Ranchos - Milk and Pineapple Cajeta, a Pinedo recipe

What is a cajeta, really?  When you look at modern recipes, you will find a caramel sauce made from milk (usually goat's milk), sugar, and typically vanilla, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda.  Some of the fancier ones have alcohol added for flavor.  Outside of Mexico, this is often called "Dulce de Leche".  

But what I found in Miss Pinedo's 1898 book, El cocinero español (The Spanish Cook),was something very different.  She included a category for cajetas without an explanation of what they were - something authors do when they expect their readers to already know what they are referencing.

To improve my understanding, I turned to Nuevo cocinero mejicano, en forma de diccionario (The New Mexican Cook, in the form of a dictionary, abbreviated NCM).  Miss Pinedo got some of her recipes from this book, which was published many times in the 1800s.  The edition I used was published in 1858.

Printed in both Paris and Mexico

This book is over 1000 pages, filled with recipes formatted in two columns per page.  The recipes are very compact!  What I found was a description of cajetas and the advantage you get from making them (page 114):

Con este nombre se designa una multitude de dulces, en que mesclándose con el almíbar la mayor parte de las frutas conocidas, y otras muchas sustancias, se hace subri el grado de cocimiento hasta el punto que pueda vaciarse la pasta en cajitas de madera, donde so guarda y conserva el dulce mucho tiempo sin echarse á perder, pudiéndose proveer la despensa para todo el año en la estacion propia de cada fruta.

Con la lectura do los artículos siguientes, quedará cualquiera habilitado para confeccionar á su arbitrio una innumerable variedad de dulces de esta clase, inventando mezclas, ó refinando el gusto de las aquí explicadas, ó empleando otras frutas ó sustancias que no se expresan en este Diccionario por no abultarlo demasiado.

 

This name designates a multitude of sweets, in which, by mixing with the syrup of most of the known fruits, and many other substances, the degree of cooking is increased to the point that the paste can be emptied into wooden boxes, where the sweet is stored and conserved for a long time without spoiling, being able to provide the pantry for the whole year in the season of each fruit.

With the reading of the following articles, anyone will be empowered to make an innumerable variety of sweets of this kind at their discretion, inventing mixtures, or refining the taste of those explained here, or using other fruits or substances that are not expressed in this Dictionary for not bulging it too much.

So before cajeta came to mean a caramel sauce made from goat's milk and sugar, it was a way to preserve the flavor of fruit without refrigeration for an entire year.  Some of Miss Pinedo's recipes specify using a cajeta as a filling for other desserts, which makes sense.  Notice, too, that NCM says you are not limited to the cajetas they list -- make your own or improve on theirs.  The idea is to cook the fruit (or eggs or nuts or sweet potatoes or...) with enough sugar and to reduce it to a thick paste so it can be stored in a box on a shelf.

I chose to make a milk and pineapple juice cajeta.  It is found on page 84 in Miss Pinedo's book.

The challenge was determining what a "kettle cup" (una taza caldera) was.  I have not been able to find out any sort of reference to its volume.  I did study the recipes where she is using it, and came to the conclusion that it was about a pint, or 2 cups.  This was primarily from a custard recipe where she mentioned how many kettle cups of milk to eggs and I compared that to a modern recipe.  

Cooking it to "the point of cajeta" was easy to determine -- in other recipes she specifies that the mixture is thick enough to detach from the sides of the pan.

The starch she specifies, almidón, could be made from corn or wheat, and I chose cornstarch.

My Redaction, the first attempt

I didn't want to use eight quarts of milk, so I reduced everything down by about 1/8th.

1 quart whole milk

1/2 pound sugar

1 ounce (by weight) cornstarch

1/4 cup pineapple juice

Mix all ingredients well while still cold in a heavy saucepan.  Set over medium high heat and bring to a boil, then turn the temperature down to low.  Stir often to keep it from sticking to the pan.  Use a simmer mat under the pan to moderate the heat as needed.

Cook until very thick.  This can take several hours.

My Notes

Here are the ingredients:

Yes, that is much more pineapple juice than is needed!

Mixing the ingredients cold nearly filled this saucepan.

Then bringing it to a boil nearly overflowed it.

Fortunately I got the heat turned down in time.  

It took me a while to realize that I should use a simmer mat -- even though I stirred it regularly (but not continuously), there was some sticking to the bottom of the pan, as evidenced by little, dark brown bits that started showing up in the mixture.  

After standing nearby for more than two and a half hours, stirring regularly, I noticed the mixture was very thick but not detaching from the sides of the pan.  

Coating the spoon and piling on top of itself in the pan.

To be honest, I was very tired of being near it and stirring it.  It was a good thing I had a lot of paperwork to do while the mixture cooked, but there came a point where I was just done with it all.  I decided that was as close to the point of cajeta as I could get it.

I poured it into two containers, one that was lined with waxed paper and one that was lightly greased.  They were left on the counter to set up for the night.

When I tipped the mixture out of the container, I found a cajeta that was thick enough to hold its shape, even when scooped with a spoon.

The Verdict

I ate it right off the spoon.  It was thick, sweet, smooth, creamy, and tasty!  It was not too sweet and had a cooked milk flavor that I appreciated.  The only thing it was missing was the taste of pineapple.  I wondered about when I was reducing the recipe -- not every ingredient reduces down to a good amount, and I tasted the mixture before it went over the heat.  There was no pineapple flavor in it that I could discern.

This made me want to make it again with more pineapple juice.  After all, the idea of the cajeta was to preserve the flavor of the fruit.

I also wanted to make it without getting the little brown flecks and maybe even cook it to where it detaches from the pan.

My Redaction, the second attempt

All the ingredients above except use 1 cup pineapple juice.

Instead of bringing the mixture to a boil, heat it over the medium high heat stirring constantly until you feel it thicken slightly.  Then turn the heat down to low and put the simmer mat in place.

If you can wait, let it cook over the low heat until very thick, stirring regularly.

My Notes

The cold mixture truly tasted like pineapple this time.

Turning the heat down before it foamed meant I didn't risk it overflowing the pan.  The heat was just low enough that the mixture steamed but didn't bubble or scorch.

I stirred it every 15 minutes (I used a timer) until it was reduced and getting thick, then I stirred it every 10 minutes.  

After three hours, I took the pan off the simmer mat and brought it to a boil over medium high heat while stirring constantly.  I made sure to scrape the sides of the pan as well as the bottom to avoid scorching.

After 20 minutes, this process reduced the mixture to near half of the original volume.  It was thick, coated the spoon, and piled on itself when it dripped back into the pan.  I did not get it to detach from the sides of the pan.

It went into a glass baking dish that was lightly buttered and left on the counter to cool overnight.

The Verdict

It was firm on top but very soft underneath, unlike the first attempt.  It was more brown in color than the first attempt, which makes me think the sugar was more caramelized.  There were no brown flecks, so I succeeded in avoiding scorching.  

The part on the bottom of the pan is on top here.

The flavor was good, although I really had to work on tasting any pineapple flavor at all.  It was sweet but not too sweet, which my guest taster and I liked.  It was smooth and creamy, with a cooked sweet milk flavor (similar to sweetened condensed milk but very mild) and something that wasn't just sugar and milk but not really defined as pineapple.

I'm not sure I would trust it to stay safe without refrigeration.  The first attempt eventually went into the refrigerator with a cover on it.  I noticed that some liquid built up on the bottom of its container.  It tasted good to the end and the liquid did not seem to change the flavor or the texture.  But to give it a try, I put some of the second attempt into a container (labeled!) to be stored in the cupboard for a few months.  UPDATE:  I checked it after three weeks and it was moldy.  Not surprising!

I also made an impromptu dessert:  small cups made from pie crust (cooked and cooled) with a layer of cajeta; a layer of blueberries cooked in water, lime juice, sugar, and cornstarch; and topped with some unsweetened shredded coconut.  It was simple but nice!

It is hard to differentiate the tan cajeta from the tan crust, but it is there.

My choice of cornstarch might be making a difference here.  The better choice is probably wheat starch, which stands up better to the long cooking.  

Perhaps I should have used a bigger saucepan, one that is wider, giving more surface area for evaporation.  Then it might not take so long to cook.  Some of the modern cajeta recipes suggest it to be cooked in a slow cooker with the lid off.  I think this would be beneficial -- you probably wouldn't have to stir it as often and you could let it cook all day to get it thick.  Maybe even to the point of detaching from the pan!