Busy Mommy Media » Dessert Recipes

Make It Yourself: Sweetened Condensed Milk

Lorie — Mon, 24 May 2010 12:00:54 +0000

Have you ever been in the mood for something sweet and you decided to make it at home only to discover that you needed sweetened condensed milk and had none in your pantry? Well there is an alternative that you can make from scratch. It’s easy, quick, and cost much less than the store bought kind, even the generic. Most homes probably have all the ingredients in their pantry already. So why not try making some of your favorite desserts with homemade sweetened condensed milk and save some money.

History of Sweetened Condensed Milk

Gail Borden was very interested in food preservation and after several other inventions discovered sweetened condensed milk. The condensed milk was used for soldiers during the Civil War who needed the nutrition and did not have refrigeration. It was also used to help many infants thrive when other types of milk would not work. This came to be known as the Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk. It is used now in lots of homes for homemade desserts and candies

Recipe For Sweetened Condensed Milk

Taste Like Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk

½ cup hot water

1 cup Dry Powdered Milk

1 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

Blend all ingredients in blender until well blended. This can be refrigerated or frozen.

Makes 14 oz. can

Recipes Using Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk

Homemade sweetened condensed milk can replace the store version in any recipe calling for it. Here are two of my family’s favorite recipe that use sweetened condensed milk.

Homemade Twix Bars

Crust:

1 ¼ c. flour

1/4 c. sugar

1/2 c. butter; room temp

Caramel:
½ c. butter

½ c. brown sugar

2 Tbsp. corn syrup

½ c. sweetened condensed milk

Crumble crust ingredients together. Pack into 9×9 inch pan that has been sprayed, lined with foil and sprayed again. Bake on 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
Combine caramel ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly as it burns easily. Remove from heat. Stir with spoon slowly until it shows signs of thickening. Pour over crust and let cool a little.

Top layer:

Melt approximately 1-2 c. chocolate chips with 1 tsp shortening over low heat or in the microwave. Pour over caramel layer and spread carefully. Chill. Cut into bars.

Better Than Anything Cake

1 box Devil’s Food cake mix (and ingredients listed on box)
6oz Caramel Ice Cream Topping
7oz Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 cup English toffee bits, divided
8 oz cool whip
Mix cake mix according to directions on the box and bake as directed in a 9×13 pan. During the last few minutes of baking, put caramel and condensed milk in a saucepan and stir on medium low heat until mixed. Take cake out of the oven and poke holes over the top (use something wide like a wooden spoon). Pour caramel mixture over cake, filling in holes. Sprinkle toffee bits over the top, saving some for later. Cool completely. Cover with container of Cool Whip and sprinkle with remaining toffee bits. Put in fridge until ready to serve.

Makes 24 servings

Ritter Sport for Chocolate Lovers

Courtney — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:58:57 +0000

This Giveaway is Closed. The 4 Lucky Winners are:

Amber G.
Jannet Tseng
Rita M.
Vicki Andrew

When the lovely people at Ritter Sport offered the chance to review some of their products I jumped at the chance. Who wouldn’t? Chocolate is one of those great unifiers–there are very few people who don’t like it and so many ways to enjoy it that you could probably find one for every day of the year. While Ritter Sport doesn’t have quite that many flavors, they do have many and quite a few that make the most of less than usual combinations of ingredients, such as the Yogurt and Cornflake bars.

These distinctive bars are instantly recognizable due to their bright colored wrappers and unique square shape. The standard bar is 100 grams, or about 3.5 ounces–the size of 2-3 regular chocolate bars. The wrappers give nutrition information for a serving size of six squares but the bars are scored into 16 squares–not quite a number divisible by six which makes for harder portion calculations if you are trying to keep track of those things, but that’s about the only real complaint I have about the bars I reviewed.

Ritter Sport sent me five varieties to sample–Alpine Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, a la Mousse au Chocolat, Whole Almonds and what appears to be the newest addition to the lineup, Neapolitan Wafers. Having long been a consumer of the occasional Ritter Sport bar, I was familiar with their product lines and already had a favorite–Whole Hazelnuts. As such, I was quite happy to sample a couple of flavors new to me as well as some old standbys and compare them to each other.

Alpine Milk Chocolate

First up was the Alpine Milk Chocolate bar. I will confess to being a sucker for milk chocolate. I love a good piece of dark chocolate as much as the next person, but the creamy milk chocolate will always have my heart. This particular bar was wonderful, though I’ll admit to having no idea what makes it “Alpine” since there is both a Milk Chocolate and the Alpine Milk Chocolate in the Ritter Sport line. The milky and smooth chocolate wasn’t overly sweet and allowed the cocoa notes to come through along with a very slight nutty note that I attribute to the inclusion of hazelnut paste. The bar breaks into pieces with a pleasing snap rather than the almost spongy break of lesser chocolates loaded with fillers. Overall,this is an extremely satisfying milk chocolate that is well worth savoring as it melts on your tongue.

Dark Chcolate

Next I tried the Dark Chocolate bar. The Dark bar had a much stronger cocoa note and a waxier texture. It’s a much firmer chocolate than the milk varieties and has an even more satisfying snap as it breaks. It’s a deeply flavored dark with a pleasingly bitter note balancing out the sugar. It’s a bit sweeter than I like my dark chocolates, but it’s still quite good. Like the milk it has a smooth and cool melt on the tongue and the squares are a good size to allow to melt slowly in your mouth.

A La Mousse Au Chocolate

I went ahead and sampled the other dark bar next. Where the Dark Chocolate is a solid bar, a la Mousse au Chocolate is dark chocolate around a “mousse” filling. The filling is firmer in texture than you’d expect with a label of “mousse”, but it’s not unpleasant–more like a slightly aerated milk chocolate-textured center almost the same color as the dark chocolate surrounding it. The filling was sweeter than the shell, which took it to the realm of too sweet for my taste but I can see the appeal. The filling melts faster than the shell, which is a nice play on textures but not a whole lot of difference in taste between the two elements.

Whole Almonds

After the two dark varieties I was ready to return to the remaining milk bars. Whole Almonds was one I hadn’t ever tried, but being such a fan of the Whole Hazelnuts I was pretty sure I’d like it. I wasn’t disappointed. Ritter puts a lot of whole nut into their bars, but not so many that you feel you’re missing out on the chocolate. This bar is what someone who grew up eating Hersheys with Almonds would strive for. The creamy milk chocolate pairs well with the crunchiness of the almonds and makes for a very satisfying treat. You can always justify a snack from one of these bars as being almost good for you due to the lack of fillers and whole almonds within.

Neapolitan Wafer Bar

The Neapolitan Wafer bar was something entirely new to me in this range. Consisting of wafer cookies similar to sugar wafers but filled with a firm hazelnut filling, it’s reminiscent of a Kit Kat type wafer/chocolate bar, but much bigger in terms of flavor, size and cookie. It’s crunchy, melty with hazelnut filling and rounded out by the milk chocolate. Eating one of these just underlines the difference between the “mocklate” candies and real chocolate goodies. Too many of our familiar chocolate treats aren’t chocolate anymore–they’re labeled as “made with milk chocolate” or “chocolate flavored coating” because they’re so beefed up with fillers that they no longer meet the legal definitions of chocolate. Ritter Sport is still using their excellent milk and dark chocolate to make new confections that still retain their identity as real chocolate treats and I’m glad to see it. Having bars like this around expand reminds us of how good real chocolate can be, and I very much look forward to sampling whatever the Ritter Sport kitchens choose to create in the years to come.

Ritter Sport Chocolate Favorites

As for these bars, I think my favorite is the Whole Almond, followed by the Neapolitan Wafer just because it’s a little different. Both are substantial variations on classic candy bar types that take the genre a little further due to the quality of the ingredients involved. Ritter Sport was one of the first “good” chocolate bars my mom introduced me to back in the day and these would be a great choice to introduce anyone to easily available, high quality chocolates.

Have I made you hungry yet?

Enter to Win

Four (4) lucky winners will win a box of Ritter Sport mini bars (84 mini bars to a box). This giveaway is open to the U.S. and will end on February 10, 2010.

Enter the giveaway by commenting on this post. Tell us why you love chocolate.

Please see our site’s Terms and Conditions for a complete list of our contest and giveaway rules.

In compliance with the new FTC Guildlines, please note that this is a sponsored post. I was given Ritter Sport chocolate to test and review free of charge. However, I was not paid for the review and the opinions are my own.

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Easy Blueberry Sauce for Blueberry Topped Treats

Courtney — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:32:50 +0000

This easy blueberry sauce recipe can be used in any of a number of ways–stirred into yogurt, as a topping for pancakes, waffles or ice cream, dribbled over cheesecake, puddled in cottage cheese…the options are endless. I particularly like it over vanilla ice cream on top of a brownie or drizzled over lemon frozen yogurt. Whatever you choose, you’re bound to want to make this sauce over and over again.

Blueberry Sauce
makes just under 2 cups

Ingredients:
12 oz blueberries (fresh or thawed)
1/4 cup sugar or agave syrup or honey
1 teaspoon lemon juice or 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extrac or both

Directions:
Combine the blueberries and sugar in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat about five minutes until the berries start to burst. Remove from heat and either puree the whole batch in a blender for a smooth sauce or 1/3 to 1/2 the batch for a chunkier sauce.If you have a hand blender you can just puree the berries in the pot until you’ve got a consistency you like. Stir the batch back together and add the lemon and/or the vanilla. Taste and adjust the sweetening/lemon/vanilla to your liking and serve warm or chilled.

Blueberry Lemon Frozen Yogurt

Courtney — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:45:14 +0000

Frozen yogurt is an easy way to get another serving of dairy and fruit into your diet in the guise of a treat. Making your own allows you to control everything from the fat and sugar content to the flavorings used. Because of this, you can just about get away with calling it a healthy food and eating it for breakfast–a treat if ever there was one. In this version I use low-fat greek yogurt as a base and flavor it with blueberries, lemon and vanilla.
This method is super easy–just stir everything together and freeze. I used sugar to sweeten this batch, but I’ve had good results with honey and agave syrup as well–use whatever you’re comfortable with or have on hand. Keep in mind that the lower the fat content of the yogurt the harder the leftover will freeze, and the higher the sugar content the softer it will be. If you’re making this for a grownup gathering you can also add a small amount of alcohol (a couple of tablespoons) to help impede freezing, but this does change the texture a bit and I wouldn’t recommend it for feeding to kids. I like to pour leftovers into small serving containers to stash in the freezer for later, or popsicle molds for easier snacking. Leaving the container on the counter for a couple of minutes usually softens it up enough to scoop, but I’m not usually that patient when the yogurt is this good. I like frozen yogurt best straight out of the machine, but it’s still pretty stellar after that. If it melts, it’s still just yogurt you can eat with a spoon.

Blueberry Lemon Frozen Yogurt

Ingredients:
3 cups plain yogurt
1/2 cup sugar
juice of one lemon
zest of one lemon, chopped fine (optional, recommended)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
6-8 oz blueberries (frozen work great here and are cheaper out of season)

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir together. Taste and adjust flavoring/sweetener as desired–you want it sweeter than you’d usually eat it as the chill of the frozen yogurt will dull the taste a bit. Put mixture back in the fridge for at least an hour to chill thoroughly and allow sugar granules to dissolve. Freeze in an ice cream freezer according to manufacturer’s instructions. Makes about 3 1/2 cups.

Cranberry Walnut Pumpkin Cookies

Courtney — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:56:09 +0000

These cookies are a healthier take on the flavors that make the winter holidays great–pumpkin, cinnamon and cranberry. Chock full of pumpkin, flax, walnuts and cranberries (all things that are good for you) and lacking oil, dairy or eggs, they are a nice treat to indulge in post-Thanksgiving. These are lightly sweet, crunchy with walnuts and excellent with a glass of milk or cup of tea or coffee.

Cranberry Walnut Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup ground flax seeds, divided
1/3 cup warm water
1 1/3 cups canned pumpkin
1/2 Tbs cinnamon
3/4 cup firm packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup dried sweetened cranberries

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine 1/4 cup ground flax seeds with 1/3 cup warm water and set aside to soak. Combine pumpkin, cinnamon, brown sugar, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl. Stir in soaked flax seeds and additional 1/4 cup ground flax and stir. Add flour and stir to make a somewhat sticky and elastic dough. Fold in nuts and cranberries. Drop dough onto silicone lined cookie sheet in teaspoonfuls. If a flat cookie is desired, wet fingers with a little water and tap down dough into rounds, otherwise cookies will not spread on their own. Bake for 7-9 minutes until edges just start to brown and remove to cool on baking wracks or paper.

Pumpkin Cake

Courtney — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:12:23 +0000

This pumpkin cake is one of my absolute must-make recipes for most of fall and winter, no matter what the occasion. It’s a great dessert to have on hand during the holidays, and is a way to get your pumpkin fix if you’re not a huge fan of pumpkin pie as well. The cake itself is super moist and can be enjoyed simply topped with powdered sugar, plain, or dressed up with a cream cheese icing. Make it early, make it often and it will always get eaten.

Pumpkin Cake
9×13 pan or jelly roll pan

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2-3 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 cup oil
2 cups (1 small can) pumpkin
4 eggs

Directions:
Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and stir. Add all the wet ingredients and beat for one minute with a mixer at medium speed. Pour into greased jelly roll or 9×13 baking pan and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees until the top pops back up when pressed with your thumb. Allow to cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar or ice as desired.

Notes-
-If you’ve ever had a pumpkin whoopie pie, this is pretty much exactly that same kind of taste and texture, minus the cream cheese filling. So if you are craving pumpkin whoopie pies, ice a piece of this with cream cheese icing and you’ll be set.
-I’ve not yet tried making this with applesauce instead of oil, but I think it would still hold up just fine. I’ll update it when I do to confirm whether or not that works. I can’t see why it wouldn’t since there’s also the pumpkin in it to keep it on the moist side. In the meantime, it may not be healthy, but it’s really, really good.

Homemade Caramel Apples: Easy, Inexpensive, and Taste Better!

Lorie — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:34:27 +0000

It’s Halloween time and what’s better than a Caramel Apple oozing with all that wonderful tasting caramel! I have always made caramel apples with the little squares that you just melt in your pan. Well, this year I found a recipe from Crystal that I decided to try. I had everything in my pantry except for the apples which all seemed to be on sale right now at my grocery. I also made my own sweetened condensed milk since I had those ingredients on hand too. So, this recipe was pretty cheap for my. It also taste so much better than the caramel squares! I promise you that you will never go back to those squares again! Hope you enjoy these and have a Happy Halloween!

Homemade Caramel Apples

8-10 Granny Smith Apples
1 c. butter
*1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk

2 1/4 c. brown sugar
1 c. corn syrup
1 t. vanilla

Popsicle sticks

Instructions

1. Wash and dry apples. Stick popsicle sticks in the stem. Place aluminum foil or wax paper sprayed with non-stick spray on 9×13 pans.
2. Melt butter and brown sugar together over medium high heat, stirring constantly. Add in sweetened condensed milk and corn syrup and keep stirring constantly! Heat until 245 degrees (keep stirring!) on candy thermometer or until small amount of mixture dropped into cup of very cold water forms a firm ball that holds its shape until pressed. Immediately remove from heat and add vanilla.
3. Roll apples in caramel and place on foil/wax paper lined pan. Allow to cool for 2 hours.

*You can also make your own sweetened condensed milk my mixing ½ cup hot water, 1 c. non-instant dry milk, 1 cup sugar, and 1 Tablespoon butter in your blender.

Cool Treats Don’t Have to Freeze the Budget

Lorie — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:17:23 +0000

It’s July and it’s HOT! What do you and your kids want most? Well, if they are like mine they want cool treats like slushies, milkshakes, ice cream, and Blizzards from Dairy Queen. The only problem is if I go out and buy these items they will freeze my budget. So, how do I give my kids these cool summer treats but not freeze my budget? Well, the thing I came up with is to make my own at home. Not only are they cheaper, but you can also let your kids help you make them. My kids love to make summer treats at home. When I make Blizzards at home, I can make at least a dozen for the same cost as one at the fast food restaurant. I have to buy 6 for my family when I go out, so for me making them at home is the best option right now. So, if your kids are craving those expensive cool treats this summer, try some of these homemade recipes. I hope your family loves them as much as mine does!

The Magic Milkshake (Taste like a Wendy’s Frosty)

1-1/2 to 2 cups ice water
1-1/2 cups nonfat dry milk powder
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 to 1-1/2 trays of ice cubes, as much as you can spare
2 tablespoons corn oil plus a 5-second squirt of non-stick spray for emulsification purpose (I used canola oil)
Place all of the ingredients into the blender, including the oil and the non-stick spray. Use less water for thicker milk shakes and more water for shakes that are easy on your blender motor. The blender should be about 3/4’s full. Place the lid on. Process for a full 2 minutes. Pour into cups and serve. Makes 4 – 12oz servings.

Recipe from Hillbillly Housewife

Slushies

2 cups ice water
1 packet fruit-flavored drink mix (use your favorite flavor)
2/3 cup sugar
4 cups or 1 full tray of ice cubes

You need a blender to prepare this recipe. Put all of the ingredients into your blender. It will be about 2/3 to 3/4′s full. Put the lid on. Process the mixture on high for a full minute. Stop the blender, use a spoon to stir it a bit. Look for unchopped ice chunks. If all the chunks are grated up, then go ahead and serve it. You may need to process it for another full minute though. Serve immediately. I usually have to spoon this out of the blender with a measuring cup because the mixture is so thick. Makes 4 – 8oz servings.
Recipe from Hillbilly Housewife

Homemade Blizzards

1 candy bar

1/4-1/2 cup milk

2 ½ cups vanilla ice cream

1 teaspoon fudge sauce

Freeze candy bar. Break into pieces while still in the wrapper. Combine all of the ingredients in a blender and blend on medium for 30 seconds or until well mixed. Pour into 16 oz glass

Makes: 1 serving

And don’t forget the Ice Cream in a Bag recipe for ice cream.

Peaches & Cream Dessert

Courtney — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:03:15 +0000

This beyond easy and super fast dessert is another recipe inspired by what I dub “Grandma food.” The exception compared to other Grandma recipes is that this one wasn’t super special, just her response to just about always serving some form of dessert when we were visiting and this one showed up when she spent her effort on the actual dinner dishes. As I was running through a grocery store gathering the last few things I needed for dinner I stumbled on a pile of angel food cakes on sale and decided to use her mixture of pudding and cake as the base of my own variation, this one inspired by the big can of peaches I already had in my basket. Necessity can be the mother of invention and this peaches and cream dessert turned out to be a keeper.

Like many moms and grandmothers, my grandmother ALWAYS had a couple of boxes of pudding and jello mix on hand and they made frequent appearances at the end of the meal. I infinitely preferred her angel food cake concoctions to jello with fruit in it, so I was always glad when the beat up brownie tin appeared on the table with bits of chocolate pudding peeking through a layer of cool whip. There were a few other pudding-based desserts that were popular in the rotation as well, but this was the fastest and most common one to appear when she hadn’t thought far enough ahead to make jello. Using instant pudding and a store bought cake (day old is GREAT for this) can have it all come together in less than 10 minutes before chilling, and if you use instant you don’t neccessarily need to chill it, it’s just better if you do. You will definitely have leftover angel food cake after making this if you use a medium sized casserole dish, so you can either serve that on it’s own later or use it to make this again the next day, or double the pudding and fruit and make it in a 9×13 dish.
This also works great with other kinds of fruit, but if you’re using canned I’d stick to peaches or apricots. Fresh or previously frozen peaches are great too, as are strawberries, raspberries or just about any kind of stone fruit or berry.

Peaches & Cream Angel Food Dessert

Ingredients:
1 small box vanilla cook & serve pudding mix
2 cups milk (any kind)
1 store bought angel food cake
1 large can sliced peaches
1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
Cool Whip (optional)

Directions:
Mix pudding packet with milk and cook according to package directions, stirring in almond extract when done. While waiting for it to heat up, drain peaches and rip about 1/3-1/2 of the angel food cake into bite sized pieces. Layer the cake pieces into an 8-10 inch square casserole dish, adding more cake if needed to cover bottom of pan. Pour pudding evenly overtop cake and distribute peaches over pudding and cover with a layer of cool whip if desired. Put dish in fridge to chill and serve cold.

Chocolate variation (AKA: Grandma’s Original):
Layer angel food cake in pan, cover with a batch of instant chocolate pudding, smooth with a spatula and then top with a layer of cool whip. Chill.

Notes:
Instant pudding is fine with either variation, I just prefer the cook and serve vanilla’s taste, especially when using it to make trifle-type desserts or pie fillings, and I personally think it works better when flavoring with extracts.
Using non-dairy milk will result in a less opaque pudding, so if looks are important to you you may wish to use more peaches to totally cover the top of your dish if you’re not using the cool whip to cover it. It might not photograph pretty but it does taste very, very good.

Chocolate Tofu Pudding

Courtney — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:00:07 +0000

This is about as instant as instant pudding can get and tastes better than commercial pudding cups. Chocolate covers the relatively mild soy taste of the silken tofu, so even the tofu haters tend to eat this one without complaint. This pudding is excellent straight out of the blender or ice cold from the fridge, and would also lend itself well to being frozen in popsicle molds for a pudding pop treat.

You can try this with just about any instant pudding flavor, but milder ones like lemon and vanilla can let the soy come through, while pistachio is also excellent as is. It’s an easy way to shove a little extra veggie protein into anyone’s diet and an enjoyable treat as is.

Chocolate Tofu Pudding

About 2 1/2 cups

Ingredients:

1 12 oz package silken tofu, soft or firm
1 package instant chocolate pudding mix
1/4 cup rice, almond, soy or dairy milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional, recommended)
cinnamon (optional)
Directions:

Place all ingredients except cinnamon into the bowl of a food processor or blender, crumbling tofu into chunks for easier blending. Blend to combine, pausing once or twice to scrape down sides if pudding mix clumps there. Pour into serving dishes when smooth and sprinkle with cinnamon.

Variation: Deep Dark Chocolate
Add two to three tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder before blending. Or more, if you want it super dark. If you go very dark, double the vanilla extract to temper some of the bitterness. If you taste as you go it’s entirely possible to end up with pudding that tastes like melted dark chocolate and goes splendidly with strawberries.