Dulce de Leche

1. Combine Ingredients: In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, mix the milk, sugar, and baking soda. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly to prevent burning.
2. Thicken: Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture becomes thick and caramel-colored, about 1-2 hours.
   1–2 hours
3. Flavor: Stir in the vanilla extract.
4. Cool: Let the dulce de leche cool, then transfer to a jar. It will thicken further as it cools.
5. Pro Tips:
6. Stir continuously and keep the heat low to prevent the milk from burning and sticking to the bottom of the pan.
7. A drop of vanilla extract added at the end of cooking enhances the flavor.

Cooking notes

Baked goods are unforgiving with rounding — use weights rather than volumes whenever possible, and verify pan capacity if you scale up or down significantly.

For volume-to-weight conversions of any ingredient — flour, sugar, butter, salts — use the ingredient converter. To translate the recipe's oven temperature between °C, °F and gas mark, see the temperature converter.

When you scale this recipe up or down, remember that cooking time does not scale linearly. A doubled cake takes longer, but not twice as long; a doubled soup takes roughly twice as long. The cooking-time guide gives sensible starting estimates by dish geometry.