When I started storing food, I thought it would be a good idea to store forms of canned milk like evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk. I bought quite a few cans and have used most of them over the years. However, I only have two recipes I regularly make that call for evaporated milk, and one that calls for sweetened condensed milk, so I did not use every can I purchased before they expired.
With most canned goods, the expiration date seems to be a suggested date and the food is actually good far beyond the date marked on the end of the can. This has not held true for the canned milk products I have stored. You would expect evaporated milk 10 years past its expiration date to be bad (and it was), but I really expected sweetened condensed milk only 2 years past expiration to still be useable (and it wasn’t). The evaporated milk had turned thick and brown, and the sweetened condensed milk was brown also (it is already thick when it is fresh). So if you want to store canned milk products, they need to be rotated frequently. I will not be storing canned milk products anymore, instead I will be making them when I need them with powdered milk which stores a lot longer than the canned milks (and is less expensive). Here are a couple of recipes:
Evaporated Milk
1 C water
2/3 C powdered milk
Mix together with a whisk or blender. Will replace evaporated milk in any recipe.
Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 C hot tap water
1 C sugar
1 C powdered milk
3 TB melted butter
Mix in blender until sugar dissolves. Will replace sweetened condensed milk in any recipe. Makes about 1 1/2 cups +
I used the non instant powdered milk. It is okay to half or double these recipes to get the amount you need for your recipe.
I love this idea! I've been looking for an alternative to buying Evaporated milk…I already do the Sweetened Condensed Milk.
I do have one question. You say that you used the non-instant milk. Why is that? Simply preference? Does it taste better? Does it turn out differently?
I guess what I am really wondering is “Will instant powdered milk work just as well?”
Thanks!
I am really surprised that you have given up on canned milk. I know that spoilage is a great concern for all foods. But my dear departed mother (depression era kid) told me one time that if you watch the cans for any sort of bulge and there ain't any, and if it still slarches around in the can, chances and odds are it is still good. I keep a good supply of it on hand to use for fudge (spoon fudge mostly I have a tendancy to want to soft ball it early). If things do get bad we will be using stuff that now a days the homeless would be the only takers.
Well thanks for the recipes…I was looking for the recipe to make Evaporated Milk