Dulce de Leche Coffee

So one of my new favorite shows in Food Network is Pioneer Woman. It only premiered yesterday, but I already know I'll love it. She is a city girl who is an accidental country girl. And when she says country girl, she means a gigantic ranch in the middle of no where in Oklahoma, cooking for her four kids and other ranch hands at 5 am. She makes the kind of food that I love- comfort food. I saw her yesterday on Paula Dean's show and she made some coffee that I, of course, just had to try. Mine is different, so I feel great actually publishing one of MY recipes! But the inspiration was definitely from her drink, so I have to give her most of the credit.

Now. Dulce de Leche. If you don't know what this is, it's a caramel-like thick milk spread. Think of the caramel sauce from Hershey's you squeeze out of a bottle for your ice cream, but thicker. It is very popular in Latin America, although it doesn't have any "special" Latino flavors. You can make it several ways. The way I know is to cook sweetened condensed milk over a double broiler for a few hours, or you can make it from scratch. For my coffee recipe, I just thickened sweetened condensed milk, but next time I might try making it from scratch (Alton Brown has a recipe on foodnetwork.com) since I'm kind of a purist when it comes to food.

Anyways, it's delicious. And it's even more delicious in coffee. So here's what I did:

-Brew some of your favorite coffee.

-In a clean bowl, whisk together the coffee and some dulce de leche. You can be the judge here, I like mine pretty sweet, but you can use as little as you want.

-If that weren't enough, top the coffee with whipped cream. I flavored my whipped cream with a little dulce de leche before I whipped :) Yummy!

-Top the whipped cream with cinnamon, nutmeg, and shaved chocolate. This would taste extra yummy with white chocolate shavings, but alas, I am fresh out of the white stuff, so milk chocolate was what I used!

Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum! This is perfect if you're needing a "fancy girly" coffee but don't want to spend the four dollars at Starbucks (a can of sweetened condensed milk is less than $2!). This would also make a great dessert coffee (de-caf, of course!) with something that's not quite so sweet, like a simple brownie or the like.

YAY! Coffee and sugar!