Pionono Dulce de Leche

As the World Cup is taking place at the moment I have been looking for recipes from the different nations taking part. I looked on Google for Argentinian recipes and found Pionono Dulce de Leche, a kind of Swiss roll with a caramel filling, which I thought looked really nice.

In the past I've bought a tin of Carnation Dulce de Leche when I've needed it for a recipe, but my small local supermarkets don't stock it. They only have condensed milk, but I discovered from the internet that you can actually make your own Dulce de Leche from condensed milk - all you really need to do is cook it until it thickens.

There are various ways to do it. There is the oven method: pour the tin of condensed milk into an oven proof dish and cover it with foil, then place that dish in a roasting tray and pour in hot water so it comes half way up the side of the pan. Bake it at 200C for anywhere between an hour and an hour and a half, topping up the water if necessary. 

The pan method: take the label off the tin and use a corkscrew or similar to make three holes in the top of the can, spaced evenly apart. Put the tin in a saucepan and fill with water three quarters of the way up the sides of the can. Bring to the boil then simmer for 4 hours. Allow to cool before opening the tin.

The microwave method: this is what I did as it is by far the quickest, though you will get a more lumpy texture; it's fine once you whisk it though. Pour the condensed milk into a microwave-proof dish and cover with cling film, then cook on medium for 2 minutes at a time, stirring each time, until the mixture has thickened - I found it took about 8 minutes but it will depend on the power of your microwave.

I used a recipe from About.com for the cake. I didn't make the caramel frosting though due to lack of time. I also didn't have any cream so rather than mixing the dulce de leche with cream for the filling, I used it as it was.

You need:
4 eggs, separated
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup dulce de leche

Line a Swiss roll pan with greaseproof paper and preheat the oven to 180C. Separate the eggs and whip the egg whites in a bowl until you have soft peaks. Add 1/4 cup of the sugar to the egg whites and beat until stiff peaks form. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar until pale and tripled in volume. Add the vanilla. Fold the dry ingredients into the egg yolk mixture then fold in the egg whites. Spread into the Swiss roll tin.

Bake for 10 minutes then turn out the cake onto a clean tea towel or another piece of greaseproof paper and peel off the greaseproof paper from the back of the cake.

Allow to cool, then unroll, spread with the dulce de leche and roll back up.

 Slice to serve. I left mine a bit too long before I tried to roll it up so it broke up a bit! It tasted good though I found the cake part had a slightly grainy texture I assume from the ground almonds and next time I would be tempted to leave that out and use more flour. The homemade dulce de leche was very good!

The letter I have chosen for Alphabakes this month is D, and since dulce de leche is the main ingredient in this cake I am including it in the roundup.

I'm also sending this to Chris at Cooking Around the World for his World Cup blogging challenge.