

For the most foolproof evaporated milk substitute, make your own: Into a saucepan, place approximately 60 percent more milk than called for in the recipe, bring it to a boil, and gently reduce it until the desired amount is reached. Unsurprisingly, the milk you already have in the fridge will be a fine substitute for evaporated milk-with a bit of tinkering. There’s very little legwork needed when cooking or baking with condensed milk.įive substitutes for evaporated milk 1. That’s why you can easily drizzle a can of condensed milk over magic layer bars or use it for quick-cooking chocolate fudge. The main difference between evaporated milk and condensed milk is that the latter has lots of added sugar, making it a naturally (or unnaturally, depending on how you want to look at it) sweet product. Both condensed milk and evaporated milk are types of concentrated milk, but that’s where the similarities end. You may think that these two shelf-stable canned milk products are one in the same, but they’re not. Technically, when mixed with 1 ½ parts water, one part evaporated milk can be reconstituted into the proportional equivalent of regular milk. This process makes the milk shelf-stable for months, sometimes even years. To make the product, about 60 percent of the water is evaporated from cow’s milk, after which the liquid is canned and heat-sterilized. It’s often used in recipes like pumpkin pie and tres leches cake.

Abandon the recipe and make something else? Less than ideal.The answer: none of the above, because there are actually plenty of substitutes for evaporated milk.Įvaporated milk is canned, shelf-stable, highly concentrated (typically 2 percent) milk. If you’ve had your heart set on baking ice cream or a mud cake, the craving isn’t just going to go away because you’re out of evaporated milk. If you’ve already cooked the pasta and started the bechamel sauce for ultra-creamy macaroni and cheese, you’re not going to stop now. What now? Go back to the store? Uh, no thanks. While you do find four cans of pumpkin, six cans of garbanzo beans, condensed milk, coconut milk, AND powdered milk, there’s no evaporated milk to be found. You poke around the pantry in hopes you’ll get lucky. It was right there in the ingredients list the whole time, of course, but you’re definitely just seeing it for the first time now. Then, you see it: “one cup of evaporated milk.” It’s a classic recipe blunder: You’ve assembled your mise en place, preheated the oven, even carefully buttered and floured the pan.
