Bonjour my friends, I'm Frankie and welcome to Club Foody! If you're in a relationship, you know exactly what day
is coming up this weekend. That's right... Valentine's! It's a celebration for
lovers around the world. Besides gifts and flowers, chocolate should be a part of it.
I have an amazing dessert that is perfect for this event although it can be enjoyed anytime...
In today's episode, I'll show you how to make my Dulce de Leche Chocolate Parfait!
Mmm! What an incredible sweet treat to have! The combination of chocolate and dulce is deliciously
perfect together! It's a great dessert to make for the occasion plus it's easy...
So my friends, let's get cooking! First we'll start by making the dulce de leche by simply placing a
can of sweetened condensed milk in a large pot of boiling water. I like to place it sideways
so they can rolls during the process, cooking evenly - make sure there are no dents on the can, okay.
Now we'll let it simmer for about 2:30 hours on medium heat - keep an eye on the water
level so the can is covered at all times. When time is up, we'll carefully remove the can from the pot
and let it cool completely. Meanwhile we have a lot to do therefore let's take care of the
chocolate pudding... We'll either chop the chocolate or like I do, shave it. When it's shaved, it melts
better and faster. So we'll end up with slivered chocolate and set aside for now. Next, in a small
bowl we'll add granulated sugar, 3 tablespoons of corn starch, some instant espresso coffee - the brand
I'm using is this one... it's fabulous! - and a little bit of ground sea salt. We'll give a little whisk
to blend the ingredients and set aside as well. Now in a small bowl, we'll combine egg yolks with
pure vanilla extract. Do me a favor... do not throw away your egg whites because you can use them for
a nice delicious white omelet. Who knows maybe someone can have breakfast in bed this weekend...
So we'll combine these two ingredients very well and set aside.
All right! So in a medium saucepan over medium heat, we'll add milk and then using a fine sieve, we'll
sift our cornstarch mixture - doing this step will prevent getting lumps in the chocolate pudding.
We'll whisk the ingredients and bring the mixture until it just starts to simmer.
While it's getting warmer, we'll make some sort of a donut with a dish towel. This is a great trick
for tempering the eggs especially when you work by yourself... it makes it stable and yes, I changed my
bowl... it was too small! So when the mixture is very warm, we'll slowly temper the eggs by pouring it
a little bit at first, whisking constantly -this is a step you don't want to rush and if you do,
you'll end up with cooked eggs... not really the result we're looking for! Then we'll whisk in
more as the egg temperature increases. So a couple ladles later, we'll transfer the mixture in a
saucepan whisking continuously and we'll reduce the heat to medium-low before adding our shaved
chocolate. We'll whisk it vigorously into the mixture until blended and then remove from
the heat. To this, we'll add another ingredient... butter and whisk it until well incorporated.
We'll transfer the pudding to a large bowl and place some wax paper on top making sure it
touches the surface to prevent a skin formation. We'll let it cool off for about 30 minutes.
So half an hour later, we'll spoon the first layer of the chocolate pudding.
Now depending on the size of the dessert cups you'll be using, you'll have to add accordingly. We
want to alternate between chocolate pudding and dulce de leche pudding starting with chocolate
and ending with chocolate as well. Mine were quite big so I only did three layers.
Talking about dulce de leche pudding, do what I say, don't do what I do because
while the chocolate pudding was cooling off, we could have started making it. (sigh)
So in a saucepan, we'll add the dulce de leche along with milk and I'm using 1% here,
and heavy cream. Next, we'll put the 1/4 cup of cornstarch in a fine sieve and sift it just
like earlier - this will prevent it from getting lumps. Then we'll set up the heat to medium and
whisk the ingredients until well combined. At first the dulce de leche will be a big block but as we
whisk and the mixture warms up, it will break down and blend with the rest of the ingredients.
Now we'll get our eggs ready and add vanilla extract. We'll whisk these two ingredients
very well and set up our little donut with a dish towel. Now that the dulce de leche mixture is warm,
we'll do like we did earlier and temper the eggs adding a little at first and more as the
temperature rises. Then we'll add the warm eggs to the saucepan stirring constantly until the mixture
thickens and becomes a pudding. We'll remove from the heat and place some wax paper on top touching
the surface so there's no skin formation and like the chocolate pudding we'll let it cool off for
half an hour. When it's cool enough, we'll add the second layer with our dulce de leche pudding.
We'll level it out using the back of a spoon and then add other layers, alternating between
these two. As I mentioned earlier, I should've used a much smaller and taller food vessel -
the visual effect would've been much better. So we'll finish the top layer with chocolate
and then add a dollop of dulce de leche pudding right in the center. Then we can add a few coffee
or espresso beans or even a chocolate heart for garnish... And my friends, this is our Dulce de Leche
Chocolate Parfait! This unctuous dessert is a great recipe to have on hand!
It's perfect for Valentines or any time you crave dulce de leche and chocolate together.
Easy to make, this is a delicious sweet treat that everyone will enjoy... I hope you give it a try soon
and be sure to visit clubfoody.com for ingredient amounts, directions and more info...
Until next time my friends, bon appétit!