Dulce de Leche-ious!

I am in the middle of fleshing out a new recipe and recently ran into a problem. In an effort to maintain the absolute secrecy of my recipes, I tend to ask different people about different parts of my recipe. So no one person can recreate my entire recipe on their own. Yes, I am a bit fanatical about my recipes. In my latest recipe I need to get my hands on some very smooth, spreadable caramel. Sadly, without making my own caramel (which I have done in the past) it seems I was out of luck. I tried Kraft caramels, but they're too hard, and a pain to unwrap as well. I've tried two or three other brands of candy as well. The problem with using ready made caramel is that without a lot of work and adding ingredients they will only get harder as you cook with them. So basically I need something that I can tinker with the consistency as I work through the rest of my recipe. Yes I know, I already have a fantastic caramel that I use in my chocolate turtle cheesecake, but I need to have better control of the quantity and consistency, at least while I am fleshing out my recipe. I had almost given up hope when I recalled something from a year or so ago that I happened to see on "Ham On The Street" on Food Network. Why was I home on a Tuesday at 9:30am? I don't know. My four favorite TV chefs (currently) are as follows: Alton Brown ("Good Eats") Alton is the mad scientist of the kitchen. Much like Duran, Alton is curious about the "why" of cooking. Unlike Duran who then goes to find new ways to twist recipes up, Alton mostly focuses on how to do things better. (When people see me cooking, I am usually compared to Alton.) Curtis Stone ("Take Home Chef") Curtis sneaks up on people, buys their groceries then goes home with them to cook great food in their kitchen. This is essentially what a lot of my Christmas trip was. George Duran ("Ham on the Street") He investigates what makes things tasty and then makes bizarre and creative variations which he takes out on the street to feed to people. I do this, too. Sam Zein ("Just Cook This") Sam is a very down to Earth kind of guy literally cooking in his own kitchen while you want. This is how I like to cook. Come hang out with me in the kitchen and lets make great stuff. So I am watching Ham on the Street, and I don't even remember what the episode was about. All I remember is he walks up to a hot dog cart in New York and drops a can of sweetened condensed milk in the boiler. Later in the show he comes back for it and it's a can full of delicious. It didn't take a lot of looking to find that it is officially called "Dulce de leche. Here is George's recipe. Here is Alton's from scratch recipe. And I wondered for a moment how Rachel Ray (aka Ms. 30 Minute Meals) could make some in less than an hour, but she can't. In doing my research, I found there were plenty of arguments saying that Dulce de Leche is not technically caramel. You then get bogged down into a discussion of caramelization vs. Maillard reaction. There is clear evidence that Dulce de Leche is not caramel, I have one simple question:Who cares? It's yummy!I do happen to be quite FOND of the Maillard reaction, and I am quite sure you are FOND of it too. The reason I know this is if you have ever had fruits or veggies off the grille, or "browned" in a pan, you've experienced the Maillard reaction. What's even better though is the brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan after cooking meat is called "Fond" and you deglaze your pan to make delicious sauce or gravy. But gravy was last week, lets get back to dessert. To make your own Dulce you need a DEEP pot and a can (or four) of sweetened condensed milk.Immediately rip off the labels so you don't have a chance to read the nutritional information. You'll be EXTREMELY sorry later if you do! Then put the can(s) in your deep pot and cover it with water.The reason for the deep pot is that you have to cover the cans with water, the deeper the better. Then you're going to boil them for a long long time. The boiling will of course lower the water level in the pot. With a large pot the water level drops faster. (That's physics and stuff.) I think the following rhyme will serve as enough warning:If the water drops The can pops.I suggest keeping a pot of water on a separate burner ready to add hot water to the big pot if the water level drops. Don't add cold water and kill the boil. Check it every 30 minutes.and refill the big pot as much as you can. One benefit of having a microscopic kitchen is if the can does happen to explode I wont have much to clean up. The down side of the small kitchen is with the big pot of boiling water for 4 hours I turned my kitchen into a rain forest. I was wiping down the walls and cabinets around the stove at one point. The next question is: how long do we boil it? I have seen a ton of different responses all over the Internet. Some as low as 30 minutes. That's barely enough to make the can warm. I saw one that said 6 hours. That's scary given the results I will show you in a moment. With no clear direction, I had to go "Alton Brown" on it: I bought 4 cans, and pulled one out after each hour of cooking (adding water back in to bring the level back up). Here's the first can:Do not be fooled! That can is blistering hot! Tongs and pot holders are required for movement and don't sit it directly on your counter top. Also since I would now have 4 identical looking cans, I grabbed a marker and wrote numbers on them. The tip of the marker sizzled as it hit the top of the can. Hot, I tell you! When they cool enough you can pick them up, throw them in the fridge overnight.I gave them about 30 minutes to sit on the counter and warm up before I opened them. Interestingly enough I almost had to pry the lids off the 2 hour and 3 hour cans. The lids came out rather easily on the 1 hour and 4 hour cans.So this morning was the taste test. I didn't worry about the thickness yet. As you can see the longer you cook it the darker it gets. Also the firmer it gets. But interestingly, the "warmer" the flavor gets. It's hard to describe without using the word "caramel." But that's really what it is. It slowly goes from being a blatant sugar and milk mixture to more mild sweetness and caramel flavor. Perhaps one day I'll try the 6 hour boil. I know they eventually get this stuff hard enough to make candy, but that's well beyond my needs. I'll either be using the 2 or 3 hour cans. Can #1 is destined for the trash and can #4 may be a new doorstop.