Cuban curdled milk dessert — milk intentionally curdled with lime juice, then cooked with sugar into a sweet, lumpy, caramel-flavored pudding. A resourceful Cuban way to use milk that has gone sour.
Dulce de leche cortada ('curdled milk sweet') is a Cuban way of using milk that has started to sour. Instead of throwing it away, lime juice is added to intentionally curdle it, then the curds are sweetened and cooked down. It is an example of Cuban culinary resourcefulness — making something delicious from something that would otherwise be wasted.
A bowl of soft, lumpy, pale caramel-colored curds in a sweet syrup. The texture is like ricotta but sweeter; the flavor is milky, caramel-like, with a faint tang from the lime. Eaten cold with a sprinkle of cinnamon.
Lime juice's citric acid lowers the milk's pH below the isoelectric point of casein (pH 4.6), causing the proteins to denature and coagulate into curds. The subsequent cooking with sugar concentrates the flavors and preserves the curds.
Variations
Some add cinnamon sticks or lemon peel during cooking; the curd size varies.
On the Palate
Where Dulce de Leche Cortada sits in the Cuban flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6How it's made
6 steps · 1 hour active + 30 min waiting
- 110 min
Heat milk to just below boiling.
- 25 min
Add lime juice; stir gently — the milk will curdle.
Watch outAdd the lime and stir gently just until soft curds separate and clear whey shows — a hard boil or rough stirring makes the curds tough and rubbery.
- 35 min
Let sit 5 min; strain through cheesecloth to separate curds from whey.
- 45 min
Make syrup: dissolve sugar in water with cinnamon.
- 530 min
Add the curds to the syrup; simmer 30 min until thick.
Watch outSimmer the curds in syrup until it thickens and turns glossy and clings to the spoon — pull it before it darkens or the sugar catches.
- 61 min
Cool; refrigerate; serve cold with cinnamon.
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