BakeandCut

Condensed milk made with the Mycook Premium.

It was a fun blog to do. I got to lick the spoon too many times. Condensed milk is a highly addictive substance. My early memories of it are of family member’s who would put a hole in the tin and drink it out. And they would cart it around for two days, just sucking on this tin, like a baby and their dummy. I can remember doing the same thing as a teenager a few times. I want to be cool like that family member.

You would use one of those old can openers that you had to stab into the top of the tin to open.

The ones I always seem to cut my hand on.

Thank goodness for the new technology type with two handles that lock on the lid.
Glad I stopped doing this. It was a dreadful path to be on. I find just licking the spoon a couple of times already too much these days.

So you are thinking why make condensed milk when it is cheap to buy?
There are many reasons to make your own.
Here are a few examples that I can think of.

* Cheap to make
* You control the quality of the ingredients
* You can make as much as you want
* No big corporations are involved in your food
* Not stored in a tin that is BPA lined
*no additives or preservatives

I make it for all the reasons above, and the fact that I live out of town and I cannot just pop down to the shops at a moments notice if I am out of it.

I made three batches for the blog. I used two different brands of milk, one is a local milk (Tilba Tilba) that is full cream, full fat, full flavor, full everything really and is the best milk on the market.

I found that it took a little longer to reduce down than the Dairy Farmers brand.

The Dairy Farmers brand took 35 minutes, and the Tilba milk took 40 minutes.
So the results will vary depending on what brand milk you use.
You can add a vanilla bean pod for extra flavour if you wish. I have done that in the past and using coconut sugar gives a nice caramel flavour, so play around with different sugars.

If you cook the milk for too long, it will turn into caramel and can burn.
There seems to be varying recipes out there for making condensed milk. Some recipes use high heat, some use 100 degrees Celsius and this from the www.milk.co.uk

“Condensed milk is concentrated in the same way as evaporated milk, but with the addition of sugar.
This product is not sterilised but is preserved by the high concentration of sugar. It can be made from whole milk, semi-skimmed or skimmed milk.
The heat treatment used consists of holding standardised milk at a temperature of 110-115ºC for one to two minutes.
The milk is then homogenised, the sugar added and the sweetened milk is then evaporated at low temperatures (between 55-60ºC). The concentration of the condensed milk is now up to 3 times that of the original milk.
The milk is then cooled rapidly to 30ºC and packaged.
Sweetened condensed milk is commonly used in the sugar confectionery industry for the production of toffee, caramel, and fudge. It is also an alternative to liquid milk which was once traditionally used in these products.”

I have always done mine at 120 degrees Celsius and have had pretty consistent results. If you do find that it burns, reduce down the heat or the time.

All this talk late at night about condensed milk is making me want hot chocolate and just maybe half a teaspoon of condensed milk in it as well. And this is just what I will go and make……..tootling off now.

Caio.