caramel wafer cake - no baking involved

I have been promising to make a dessert, so I have decided to start with one of my grannie's easier recipes. The hardest part about this recipe is finding the ingredients, which can be found in most super markets and boiling some water. The one disclaimer I have to make is that it takes a few days prep time for this to come out just right. This is a cake that anyone can make and everyone should try. Your friends and family will be very impressed and they will be asking for more.

Ingredients
4 cans of 14oz condensed milk
2 packs of wafers (the round ones pictured below are a little thinner and work better than the square ones that are also avialble)
1/2 lemon
1/2 stick unsalted butter
teaspoon vanillin sugar
1 1/2 cups of walnuts (can be done with pecans or mixture)



















This recipe is best done when you take a couple of days to prepare before serving. The 4 cans of condensed milk need to be placed into a pot with boiling water for 3 hours. You will probably need to add water to the pot every hour or half hour since the water will be evaporating. The cans need to be completely submerged the entire 3 hours.














After 3 hours, remove from the water and let cool until the next day.

*****DO NOT OPEN THE CANS AFTER BOILING****

It will explode in your face and you will go to the hospital if you open the can while it is still hot.












The next day get a large mixing bowl and combine the contents of the 4 cans of condensed milk that will now be a beautiful brown caramel color with the juice of half a lemon, a teaspoon of vanillin sugar, half a stick of unsalted butter. It's best if you let the butter stand out at room temperature for a while so it becomes soft. Mix everything well so that there is an even
consistency throughout (about 4-5 minutes of mixing). Take the nuts and put them into a food processor or use a rolling pin and turn into a fine crumb.

Now you are ready to begin assembly. Take a large cutting board and place the first wafer sheet down and start applying a generous scoop of cream mixture so that the entire surface is covered. Make sure you get all the edges as well, don't worry if some of your cream goes over the edge. then take a small handful of the the crumbled nuts and sprinkle over the top of the cream. A little like making a pizza. adding sauce then cheese.













You will repeat the same process for every layer. Depending on how much cream you add per layer you should end up with about 9-10 layers. The top sheet will not get cream or nuts. Once you add the final top wafer, you will want to take whatever cream is left over and apply to the edging around the cake. Then you will take a small brush and dip into the cream as a glue and then dip into the nuts and apply to the outside edge of the cake.











Now that the cake is assembled it needs to be pressed. Add another cutting board to the top and weigh done with about 10lbs of weight and let stand over night. Does not need refrigeration at this point but I would leave somewhere that is cool.










As you can see I stalked a bunch of my cook books right on top of the second cutting board. I assembled in the afternoon and let stand until the next morning.












When I returned the next morning, I removed the books and sliced into my beautiful cake. I usually cut into diagnols to make the pieces look nicer. You should slice up the entire cake at this point.











Once you slice up the entire cake, find a large tupper-ware to place all your pieces into. Feel free to taste your creation. You should be pretty impressed at this point with what you created. Now you want to refridgerate so that it stays mooistr and fresh. when the cake is cold it tastes that much better.













I hope you have enjoyed making a cake without baking. This dessert is a family favorite as well as a highly requested by friends.

I will be going to visit grannie for the holidays, so I should have some more recipes coming soon.

Happy Holidays... and keep on cooking!