Dulce de leche cheesecake has become quite popular in the United States thanks to a few chain restaurants that have decided to feature it (along with other gourmet cheesecakes) on their menus. Dulce de leche is a sweet, caramel-like sauce traditionally made from milk, vanilla bean and sugar, cooked down for hours until it becomes thick and smooth.
This dulce de leche recipe cuts out some of the complicated steps by providing a shortcut to making the sauce. If you wish for an authentic sauce, you can pick up a can of dulce de leche at a grocery store in the Hispanic foods section.
For best results, follow these directions carefully. Cheesecakes can be touchy. They crack easily and are often overcooked because it's easy to misjudge the signs that the cheesecake is really done.
Easy Dulce de Leche Cheesecake Recipe
Ingredients You Will Need:
Crust:
2 cups crushed vanilla wafers
¼ cup melted butter
Filling:
3 packages full fat cream cheese
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 large eggs, gently beaten
4 tablespoons whole milk
½ cup dulce de leche sauce, made by cooking down the contents of a can of evaporated milk in a small saucepan on low heat for an hour.
Making Your Cheesecake
Soften cream cheese to room temperature. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Set rack to center setting.
Combine crushed vanilla wafers and butter in a bowl. Mix until well combined. Press crust into a buttered spring-form pan. Line outside of pan with tinfoil.
In a mixing bowl, gently cream softened cream cheese with sugar and flour. The flour is added to prevent the cheesecake from cracking. Add vanilla, eggs and milk and mix using an electric mixer on low, beating just enough to get cheesecake filling to be smooth and lump-free, but no more than is absolutely necessary. (Overbeaten cheesecakes are more prone to cracking.)
Remove ½ cup of cheesecake batter and combine with ½ cup of dulce de leche. Mix well.
Pour cheesecake batter into crust. Scrape sides of bowl to get every bit of the batter into the spring-form pan. Top cheesecake with batter mixed with dulce de leche. Use a dull knife to swirl throughout batter.
Make a water bath (otherwise known as a bain-marie) for the cheesecake pan. Fill a baking dish with two inches of hot water. Place cheesecake pan (wrapped in tinfoil) into the baking dish so hot water rises about half way up the side of the spring form pan. Place baking dish, with cheesecake in it, onto the center rack in the oven and bake for approximately 50 minutes or until center two to three inches is set, but still jiggles when the pan is moved. Shut oven off and let cheesecake sit in oven for 30 minutes.
Remove cheesecake from oven and take it out of the water bath. Run a knife along the outside edge of the cheesecake. Let the cheesecake cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes. Then move cheesecake to the refrigerator for at least six hours. This gradual cooling process will help prevent your cheesecake from cracking too much.
Unmold cheesecake carefully. Cut slices of cheesecake with dental floss before garnishing with extra dulce de leche topping.
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