FOOD NEWS
14 Mistakes Everyone
Makes When
Cooking With Condensed Milk
BY ALICE RICH
Only Using In Sweet Dishes
Condensed milk can enhance not just sweet dishes but savory ones, too. It is the secret to deliciously caramelized pork that is sweet, creamy, and salty.
The recipe is traditionally slow-cooked. This process browns the sweetened condensed milk and coats the pork in a delightfully sticky, caramelized exterior.
Using Coconut Cream
Using coconut cream instead of condensed milk isn't wrong, as it mimics the milk's creaminess, but that strong coconutty flavor is impossible to mask.
Instead, make condensed milk yourself. Put two cups of milk and ¾ cup of sugar in a pot and simmer for 45 minutes or until the milk and sugar have reduced into syrupy goodness.
Not Trying It Dairy-Free
If you're lactose-intolerant, a dairy-free version of condensed milk can be DIY-ed with soy, oat, macadamia, or any other plant-based milk alternative.
Pour 2 ½ to 3 cups of dairy-free milk into a pot. Stir and simmer until you have a cup of liquid and finish it off by sweetening it to taste, stirring in ⅔ to ¾ cup of white sugar.
Using Evaporated Milk
It's a mistake to swap condensed and evaporated milk in and out of recipes. Condensed milk has sugar, which gives it a creamy saccharine consistency.
If all you have is evaporated milk, add sugar first to level up its flavor and textural profiles, making it a better match than evaporated milk straight from the can.
Not Fermenting It
You can ferment condensed milk to make a tasty snack or dessert. Fermentation makes food more digestible and produces carbon dioxide, giving food a fizzy quality.
Simply heat whole milk, sweetened condensed milk, and regular yogurt until lukewarm, then pour into a yogurt maker and heat at 100 F. It should take about eight to nine hours.