David’s Dulce De Leche Brownies

Just because you don’t have an ice cream maker (and can’t make the watermelon sorbetto) doesn’t mean you can’t make another David Lebovitz recipe. Why not make his Dulce De Leche Brownies? [Click the words to go to the recipe.]


They’re terrific. And fun. There’s even magic involved…

The magic happens when you place sweetened condensed milk into a glass pie plate:


Place in a roasting pan, fill half-way up with water and bake at 425 for 1 hour (or more) until the Dulce de leche (for that’s what it is now) is nicely browned like this:


Isn’t that cool? Don’t you want to try that? It makes quite a bit—look, I filled a jar with it:


I used most of the jar to make the brownies, but there’s still a bit left over. Maybe I’ll pour it on top of homemade ice cream when I try my next David ice cream recipe. So much Lebovitz, so little time!


  1. Wow! I’ve been looking for a good Brownie recipe for some time now and if this one tastes as good as it looks, my family is in for a treat! Thanks for posting the preparation pictures, that sort of detail helps a lot when attempting a recipe for the first time.


  2. You can actually avoid the hassle of the dirtying a pie pan and building a water bath when making dulce de leche with sweetened condensed milk:

    Simply take the can of milk, remove the label, drop the unopened can into a pot of gently boiling water (with enough water to cover) and let it go for about an hour or two. After that, set it into an ice-bath to cool, and when it’s cool enough to handle, use a can opener to open and ta da! caramel!

    I’ve done this many times, and while I’ve heard there is a slight slight chance of it exploding, it’s never happened to me.

  3. I second Guiness’ recommendation; that’s how we’ve been making caramel from condensed milk since I was a kid and from what my friends tell me, their mothers used to do the same when they were kids (2 generations at least of condensed milk can caramelization). I think the risk of the can exploding is pretty low, but the worst case scenario is burnt fingers from wanting to get to the caramel fast (especially when you have siblings waiting in the wings for the same treat).

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