I normally just buy condensed milk. It's cheap and delicious. To be honest, I think condensed milk tastes BETTER than dulce de leche, and if it had a better name like dulce de leche or confiture de lait, as it's known in French, it'd probably be touted as a finer culinary product. Anyway, my local Korean grocery store sells condensed milk for 7,000 won ($7). I know condensed milk doesn't cost more than $2 in the states, and thankfully the Foreign Food Mart in Itaewon sells it for 2,500 won.
Before trying to make condensed milk, I didn't know condensed milk was made from powdered milk. Almost every google search I punched in returned recipes using powdered milk or sometimes evaporated milk. This made no sense to me since condensed milk sounds like it should be made from real milk. So I found one recipe outlining how to make condensed milk from un-scienced milk. I adapted the technique a bit and made the butter optional.
