Once of my all time favorite types of caramel is Dulce de leche, sweetened caramelized milk. It’s a Latin American favorite and legend has it it originated in Argentia and like most wonderful culinary things, came about as a mistake. Sweetened milk (la lechada) left to cook, by mistake, until it had become golden and caramelized. Dulce de leche can be made by slowly cooking milk and sugar together or you can take a slight short cut and slow cook sweetened condensed milk. Although it can be made in the can submerged in water, removing the sweetened condensed milk out of the can and baking it in the oven is a much safer route.

The flavour of caramel is one of my all time favorites and i’ll take it any way I can get it, coffee, ice cream, on a spoon. It’s a deep rich flavour that can be sweet, it can be salty, but any way you have it its delicious! The possibilities of caramel pairings are endless, it compliments flavours like chocolate, vanilla, coconut, banana and so much more. I like to use caramel in my cakes, fillings, cupcake icings, cake pops, for dipping and even in place of jam in jam cookies. When I first started Sweet Jules the Banana Caramel cake was an instant success and really helped kick the business into gear. Moist Banana cake filled with a caramel custard that satisfied children as well as adults. Since then I’ve come up with the Banana Caramel Sundae (or chocolate banana caramel) Chocolate cake; caramelized banana’s folded into sweetened whipped cream and now I am working on a new spin on caramel I wont tell you what it is but I’m sure you can take a hint as to what it will contain.

This here is a gem of a recipe and I hope you all take the time to make yourself a batch of de leche heaven!

Dulce de Leche

1 can sweetened condensed milk

pinch sea salt (to balance out the sweetness)

Heat oven to 425F

Empty contents of can and salt into a glass dish and cover with aluminum foil. Place dish in a large roasting pan and fill roasting pan with hot water until it comes half way up the glass dishes. Place in oven and let cook for about 1 1/2 hours. Remove from oven and let cool a bit then whisk to bring the caramel together.

Enjoy it with just about everything.

*note: If you’re going to double the recipe, as I often do, two increase the cooking time to 2 1/2 hours

 xo

Jules

It often breaks my heart when I hear people have food allergies and are unable to enjoy some of the food delights I love so much, what can I say I’m really big on sharing. I wanted to be able to offer allergen free items on my Sweet Jules menu and first on my list was Gluten. Gluten Free substituties are so widely available now it really does make life that much easier. After doing countless hours of reasearch on gluten’s role in baking, different types of flour and problems people encounter I finally felt I was educated enough to start adapting my own recipes into gluten free treats. One of my biggest motivators to adapt my own recipes was the first GF recipe I tried, pancakes made with coconut flour, it really fell short for me and I thought to myself “I can totally do better”. This lead me to my first GF adaption to one of my favorite recipes, buttermilk pancakes. I LOVE pancakes and my love for pancakes has turned me into a very picky pancake eater, dare I say a pancake snob. I once went on a hunt to find the best pancake recipes ever and ended up with an arsenal of pancakes recipes. This is my favorite “healthy” pancakes recipes (my all time favorite recipes come from Nigella Lawson, absolutly delish but full of fat) and I hope you enjoy it as much as i do.

 Note:Xanthan gum and guar gum are typically used in gluten free baking to GF baking resemble gluten baking. They help recreate that familiar texture and mouth feel you remember from gluten baking but that sometimes get lost when creating GF recipes. I’ve choosen to omit xanthan gum and guar gum from my GF recipes, I’m still not sure how I feel about them, and work at adapting my favorite recipes into GF recipes by experimenting with different GF flours and ingredients.

Banana Buttermilk Pancakes

1 Cup Rice Flour

1 cup Quinoa Flour

1 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda

2 cups Buttermilk

1 tablespoon Melted Butter

2 Eggs

1 teaspoon Vanilla

2 tablespoons Honey

2 Ripe Bananas; mashed

Combine rice flour and quinoa flour along with baking soda and baking powder in a medium sized bowl.

In a seperate bowl combine eggs, melted butter, buttermilk, vanilla and honey.

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and whisk until totally combined.

Fold in mashed bananas.

Scoop 1/3 of batter into a lightly butter/oiled pan, flip pancake over once bubles start to appear on top (about 2-3 minutes) and continue cooking another 1-2 minutes.

Recipe makes roughly 12 pancakes.

I like to top mine with greek yogurt, honey and berries or maple syrp and fresh banana’s

Enjoy!

xo Jules

My uber creative and talented friend, Ana Alic, started her own web series over a year ago in which she interviews local creative talent of all kinds. Ana and I spoke many times of doing a Sweet Jules webisode but we always had schedule conflict and the always unanswered question of where to film? Finally with a location in mind we quickly planned out our Valentine’s Day inspired epsiode. Honestly, I was extremely nervous to be on camara but Ana made me feel at ease and forget all about the film the was rolling. We had a fabulous day filming in her apartment and I hope you enjoy all of our hard work.

One of my favorite parts about consultations is getting to know my client, the tables have turned just a little bit and now you’re getting the oppurtunity to get to know me a touch better.

Enjoy!

xo Jules

If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer . . .
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire,
For we have some flax golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

If you’re looking for tasty creative treats you’ve most definitely come to the right place! I’m always ‘cooking’ up new ideas and playing around with classics to bring you fun, delicious and artistic ideas. You can look forward to seeing how the creative process behind designing a custom cakes works as well as step into my kitchen where you’ll find fun ideas, activites and recipes.

Enjoy!

Sincerely,

Jules

Looking for the Latest in Sweet Jules news? Follow me on twitter @xoSweetJules

Can’t wait for the chance to Tempt Your Tastebuds!