Homemade Condensed Milk
All-natural, ultra-thick condensed milk made right at home! With this recipe you can make sweetened condensed milk in your own kitchen without any real fuss. All you need is milk, sugar, and two hours of free time. It comes out wonderfully tasty and completely natural. Serve it with crêpes, syrniki (sweet cheese pancakes), or your favorite desserts — it's also great for making frostings and fillings.
Cooking method
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Step 1:
Get your ingredients ready. For condensed milk, it's best to use a heavy-bottomed pot with high sides — cast iron works well. The vanilla is optional, but it makes the milk taste better.
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Step 2:
Set the pot of milk over medium heat, add all the sugar and the vanilla, and stir.
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Step 3:
Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat to its lowest setting and let it cook for an hour and a half to two hours. Stir the milk every five minutes.
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Step 4:
Here's what the milk looks like after an hour of cooking — it has reduced in volume and taken on a creamy, baked-milk color. Keep cooking, and don't forget to stir.
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Step 5:
This is the milk after an hour and a half — it's nice and thick now and has darkened a bit more. You can turn off the heat. Let it cool slightly, then pour it into jars. Once it has cooled completely, move the condensed milk to the refrigerator; it thickens further as it chills.
- Condensed milk turns out best with whole, full-fat milk. If your milk isn't very rich, add a small pat of butter at the start of cooking. You can also make it with powdered milk, goat's milk, or cream. Adjust the sugar to your taste — the recipe as written gives you something close to the store-bought treat we all know, but feel free to use more or less. It's delicious made with cane sugar, which gives the milk a caramel flavor. You can use powdered sugar in place of granulated for a smoother finished product — just don't use store-bought powdered sugar, which may contain starch. To keep the milk from curdling, add a tiny pinch of baking soda. And if you accidentally cook it too far and it gets too thick, pour it into molds — you'll get tasty toffees. Store the condensed milk in a sealed glass container in the refrigerator.
Caloric content of the products possible in the composition of the dish
- Whole cow's milk - 68 kcal/100g
- Milk 3.5% fat content - 64 kcal/100g
- Milk 3.2% fat content - 60 kcal/100g
- Milk 1.5% fat content - 47 kcal/100g
- Concentrated milk 7.5% fat content - 140 kcal/100g
- Milk 2.5% fat content - 54 kcal/100g
- Granulated sugar - 398 kcal/100g
- Sugar - 398 kcal/100g
- Vanillin - 288 kcal/100g
