I loved the idea of a Condensed Milk Pound Cake the moment I saw it in The New York Times -- adding condensed milk to cake batter seemed like an inspired idea. The recipe originates from Margarita Manzke's cookbook Baking at Republique, which I own but haven't used very often (and to give credit where credit is due, Manzke says her recipe is inspired by Pichet Ong's condensed milk pound cake from The Sweet Spot).
There are two small differences between the recipe on The New York Times website and the cookbook version. Namely, the cookbook recipe uses 15 grams less flour, and also instructs you to put the dulce de leche in a piping bag and pipe it on -- while the NYT version instructs you to "dollop" on the dulce de leche. I decided to follow the cookbook directions.
To make the cake batter, you cream room temperature butter with sugar until light and fluffy; add condensed milk; mix in eggs, followed by vanilla extract and vanilla bean seeds; and incorporate the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and salt). You put half of the batter into a parchment-lined loaf pan, pipe on dulce de leche (I used Nestle La Lechera, even though the cookbook provides a recipe to make your own), add the remaining batter on top, and then pipe on more dulce de leche. You swirl the dulce de leche and batter together before baking.
I read the comments on the recipe on the NYT website, and many people noted that the dulce de leche sank to the bottom of the loaf. I decided to use a 10-inch by 5-inch pan to increase the surface area of the batter and dulce de leche to try to avoid this outcome. I also used less dulce de leche than the recipe calls for (the recipe calls for the equivalent of an entire can of La Lechera and I used about three-quarters of a can), because I was piping on so much that it was almost becoming a solid layer. I put a heating core in the center of the batter to ensure that the interior portion of the loaf got cooked through.
I'm glad I used the larger size pan, because the loaf rose pretty high, with a nicely domed top. It also had a very dark, thick crust all the way around. When I sliced into the cooled loaf, it looked nothing like the photo on The New York Times website (there is no photo in the cookbook for comparison). The NYT version has a delicate swirl of dulce de leche evenly distributed throughout the whole loaf. My cake had blotches of dulce de leche only in the bottom half of each slice. The dulce de leche on top seemed to have just baked into the crust My swirl efforts appeared to be a complete fail.
The cake was dense and moist and tasted good, but I couldn't taste the condensed milk and even the flavor of the dulce de leche was isolated solely to the visible blobs. I expected the dulce de leche to be central to the cake (although perhaps that was not a reasonable expectation -- after all, it's called a condensed milk pound cake and not a dulce de leche pound cake), and this tasted basically like a vanilla pound cake with some blobs of dulce de leche in it. I feel like if you're going to add a can of dulce de leche to a dessert, it had better be worth the cost and calories -- and for me, unfortunately, I didn't think this cake was a great investment.
Recipe: "Condensed Milk Pound Cake" from Baking at Republique by Margarita Manzke, recipe available here at The New York Times.
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