This dessert came out fabulous! I had eaten it years ago at a Chilean friends house, and mine came out just as good. I added a bit more butter to the pastry just so that it was more flaky and would reduce the chance of it drying out. Mine baked for about 15 mins and the layers were perfect. A trick to cut down the 'dulce de leche' prep time. Put the can of condensed milk completely submerged in a pressure cooker and cook under full pressure for 20 mins. I have done it many times and it come out perfect and in a fraction of the time. It's nice to assemble it and leave in the refrigerator the day before or early in the day before serving as the layers get a bit moist and kind of mesh into each other nicely.

This cake was very delicious for my family. I have heard much about "Torta de mil hojas", but I`ve never tried it before. I decided to try this recipe. I had only one can sweetened condensed milk and I used Katie`s suggestions about pastry cream. And to our family taste, the cake wasn`t so rich and intense. But to my personal taste the dough was too dry. I baked it until lighly brown (some of the layers weren`t lighly brown at all), approximately 10 minutes. Probably, I don`t like such kind of dough. If your layers aren`t lightly brown, but you feel, they are set, don`t bake any more. I also think it is not necessary to use water when you sprinkle the layers.

Hi everyone! so, i live in chile where this is a very popular cake. But it is a very intense cake, a little piece will go a loooooooong way, thats why several bakerys here have started to include pastry cream in it. so along with the "manjar" that is the thickend condensed milk, you put one layer of pastry cream and one layer of manjar. To make the manjar more spreadable you need to do this: whip up 3/4 cup of whipping cream and fold in to the manjar. this makes a less intense cake. if you want the intense cake use the manjar mixture without the pastry cream layers. if you use the pastry cream it will still be very intense! You can also make 3 different layeres: whipping cream, pastry cream and manjar. this will make it a lighter cake, BUT STILL INTENSE! to decorate spread a thin layer of manjar over and around the cake and sprinkle generously with walnuts. it can also be shredded coconut. you can be creative with this. people here even make it with manjar, raspberry jam and pastry cream!

This recipe is an amazing authentic Chilean cake also known as “Torta de Mil Hojas” or “Thousand Layers Cake.” I made this for my Chilean husband’s birthday and he was very impressed with the results. I rolled each layer out as thin as possible then I cut out the layers by using a 9” round cake pan as a template so all my layers were uniform. Make sure you only cook the layers until they are just lightly brown, if you wait too long they will dry out too much and taste burnt. My oven isn’t large at all so I could only cook 2 layers at a time. It took a loooonnng time to make everything and put it all together; the est cook time of 1 hour is way off. If I included the cooking time for the sweetened condensed milk, the whole cake took me about 5 hours to put together, but it was totally worth it. Also, the longer the cake sits, the more the caramel penetrates the layers so the better it tastes!

I have been looking for this receipe for 15 to 16 years... after having mislayed mine. My son married a young girl from Chile and I made it for their "wedding cake." It was such a success & the first of many dulces to be eaten til it was gone... the guests even asked for MORE! I can easily give it a 5 star rating all the way down the line. Such a treat!!! joan green/orem,utah