Eggless Dulche de Leche Cake

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 18

Bake of the Day: Celebration Cakes -- Eggless Dulche de Leche Cake

After yesterday's giant chocolate chip cookie, I made this Dulche de leche cake for my son's birthday that weekend. My husband travels on business to Argentina frequently and gets this amazing local dulche de leche from there which I use in all kinds of different desserts, like this creme caramel and this yummy cake. You can make your own dulche de leche at home or you can buy the canned variety or you can use just regular condensed milk (it will taste different but it will still be good).

This is an eggless cake and is sweetened with just the dulche de leche. I always tell myself not to experiment a new recipe for a party. But I always do that -- I'm too bad that planning ahead of time. 

So I made this cake for the first time for the party and it turned out a little dense and dry to my liking. I had a feeling this was going to happen because the batter was thick and it didn't seem right. Well I just went ahead with it and the cake did turn out a little dense. I should have doused the cake with some sugar syrup before frosting but didn't -- this is the trick I learnt after the fact. Well anyway, everyone seemed to like the cake even with all my complaints -- it was all gone by the end of the night.

But I wanted to tweak the recipe a little -- add more liquid and a little more leavening action. I made the recipe again, but this time made cupcakes instead of a full size cake. The cupcakes turned out moist and delicious. 

I used a dulche de leche frosting on the first cake and a chocolate ganache frosting on the second cake. I'll try to give the frosting recipes later.

Ingredients: Makes 2 8" cakes or 24 cupcakes

All purpose flour - 3cups
Baking powder - 2tsp
Baking soda - 1tsp
Salt - ½tsp
Unsalted Butter - 1 stick, melted and cooled

Dulche de Leche - 1 can (14 oz. or about 1¾cups) (Can also use 14oz. can of sweetened condensed milk)

Milk - 1¼cups (I use soy milk)
Apple cider vinegar - 1tbsp
Pure vanilla extract - 1tbsp

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 2 8" or 9" cake pans and line them with parchment. Grease the parchment as well.
• Add vinegar to milk and set aside to curdle.
• In a mixing bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
• In a large mixing bowl, combine melted butter and dulche de leche until well mixed. Next add the milk and vanilla extract, mix well.
• Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix till combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pans.
• Bake for 25~30 minutes (20~24 minutes for cupcakes) or until a cake tester or tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack and once completely cooled, frost & enjoy!!

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 51.

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