Dairy
Sweetened condensed milk
Also called condensed milk
Cow's milk cooked down with a large dose of sugar until it is thick and spoonable. Brigadeiros, cà phê trứng, ube halaya and suspiro live here. It is not evaporated milk, which is unsweetened, and it is not caramel until you cook it further.
Origin
Nineteenth-century canned dairy, invented to keep milk without ice. It became a tropical and café staple wherever fresh cream was unreliable.
Flavour
Very sweet, with a cooked-milk caramel note. The sugar is the preservative as much as the taste.
How it is made
Milk is evaporated, then sweetened to a high sugar level and canned. Simmering an unopened tin into caramel needs a pot of water that never boils dry.
How to use it
Stir straight from the tin into cocoa for brigadeiros, into egg yolk for Vietnamese coffee, or into mashed ube. Do not swap evaporated milk and add sugar by eye — the water content is different and sweets will not set. A pinch of salt stops the sugar tasting flat. Warm a stiff tin in water.
Storage
Pantry unopened. Once open, fridge in a jar, not the tin, and use within a few days — it moulds despite the sugar.
Recipes using it
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