and delicious dish. Oh, rice pudding, how I love you, let me count the ways…

I know there are people who like to bake their rice pudding, but Im not too hot on the skin that develops. But then, in life, there are skin people and no skin people, so figure out who you are. I like a smooth, satiny white rice pudding. You can only achieve this by cooking very slowly over the stovetop, at an incredibly low heat. It takes 45 minutes – 1 hour, but most of that time, you just leave it alone. If you are cooking for someone who is ill, or who is struggling to get enough nutrients, you can beat in a few eggs right at the end to enrich the pudding. You could also add more cream, some yogurt, use all full-fat milk. You get the idea – bulk it up with fats and nutrients which will go relatively unnoticed in the consumption of the dish. A little sprinkle of nutmeg, or cinnamon, or both, also add depth of flavour.

I have to admit though, I am a purist. Rice, milk and a bit of cream, vanilla, sugar, and sometimes a touch of butter at the end. Eaten warm or cold, this is one of my favourite comfort dishes. Its like a pillow of softness, the rice melding in and flavouring the milk, and vice versa. Happy happy belly.

For about  3 cups of rice pudding (enough to serve 6 people or 4 very greedy ones), you will need:

  • 1 cup rice (any one you want, though note that brown, black, red rices do tend to take longer to cook because they are more natural. I borrowed a cup of rice from MamaLila, my upstairs neighbour, not sure but I think it was basmati she gave me, and it was goooood)
  • 5 cups of milk, divided into 4 cups + 1 cup – you can use any kind of milk you like. Try coconut, almond or soy milk. I try and use a mix of 2% and lowfat, and a dollop of cream. I have also been successful in adding buttermilk and sour cream, in small amounts to the mix. Try and get some whole or half and half in if you are cooking for someone who needs the extra fats and nutrients. All skim milk is not really that successful to be honest.
  • 1 vanilla pod, split, with the seeds scraped out, or 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 3 tbsp (or to taste) light brown sugar
  • 1 tsp (or more) butter

In a medium saucepan, over extremely low heat, combine rice, 4 cups of milk, vanilla pod and beans (or vanilla essence), and 3 tbsp light brown sugar. Give it all a stir and leave it there for 45 minutes or so, stirring every 15 minutes to ensure that the rice doesnt stick to the bottom of the pan. You want this to cook at a very very low simmer – no boiling, but more like tiny little bubbles plopping to the surface. The rice will plump up and absorb the milk, but this process will seem as if it is never going to truly happen – it will, and it is, just trust the rice.

After about 45 minutes, you should have rice thats almost al dente. Use your instincts. I usually put in all of the final cup of milk, because I dont mind rice pudding that is quite soft, but if you think it doesnt need it all, use half or less. Taste for sweetness, and add more sugar if you think it needs it. Continue cooking at a very slow simmer for another 10 – 15 minutes until almost all the milk is absorbed. Dont take it off when its too dry – as it cools, the milk, which is now full of the starch of the rice, will become much thicker and richer.

Stir in a teaspoon or so of butter, if you like (if you are vegan, obviously, leave this out!), and let cool. You can serve it warm or cold from the fridge (which is the way I like it), snowy and soft and comforting. Add a dollop of curd or jam for colour and flavour if you like, or go purist and enjoy it in all its pristine beauty.

And enjoy how much those you love, love this!

Rice pudding!

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Dulce de leche

2 Jul

This is so simple, I feel silly posting it as a recipe. I have always loved this stuff. Sweetened condensed milk cooked for so long that it becomes a rich dark toffee caramel. Its the base for banoffee pie, and to banish sweet cravings, there is nothing better than a teaspoonful.

Most people recommend boiling cans of unopened sweetened condensed milk over the stovetop for 3  hours or so. This is the easiest way to create dulce de leche BUT its also very dangerous. When I was about 13, I was overnighting at an Aunts house in St Johns Wood in London. I was flying out the next day, and she was not there. I was craving something sweet, so decided to make dulce de leche the traditional way. I put my cans of unopened condensed milk in a deep saucepan, and covered with water. And then I proceeded to fall asleep on the couch! I woke up to a HUGE bang and could not, for the life of me, figure out what had happened, until I walked into my Aunts gorgeous gourmet kitchen to find caramel dripping from the ceiling, and every available surface. It took me HOURS to clean up (and I dont think I got everything because a few weeks later, had a very uncomfortable conversation with her!).

Ever since then, I have been a tad nervous about making this. You can pop steam vents into the top of the cans, so that they dont explode, but you still have to check for water every fifteen minutes or so. I prefer this way. Safer, and you can leave it for up to an hour at a time.

Unfortunately, here in Malaysia, we only have sweetened condensed filled milk – which has palm oil as a stabiliser and additive. This method still works, but the preference is obviously for sweetened condensed milk which is just milk and sugar.

You will need one deep roasting pan, filled about 1/3 with cold water, and one smaller roasting pan which can fit inside the deeper one.

Preheat your oven to 170 F.

Place the deep roasting pan into the oven to heat gently.

Pour up to 3 cans of sweetened condensed milk into the second roasting pan, and cover tightly with aluminum foil.

Place this second pan into the first and leave in the oven for up to 3 hours. I would certainly check every hour or so to make sure the water is still there, and to mix the slowly caramelising milk well.

Be careful when you open the oven. A lot of steam gets generated from the water bath, and everything is really really hot.

After about three hours, when you take it out of the oven, dont worry. It will look curdled and lumpy. Some bits will be dark caramel brown, some bits will be lighter and smoother, and some bits will look like milk curds. Just pour and scrape into a clean bowl, and beat with a wire whisk until smooth. Let cool before even thinking of tasting it!

You can flavour this with some vanilla if you like. Unspeakably delicious.

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