THREE CHEERS FOR CONDENSED MILK

              I have rediscovered an old favourite. I remember my brothers and I fighting over licking the spoon whenever my mother made kheer. Yes! I'm meant condensed milk. I have always thought that condensed milk was good for kheer and coconut laddoos, but hey! you always learn new things. And my discovery was accidental. I am an avid fan of Masterchef Australia and Yes! I do record and watch each and every episode. So I have watched contestants making this caramel like thick paste out of condensed milk and I was kind of surprised, for it surprised me that condensed milk could be a sweet dish by itself, but then, a friend's daughter requested for a banoffie pie. I had never even heard of it and here I was attempting to make one.
              So, I did what I do when I need help. Opened up my laptop and started net surfing, and lo. behold, I discovered a beautiful thing. Banoffie pie and Dulche de leche.

               Dulce de leche is a sweet prepared by slowly heating sweetened milk to create a product that derives its taste from caramelised sugar. Literally translated, it means "candy of milk" or better "candy[made] of milk", "milk candy", or "milk jam".  Since I'm not sure whether I'll be able to get this in Delhi, I decided to make it. There are a lot of methods on the net for making this, and being impatient I decided to try the easiest one. Also the thought of boiling something on my stove for a minimum of 3-4 hours gave me shivers. Getting LPG cylinders is neither easy nor cheap plus it does take time and the can has a way of exploding if you are not careful, ( atleast that's what all the sites tell me). Anyways I tried the microwave method. It was easy and took about 15 minutes to get a great looking and great tasting caramel. In fact I made another batch immediately. I didn't know how much of this, I would be using for my pie. Coming to the Banoffie pie, it's basically a very simple thing as far I understand - a biscuit or shortbread base, a layer of dulche de leche, a layer of bananas and then a layer of whipped cream. So, tomorrow, I'm gonna try making one. Hopefully it will be good. Fingers crossed. If this works out I'm certainly going to put up the entire recipe and photos up here.