Laziness = No recipe, but caramely goodness

Nothing in the way of 'real' recipes today. I did, however, put a can of sweetened condensed milk in my crockpot at high overnight, and this morning had an amazing can of caramely goodness. I did it after spending at least an hour (probably more) online trying to figure out how to do it without making it explode, because apparently it can do that. It happened to my mom's cousin once! And I'm really lazy and didn't want to clean up exploded caramel from all over my tiny apartment, much less get my face all burned and end up in the hospital. But it appears that I lucked out, so yay!

In case you're interested in doing it yourself (which you shouldn't because it can explode!), here's what I learned:
Take the label off.

There are two different kinds of cans that these things come in - the pop-top, and the can-opener-needed. The can-opener-needed is the one to use because the pop-top will, well, pop when the temperature gets too high, causing an explosion.

The can needs to be submerged the whole time. I'd tested my crockpot before and knew that water doesn't really evaporate with it, so I didn't have to worry about the water level getting too low, but if your water does evaporate, make sure you're topping it off with hot water. When you're keeping it in the water, the temperature doesn't get above 212 degrees, which is what the water's at. If the water level gets too low, then the can gets too hot, and that's what can cause an explosion.

Make sure the can has fully cooled before taking it out of the water and opening it. If the inside is still hot, then the temperature change (of taking it out of the water) or the pressure change (of opening it) can cause an explosion.

There are people who said that they'd been doing it for years, and they did everything right, but it still happened. So I'm not saying you should do it yourself, because it's dangerous and all that.


Other ways of doing it that were suggested as safe alternatives were (a) putting them in canning jars and doing them that way (that's what canning jars are for, after all), (b) pouring it into a pie plate which is also in a pan half-full of water in a 425 degree oven 60 minutes (stirring occasionally) and (c) double boiler, on the stove, stirring occasionally, for 60 minutes.

However you do it (though you should do it one of the safe ways) it's some caramely goodness.