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This homemade organic sweetened condensed milk is deeply flavorful, only contains 2 ingredients, is easy to make, and it’s something you can feel good about making for your family.
More correctly, this is a no-refined-sugar spin on dulce de leche because it is definitely thick and caramelized, but you can use it as you would sweetened condensed milk, especially when adding some caramel flavor would be most welcome.
Don’t miss my caramel vanilla ice cream made with this goodness, friends!
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Why This Recipe?
Making your own staples is almost always about saving money and having control over the quality of ingredients you use.
Standard sweetened condensed milk (scm) is definitely sweet and milky, but making it with palm sugar ensures it will have a deeply caramelized flavor.
Purchase your own organic whole milk and some organic palm sugar, and all you’ll need besides is a pot, a stove, and some time.
All Sugars Are Not Created Equal
While regular sugar, even organice sugar, is sweet, it doesn’t have a lot of character.
Coconut palm sugar, on the other hand, is full of caramelly good flavor right out of the container.
Reduce your mixture by 25% to 40%, and you have a lovely thick, pourable scm.
I’m sure you can imagine how much deeper the flavor becomeswhen it’s mixed with milk and then reduced on the stove top by 60%! Now you have magically made organic dulce de leche!
What you end up with is a thick and deeply caramelized milk and palm sugar mixture that is much thicker than store-bought sweetened condensed milk.
Unrefined Sugar Lends More Flavor
Not only will you be able to make ice cream (or anything) with more depth of flavor, you can feel good knowing that you’re using an organic product that you made yourself, that only contains 2 ingredients and contains no added refined sugar at all.
Even if you are not concerned about consumingrefined sugar, this SCM has so much flavor that you will want to use it in all the no-churn ice cream you make.
The Difference Between Sweetened Condensed Milk and Dulce de Leche
Both are similar in that each is made using the same two ingredients.
The difference is in the how long you cook them, or more specifically, how much you reduce them.
Reduce your mixture on the stove by 20%-40%, and you have sweetened condensed milk.
Reduce your mixture by 60%, and you’ll have dulce de leche.
The more you reduce the mixture, the thicker and more concentrated it will be, and the more flavor it will have.
How to Make It
As promised, you’ll only need two ingredients:
- whole milk: When it comes to milk products, the one that has enough water to reduce without burning but has enough fat in it to keep the mixture from breaking is whole milk. Do not sub in half and half or cream. You could potentially sub in some half and half for a portion of the milk, but that’s as far as I’d go, or you run the risk of burning it
- palm sugar: full of flavor and simply delicious. You can sub in organic granulated sugar if you prefer
Procedure
Very few ingredients, meet very few steps.
Here’s how you make this:
- Pour milk and palm sugar into a pan.
- Bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
- Reduce the heat to maintain a simmer, and cook until it has reached your desired thickness.
- Stir frequently at first, and then almost constantly as it thickens.
Serving Suggestions
I am sure you can think of a ton of ways to use this stuff, friends. But I will get you started with these ideas:
- Use it as an ice cream topping
- Swirl it into ice cream for a deeply flavorful caramel swirl
- Use it as (or in) a fruit dip
- Sweeten your coffee with it
- Spread it on waffles or pancakes
- Stir it into hot or cold milk to make some ridiculously good caramel milk
- Spread it between cake layers
- Fold it together with whipped cream to make an easy caramel mousse
Now that you’re hungry for it, let’s make some, shall we?
Can I Make a Vegan Version?
Yes you can make it vegan.
Substitute full fat coconut milk for the whole milk. Use the canned kind and not the boxed beverage.
A Note About Measurements
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03/07/2024 05:03 pm GMT
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Homemade Organic Sweetened Condensed Milk (No Refined Sugar)
Jennifer Field
Homemade organic sweetened condensed milk is easy to make, takes only 2 ingredients (and time) to make, and contains no refined sugar. It’s deeply caramelized flavor is a delicious bonus!
4 from 9 votes
Tried this recipe?Please give it a star rating!
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Prep Time 2 minutes mins
Cook Time 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins
Total Time 1 hour hr 32 minutes mins
Course Dessert Sauces
Cuisine Mexican
Servings 8 servings
Calories 157 kcal
Ingredients
- 32 oz organic whole milk
- 6 oz organic coconut palm sugar
Instructions
Combine the milk and palm sugar in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan.
Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Be careful it doesn’t boil over.
Adjust heat to medium low to keep the milk at a very low boil/high simmer.
Reduce the weight by 25%-40%, and you’ll have a lovely sweetened condensed milk. Your final weight will be between 22.8 oz (at 40%) and 28.5 oz (at 25%).
Reduce by 60% by weight. Your final weight of your mixture should be 15.2oz. (See Notes)
Please See Notes for a few more specifics.
Did You Make Any Changes?
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Notes
You can scale this recipe up or down, keeping the ratio of 1 oz palm sugar to 5.3 oz milk. Base as written is 32 oz milk to 6 oz palm sugar.
Occasionally pour/scrape the simmering milk mixture into a heat proof container on a scale you’ve zeroed out. You’re looking for the final weight of the sweetened condensed milk to be 40% of the original weight, or 15.2 oz.
If you’re going to use this as an ice cream sauce or in your coffee, you can certainly stop the reduction at any point once the sweetened condensed milk has thickened up some.
If you’re going to use it to make no-churn ice cream, go ahead and reduce it all the way. If you leave too much water in the mixture, your ice cream will set up too firmly and could possibly develop an icy texture.
Nutrition
Serving: 1ozCalories: 157kcalCarbohydrates: 27gProtein: 4gFat: 4gSaturated Fat: 2gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 12mgSodium: 53mgSugar: 27g
Keyword homemade dulce de leche, organic sweetened condensed milk
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Hi, y’all! I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and hopefully also learned a thing or two.
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Thanks for spending some time with me today, friends. Whether you use this as sweetened condensed milk or cook it down further to make dulce de leche, I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do!
Take care, and have a lovely day.
