I mean, the junk was off. It could have been a number of things: maybe it was the eyeballing of the actual amount of goat milk instead of actually, like, measuring it. Maybe it was the half cup of sugar and handful of baking soda thrown in at the end. Who knows. But anyway, it was wrong enough that after a sleepless night of Cajeta Nightmares, I had to set things right.

Not Quite Cajeta
I call this Not Quite Cajeta because I didn't have any goat milk laying around the kitchen so I used good old-fashioned whole milk from a cow. And it turned out really nice anyway, with a really smooth texture. You should come out with about 3/4 cup of caramel at the end, which is delicioso on top of ice cream, or, what do you know? Waffles of course.

Ingredients
2 cups of whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 stick of cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1-1/2 teaspoon water
pinch of salt

1. Place the milk, sugar, salt and cinnamon in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
2. Once it boils, take it off the heat and stir in the diluted baking soda—make sure to be ready to stir it down; it will bubble up and threaten to boil over the edge of the pan. Set it back on the burner over medium heat and keep stirring.
3. This next step takes forever, but if you've ever made risotto, you'll know what I'm talking about. Basically just stir the mixture over medium heat for about 35 minutes. Stir stir stir stir. And it'll threaten to boil over every now and then but just lift it off the burner until it settles down, dammit! and stir stir stir some more. Towards the end of about 35 minutes, a wonderful alchemy will take place and you'll start getting a golden color. It'll still be bubbly but thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.
4. Once it looks sort of pudding-like, reduce the heat a bit, but keep stirring. After 5-10 minutes it will be the color of butterscotch and the thickness of something like Nutella spread. At this point, you can take it off the heat.
5. Let it cool a little, add a half-teaspoon of your favorite rum or liqueur (I added Grand Marnier) and thin it with warm water until you have about 3/4 cups. According to Rick, you can keep this in the fridge for up to a month (but you and I both know it won't last that long.)

Azucar!


Regular old milk as it looks when you first place it in the saucepan with the cinnamon


After adding the baking soda. You may have to remove the pan from heat to prevent it from boiling over.


This is what it should look like after about a half hour of simmering and stirring


Now when it tries to boil over, it'll look shiny and thick, rather than foamy


Now it's pretty much done...


The finished product, after adding some booze and water.

Labels: recipes, the sweet