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Colonia Suiza · Swiss-Style Dulce de Leche

Dulce de Leche Artesanal

Dulce de Leche Artesanal — street food from Colonia, Uruguay
📷 Closely related photo — Photo: Horacio Cambeiro / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0

The nearby town of Nueva Helvecia is still known as 'Colonia Suiza' after the Swiss dairy farmers who settled it in the 1860s and helped establish Uruguay's dulce de leche tradition.

Milk and sugar are slow-cooked for hours into a thick caramel spread, jarred and sold at roadside dairy stands throughout Colonia department. It's eaten by the spoonful or spread on bread and pastries.

Why it's made this way: Colonia's Swiss and other European settlers built the region's dairy industry from scratch, and the department remains closely tied to Uruguay's dulce de leche identity.
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Part of World of Street Food — 690 dishes from 118 countries. Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below. Photo credits.