A guide to making evaporated milk at home for your baking needs

Hi and welcome to Bold Baking Basics. This is where we get stuck into the fundamentals of baking and the ingredients. These videos will have you baking with confidence anytime, anywhere. Right now I'm going to show you how you can make evaporated milk. I use this a lot in my recipes and it is really easy to make at home. All you need is a nice big saucepan. As you can see I'm using a nonstick pan which is best for this recipe because it's really easy to clean once you're done. So now the main ingredient and pretty much the only ingredient is milk. What you want to use is a full fat milk, something with a high fat content because it'll make the end result so much more creamier. So go ahead and pour that into your saucepan. So now this process is really easy. All you have to do is turn on the heat to around medium and let this mix come to a simmer. So now let me tell you what evaporated milk actually is and the difference between evaporated milk and condensed milk. Evaporated milk is just simmered down milk all by itself. You buy it in cans usually and it's a little bit sweet. no sugar added but the reason it's a little bit sweet is because the sugar's in the milk. Now condensed milk is simmered down milk and sugar. Much thicker, syrupy, really sweet so there's a big difference between these two. So the recipe for this as always can be found on BiggerBolderBaking.com along with all of my other basics recipes so make sure you go over and check it out. So now our milk has come to a simmer so this is what we do. Go ahead and turn down your heat to a medium low heat and then just let this milk simmer away very gently for around 20 to 30 minutes. So there's a rule working in professional kitchens that the only thing that should boil in a kitchen is water so you don't want anything like milk, custard, cream, anything at all to boil. You want it to be on a low controlled heat and let it simmer gently away. We want it to reduce down quite a lot. What we're going to be left with is around 12 ounces which is around a cup and a quarter of evaporated milk. You'll see it turn a creamy color, it'll thicken slightly and that's when it's ready. So as it's simmering make sure you go in with a spatula, give it a little bit of a stir every so often just to make sure it's not scorching at the bottom of your pan. So evaporated milk, also known as dehydrated milk, is shelf stable when you buy it in a store. So lots of times I get messages from people who can get evaporated milk but they can't find fresh milk, so this is a really good substitute when milk is in a recipe. My milk though however will only keep in the fridge for around 7 days. So it's been around 25 minutes or so, you might need a little bit longer, that's totally fine, you might need a little bit less, but you're gonna gauge that. You can tell when it's ready because it's reduced down to around 12 ounces, which is a cup and a quarter, it has turned this lovely kind of creamy color, which means we are good to go. So now what I'm gonna do is turn it off the heat, and here I have a sieve, I'm gonna place that over my jug, and what you want to do is just pour the milk through the sieve into the jug. Now this is an important step because it removes that film of milk that gathers as it's simmering away, you don't want that in there. So there you go. And there you have it, a can or 12 ounces or a cup and a quarter of evaporated milk made at home really easily. Anytime you see this now in a recipe and you haven't got it to hand, you know you can make it at home no problem. Recently I actually used evaporated milk in an insane recipe for a decadent chocolate rice pudding so make sure you go over there and check that out. Thanks so much for watching, make sure you check out all of my other Bowl Baking Basics and I'll see you back here really soon for more Bigger Bolder Baking.