You can turn fresh liquid milk or milk powder into sweetened condensed milk and use for your condensed milk recipes like cakes, candies, sweets, or chocolates. You can also use homemade condensed milk for making Indian desserts such as laddoos, or puddings such as kheer (pudding made with rice). It is also used for making milk fudge. Today, you will learn how to make condensed milk at home with fresh liquid milk; this has the same taste as your popular milk brands like Milkmaid, Mithai mate, Carnation milk, Eagle Brand, or Peak Milk. You can use Milk powder or evaporated milk to make this too.
Table of Contents
Uses of Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk
Condensed milk recipes include desserts like eggless cakes, chocolates, candies, Indian rice pudding (Kheer), and Sweets.
Ingredients
- 1 liter of fresh whole milk (full-fat milk). Powdered milk or evaporated milk can still be used. It is the same procedure. When using milk powder, you need to dissolve it in water first.
- 1/2 cup of sugar
- A pinch of baking soda
You can use goat milk, cow milk, or buffalo milk. You will have a different taste depending on the type of milk used. For vegetarians, when making vegan condensed milk, any vegan milk can be substituted for the cow’s milk in making this recipe. Some of the vegan milk you can substitute with regular milk include soy milk, oats milk, or almond milk.
Steps on How to Make Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk
You can use fresh whole milk (full-fat milk), skimmed milk, milk powder, or evaporated milk. I am using fresh liquid milk (cow’s milk). Adding sugar gives you a gooey, thick, sweet, creamy, and delicious condensed milk. When using milk powder, dissolve 1/2 a cup of milk powder in a liter of water; place it on heat and continue as the procedure below. For evaporated milk, add 1/2 a liter of water and dissolve the evaporated milk, place on heat and continue as described below.
Procedure
- Pour your milk into a pot or a pan and put on the flame. A pan is better because it provides a wider surface area for the water content in the milk to evaporate, but you can use a pot as well.
- Add your sugar and start to stir the milk continuously on medium heat. When making condensed milk, you should not move away because the milk can boil over and pour so you have to be there to keep stirring it.
- Once the water content in the milk reduces, the consistency begins to thicken and the color starts to change.
- You can then add a pinch of baking soda to help darken the color and give it the light brown color of condensed milk as well as making it fluffy. When you add the baking soda, it becomes frothy, just keep stirring, the frothiness will disappear.
- As you stir, you can use your spatula to scrape the sides of the pan as some milk particles stick to the sides.
- When you have a runny but thick consistency, turn off the heat and bring it down. It is ready for use.
- You may have lumps or balls or some small chunks of milk as you cook it on heat. You can strain it using a fine strainer to have a smooth and creamy sweetened condensed milk.
If you care to add flavoring, you can use banana flavor or vanilla. I prefer leaving it like that because it tastes and smells just fine for me.
How long does Homemade Condensed Milk Last?
When stored in an airtight container and preserved in the freezer, it can last for up to 3 months; but 1 week in the refrigerator. Just ensure you close the lid properly to prevent water from entering the storage container.