Adventures in condensed milk-making...
...and my recipe for alfajores with hojicha-flavoured dulce de leche.
When I was in my 20’s and still living in Toronto, I frequented a yerba mate cafe on Queen Street West called El Almacen. I was completely off coffee at this point, so I touted mate’s energy-giving benefits to anyone who might listen. El Almacen was one of my absolute favourite cafes back in my home city. They have since moved locations, from their Queen West digs to deep in the Junction—close to the corner of Weston Road and Lawrence West. I have not yet been to their new location, and I know I am long overdue for a visit back to my hometown, but truthfully, I will always have a soft spot for their Queen West location. I still miss their OG digs.
My first yerba mate experience is one I will never forget. I made myself a strong cup one morning for breakfast. As I stepped into the shower about an hour later, I could not help but notice how much I was shaking. I was immediately overcome with the desire to, oh, I don’t know, jump up and down, or run a 12k. I felt like I was given a powerful energy drink. Yerba mate is just that, really. It is a powerful, energy-boosting herbal tisane made out of the stems and leaves from the Ilex paraguariensis plant. Green yerba mate tastes bitter, earthy, and tobacco-like, while its roasted counterpart tastes malty, nutty, and even slightly chocolate-y. For some, green mate is an acquired taste. My husband cannot live without it. I prefer roasted mate myself, sweetened with a little bit of honey and topped with some oat milk. The only time I will ever consider drinking green yerba mate is when I eat alfajores. More on this later.
Mate is traditionally served in a gourd called a calabasa, made from the fruit of the bottle gourd plant—the calabash. You then sip the brewed mate through a metal straw outfitted with a built-in strainer called a bombilla. You can, of course, steep the mate like a tea using a brewing basket or a disposable tea bag, but the magic of yerba mate lies in its multiple steeps. When you order a yerba mate to stay at El Almacen, for instance, they present you with a ceramic mug, a small container of yerba mate leaves, a bombilla, and a 1L thermos filled with hot water. You fill up your cup with a couple of tablespoons of yerba mate and hot water and drink. Then, once you are through your cup, you pour hot water over the now-wet yerba mate leaves, drink, and repeat, until your yerba mate starts to lose its potency and flavour. I remember spending hours at El Almacen with a novel or my laptop editing photos, with my one order of yerba mate, some empanadas, and my favourite treat, alfajores.
Alfajores are sandwich cookies similar to shortbread, the difference being that the dough is cut with a good amount of cornstarch for that melt-in-your-mouth texture. They can feel a little dry when you eat these cookies without tea, or, in my case, brewed yerba mate, but I do not discriminate against those who love this cookie on its own; I do too! But believe me when I say… brewed yerba mate with alfajores is pure alchemy—a match made in heaven.
Strong is my love for this cookie, that there was once a time when I would frequent El Almacen almost weekly and purchase about 6 to 8 cookies for myself and my sister, to enjoy for our afternoon tea dates at home. When I moved to Vancouver in 2010, I missed El Almacen something fierce, so every time I flew back home to Toronto for a visit, I would always order a dozen to take back with me a day or two before flying back to Vancouver.
During the start of the pandemic, the cravings for El Almacen’s alfajores hit so hard, I decided I would attempt to make this cookie. But I had one hurdle ahead of me: I did not want to use condensed milk out of a can. I wanted to make condensed milk from scratch.
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It was around 2015 when I foolishly thought condensed milk was just equal parts whole milk and sugar brought to a boil until thick. I was so, so wrong. Not only did my condensed milk not turn out like I thought it would, I ended up with a product that was overly saccharine. It was a disaster.
Truth is, making condensed milk from scratch takes time. Recipes found all over the web range from about half an hour of stove-sitting to around forty-five minutes, but this really all depends on the kind of stove you have. For roughly two cups of condensed milk, I would average about an hour of solid stove time on my home stove. The technique that worked best and consistently for me is outlined in this Mary’s Nest video. The trick is to dissolve the sugar completely before turning the heat down anywhere between medium low to low. The goal is to get your sweetened liquid to a gentle simmer. Never let it get to a rolling boil; this will lead to a much-grittier condensed milk. That said, I was able to rescue a gritty condensed milk by putting the mixture through a high-speed blender shortly after passing it through a fine sieve first. It totally did the job and gave me the consistency I was looking for.
So, is it really worth making your own condensed milk? I guess it really all depends. If I really am in a bind, then sure, I will use a can of the store-bought stuff. I try to look for Eagle Brand; their ingredients contain only milk and sugar. Still, most brands contain a combination of liquid invert sugars that are not required by the food-powers-that-be to name, as well as a bunch of added vitamins that have been lost during the milk-making process. I really want to control as much of the ingredients that go into my cooking, and really, I just wanted to distill the condensed milk-making process into what it is—milk and sugar. I hardly ever buy cow’s milk these days, but when I do, I buy milk from my favourite cheese-makers at the farmers market and use organic cane sugar. Sure, I dislike the lengthy stove time, especially when making a double batch, but I am rewarded with such a beautiful product in the end. I prepare for my annual Christmas cookie boxes sometimes three weeks in advance, and it is during those early stages of cookie-prep where I find the time to make condensed milk. I have learned a lot about condensed milk-making since I first published this recipe; my methods have definitely changed since.
Oh, and another benefit to making your own condensed milk? You get to flavour this condensed milk however way you want. Mine is flavoured with hojicha.
Hojicha is a roasted green tea from Japan comprised out of the stems and leaves of anywhere from the second harvest to the last tea harvest of the season. They tend to look like browned pine needles or crushed, brown autumn leaves, and have a toasted, almost nutty flavour reminiscent of roasted banana leaves. My use of hojicha complements the deep, milky caramel notes of a homemade dulce de leche. Earl grey would also work wonderfully in a from-scratch dulce de leche. In essence, the world of flavoured condensed milks, and therefore dulce de leche, is almost entirely limitless.