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I never understood the allure of Costco until I borrowed a membership card from a coworker to help out a friend. My presence there was merely as an escort, but I wound up leaving $60 poorer from just arbitrarily throwing things in my cart that looked good and was priced significantly lower than I could get it in regular stores.
That is how I wound up with a giant jar of dulce de leche. I even mulled over my decision to purchase for a while before I finally went ahead and left it in my shopping cart. The last time that I waited too long to finish a jar of dulce de leche, it dried out and got crusty. Was I really going to be able to use all of it in time? It really kills me to waste food, and I have a few friends that would probably never forgive me if I let perfectly good dulce de leche go to waste.
Enter this dulce de leche bundt cake. I honestly don’t even remember what I was looking for when I came across this cake. I probably Googled “recipes that use dulce de leche” or something along those lines. Before I knew it, I had made this cake 3 times and was asking for someone with a Costco card to pick up another jar of dulce de leche for me. Despite being a dulce de leche-centric cake, it’s not overwhelmingly sweet. The small pocket of dulce de leche is supposed to be closer to the middle of the cake, but it doesn’t matter. It is still a great cake and is not terribly difficult to make. Using all brown sugar adds to the cake’s a subtle caramel flavor.
First, you want to sift your dry ingredients and set them aside.
Next, you make the batter. Cream your butter and brown sugar together, then add some of the dulce de leche. Once the dulce de leche is sufficiently combined, beat in the eggs one at a time. Add vanilla extract. Blend in the flour alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with flour.
Pour about 3/4 of the mixture into a well-greased bundt pan. Gently add the remaining dulce de leche into the center of the batter, then pour the remaining batter into the pan. After that, into the oven it goes!
About an hour later, you’ve got a beautiful bundt cake.
With a surprise little pocket of dulce de leche inside!
Since it’s a bundt cake, it’s great for potlucks and similar events. I bet it would be great with ice cream, but it never lasts long enough for me to find out. Give this cake a try!
Dulce de Leche Bundt Cake
(Adapted from Ambrosia)
Ingredients
- 1 1/2-1 3/4 cups dulce de leche, divided
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
- 4 eggs, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350° F. Grease a 12-cup Bundt pan.
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, into a bowl and set aside. In the bowl of a standard electric mixer, combine the butter and brown sugar, and cream until light and fluffy. Once creamed , add 1 cup of dulce de leche. Mix well, then add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well with each addition. Add in the vanilla extract.
With the mixer on low speed, alternate adding the dry ingredients and milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients mixture. Beat until just combined. Do not overbeat!
Add about 3/4 of the cake batter into the prepared Bundt pan. Add the remaining 1/2-3/4 cup dulce de leche in a ring around the center of the pan. Evenly distribute the remaining cake batter in the pan, and gently smooth out the top with a spatula. Don’t press down or tap the pan against the counter to keep your filling from sinking too much.
Bake in the center rack of the oven at 350° for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for 15-20 minutes, then remove from pan and allow dulce de leche bundt cake to cool completely on a wire rack.