Mamtaji..

Can I use the 'Evaporated Milk' available in cans in the US for making khoya?

Thank you in anticipation.

PSK.

Hello PSK

I don't make Khoa from condensed milk as such, but use it quite a lot as a substitute for Khoa in making burfies of all sorts. See; Quick Burfi.

I am not sure how your condensed milk looks in USA, but here in UK, it is quite thick and very sweet. It takes only a few minutes to make burfies with it.

Mamta

Hello

Here in the US we get the 'Condensed Milk' which is sweetened dense milk and we get 'Evaporated Milk' which is dense milk without sugar (actually milk from which 60% water has been removed).

The 'Evaporated Milk' however contains the thickeing agent carrageenan.

Can we use that to make khoa?

And I didnt happen to mention last time, but this is a wonderful site and very helpful to explore new recipes in cooking.

Also thank you for the prompt reply.

PSK.

Thank you for your kind comments about our site, it makes it all worthwhile for us to know that it helps people to cook Indian food :-)!

Evaporated milk is much thinner than condensed milk and not great for making burfi like sweets. If you are making Indian milk puddings like kheer/kulfi/rabri etc., it may give the taste of condensed milk but lacks the rough texture of home condensed milk.

You can try making khoa with evaporated milk, I don't think I ever have. What are you planning to use your khoa for?

Mamta

Hello

I am planning to make the khoa for barfi.

Will making it from Evaporated milk be a good idea or using regular whole milk would be a better option?

Actually there was one more thing, when we use condensed milk, the recipe tends to be a litlle bit sweeter than normal (that is what my experience has been even though i have not added sugar.To be precise I had made kulfi from condensed milk).

How do adjust the ingredients to make the recipe less sweet?

Do we substitue a part of the required condensed milk with regular milk??

Kindly advice.

PSK.

Condensed milk is much sweeter than normal milk, thats why its often used in cake and toffee making.

Steve

Traditionally, Kulfi is not made from Khoa or tinned condensed milk. It is the new, time saving alternatives of modern lives. A good kulfi does not have the smooth texture of an ice-cream/condensed/evaporated milk. It has the rough texture obtained by condensing the milk by simmering it in an open pan/wok/kadhai. Sometimes, this rough texture is obtained by adding a little white bread, see Kulfi with bread. It should be of custard like thickness before freezing, often obtained by adding corn flour and/or semolina or arrowroot powder. It should also have the 'rough' bits from the milk 'skin' that forms during condensing it. Indian restaurants often serve saffron/cardamom flavoured, pistachio and almond ice-cream as kulfi. That is not true Kulfi. You can add some evaporated milk towards the end, in order to save time, specially when making large quantities. In old days, when I was working, bringing up children and did not have much time, I did use condensed milk, as an addition, when making kheer milk puddings or Kulfi, but I added it to home condensed milk, to hasten the process, not to replace it.

As Steven Askcy says, condensed and evaporated milk are very sweet. IN UK, you can find unsweetened evaporated milk but I have never used it for making either khoa or Burfi. You can certainly try it. Let me know if it works. There are a few Kulfi recipes here on this site, you are welcome to look.

If you want to make low sugar Burfi using Khoa, you will have to make your own. It is not as hard as you might think. Just leave the milk simmering on a back burner while you are cooking a meal or pottering around in the kitchen. Give it regular stir, otherwise you might get the smell of ?burnt milk?, which is the worst thing that can happen to milk. You can buy ready-made khoa, at least here in UK, but it is often quite old and not very nice.

For making burfii less sweet, when using condensed milk, add more of the main ingredients than listed in a recipe, taking care that the milk must still be able to 'bind' it. You can also make burfies from double cream, see Almond Burfi by Sunaina Sehrawat. You can make it with milk powder but that is a bit more fiddly and not so nice, needing sugar syrup. I don't make it that way anymore.

Hope this of help?

Mamta

Quote "pottering around in the kitchen" end quote

Thats just made me realise how much the kitchen is changing in many many families these days. When I was growing up mum would be in the kitchen doing cooking, sorting things out, cleaning, sewing socks and often talking to a visitor or her family... it was a meeting places, the hub of family life...

Now it seems the kitchen is a place where you bash something together and get it down on the table as quickly as possible... such a shame... its where I learnt many basic skills and I'm sure its where many other have to.

Steve