Recently, I went for Sunday lunch at E & T's house. It was a belated birthday celebration for all of us. T made some delicious vegetarian quiches for us to enjoy, and then there was dessert - my favourite course!
E's mum is Peruvian and makes a dessert cake called dulce de leche pionono. I had never heard of such a thing, but when E mentioned it, my curiosity was piqued, and a quick Google search revealed a recipe for it here. Pionono is basically a jelly roll cake without the jelly that can be filled with sweet or savoury fillings.
Be careful when making the cake component - it sticks chronically to everything and gave me quite a few heachaches, even when I used baking paper and icing sugar to try and prevent it from sticking. Also, be careful when making the dulce de leche to ensure that you don't burn it - I did get small chewy overcooked bits through my dulce de leche, but ultimately it didn't affect the taste. I used reduced fat condensed milk and evaporated milk, which didn't seem to affect the taste of the final product.
E's mum just uses dulce de leche to fill her pionono, but my recipe called for mixing the dulce de leche with whipped cream:
Where I came unstuck is that I did not whip my cream quite enough, so I ended up with a rather flat pionono:
It tasted delicious though! The cake was light and fluffy, and the filling satisfyingly sweet. Best of all, I had leftover dulce de leche to eat straight from the pot.
I left off the caramel frosting - I thought too much sweetness would be overwhelming.
E made me a cake too - a vanilla cake swirled with blackberry jam and topped with canned frosting that tasted like white chocolate straight from the fridge:
What a brilliant afternoon it was - good company, good food, and lots of cake! And I finally got the chance to satisfy my curiosity by making a pionono (albeit slightly misshapen) - and it was so worth it.
