Mexican Cajeta

This is Ginger, our "champion" milk goat.

And this is Amber, who is also a good milker, but only produces about half of Ginger's volume.

Between the two of them, they can produce over a gallon and a half of milk daily.  With our large family, this is great, because the kids (human kids) can have as much milk as they need. But sometimes, we experience something of a backlog.

There are times when our refrigerator contains roughly nine 2-quart jars in various stages of fullness.  That is when I find myself looking for ways to use up goat milk, just as I sometimes find myself searching for ways to use up eggs, when our chickens are extra-productive.

One great way I've found to use up excess goat milk is making cajeta, a Mexican caramel usually made from goat milk, rather than cow's milk.  It is a reduction and caramelization of a milk and sugar mixture, which can function as either a sauce or a candy, depending on how long it is cooked.  My recipe is a tweaked combination of a few recipes I have found, starting with one at Everything Goat Milk.

Ingredients for about a cup of cajeta:

1 quart goat milk
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon cornstarch (optional, but I use it)
1/2 teaspoon Mexican vanilla, added just at the end (Other flavorings can be used.)

Additional equipment needed:

• Large metal pot, preferably without non-stick coating, which doesn't always hold up well under caramelization.  Remember, milk and sugar mixtures can expand at times during the cooking process, so allow for plenty of room in the pot.
• Wooden spoon with flat end
• iPad with Netflix application

That last piece of equipment can be substituted for any other thing you might have which will keep you from going absolutely bonkers as you stand over a hot stove stirring for roughly an hour, if you are making a single batch.  But who makes just a single batch?  I find it a waste to put all the effort into making cajeta for just a cup, which would be snarfed about as quickly has spoons could be found to dip into the container, so I tend to quadruple it in a stock-pot, which can triple the time.  Hence, the Netflix.

First, in a small amount of the goat milk, thoroughly mix the baking soda and cornstarch, being sure to eliminate any lumps.

Pour the rest of the milk into the large metal pot and dissolve the sugar in it.  After the sugar is dissolved, stir in the baking soda mixture.

Bring the mixture to a boil over medium to medium-high heat, stirring constantly.  Adjust the heat so the mixture will continue to boil steadily, without boiling over.

Keep stirring.

Turn on your Netflix reruns of "Murder, She Wrote", "Mythbusters", or whatever strikes your fancy.

This time, it was "Murder, She Wrote".

Keep stirring.  Delegate stirring to a Master Kitchen Helper for a while to give your arm a break.

Return after your Master Kitchen helper complains that the heat is just too much, and keep stirring.

After a while, the mixture will thicken and develop a caramel color.  At this point, any haphazard stirring you may have been doing must stop.  It is serious now.  If you do not ensure you are stirring all along the edges of the pan or across the entire bottom of the pan, your mixture may stick and burn.

Keep cooking until you have reached a consistency you like, whether a sauce or a candy, remembering that it will thicken as it cools.  Mix in the vanilla or whatever other flavor you have chosen to use.

According to Pati's Mexican Table, the cajeta makers at La Tradicional de Salago in Celaya, Mexico, can tell cajeta is done when the mixture makes a pattern of waves on the wooden spatula as it is removed from stirring the mixture.  In addition, if the spatula is run across the bottom of the pot, the actual bottom of the pot should be visible, if only for a brief glimpse.

When I go by the measure of the waves on the spatula (or in my case, the wooden spoon), I find it produces a candy consistency cajeta.  This is, according to my husband, who spent much of his youth off and on at his grandparents' house in Mexico, genuine cajeta.  When I ignore the waves on the spoon and just look for the tiniest glimpse of the bottom of the pot, it produces something more like a sauce, which is more convenient to use as a topping or to put on toast, but not the kind of cajeta usually made down where he comes from.

If you have made a large batch, you can preserve it using jars and canning lids.  Pati's states that the Mexicans simply cap the jars, then turn them upside down to create the seal.  I've tried that, and it did seal, but I felt a little nervous about the safety.  The next time I did it, I put the jars in a water bath, just to make me feel better.  (Scientifically, though, why would the water bath help?  The jars should have already been sterilized, and the cajeta has been raised to roughly 230 degrees Fahrenheit, much higher than the 212 degrees at which water boils.  It just helped me psychologically.)

My favorite way to enjoy candy cajeta is on a spoon.  Just take a spoon, scoop on a little cajeta, and suck on it like a lollipop.  My kids will even accept this as a substitute for a "normal" dessert, and it's great for bribing Master Kitchen Helpers to do their schoolwork when they are reluctant to do so.

Naturally, it is possible to follow a similar procedure with cow's milk and create a caramel product, and those who do not have access to goat milk are welcome to do so.  It probably even tastes good.  But it won't be cajeta.

By the way . . .

Because of the long cook time, it sounds attractive to make cajeta in a crock-pot, and stories of people doing so intrigued me.  However, when I tried it once, I walked away with "We Are Never, Ever Getting Back Together" stuck in my head.  (As in, I am never, ever, ever trying that again.  Like ever.)  It is much more difficult to control the quality of the product, and after a certain point, it kept me tied to my kitchen in 20-minute intervals long after I would have already finished my stove-top cajeta and had it poured safely into canning jars to seal.  In addition, because stirring the solution in the crock-pot left small amounts on the sides of the crock-pot, it produced a carbonized smell, instead of the comforting smell of warm milk happily caramelizing.  By the time I called it a failed experiment, the product had not thickened to my satisfaction, and it tasted burnt.  To top it all off, I ended up scrubbing the soaked crock-pot with a metal scrubber for longer than an entire "Murder, She Wrote" episode.  That was definitely enough of that.

More nannies and kids, just for the fun of it.  These ones we do not milk.