Condensed Cereal Milk

When was the last time you had a bowl of cereal? I’m talking about good old-fashioned cornflakes with a sprinkle of sugar and ice-cold milk.

Personally, I did this morning when photographing the images used in this post, but when I was in high school and playing water polo, I used to return home after each practice or match absolutely ravenous and smash a big bowl of cereal. Cornflakes to be exact.

It became a serious habit and something I looked forward to, but as I got older the concept of cereal became something I was less and less interested in when it came to food – until I discovered the magic of cereal milk.

Using cereal milk as a base for any dessert which calls for the ingredient adds a toasty layer of flavour you won’t know you missed until you’ve tried it.

This week saw us ending up with a surplus of milk due to my boyfriend being home for half of the time he’s usually here, and because I’ve been drinking a lot less coffee than usual. We get 2 litres of milk delivered twice a week thanks to Happy Milk, but come Thursday we ended up having more than 3 litres of milk in our fridge which I knew we weren’t going to be able to finish.

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So when life gives you too much milk, you make homemade condensed milk.

I also needed to make a batch of ice cream for some content I’m creating around a giveaway that’s going live later next week, and as I use condensed milk in all my no-churn ice cream bases this was perfect. Because I’ve also been wanting to do something with cereal milk for a while, I decided to experiment with making a condensed milk version.

The results were brilliant and I’m really excited about this one.

Condensed Cereal Milk

This can be used as a base for ice cream or used in any recipe which calls for condensed milk. I added milk powder to the mix because it adds an additional depth of flavour. If you don’t have milk powder on hand, then you can leave it out without sacrificing too much.

The ingredients below yield about 650ml of condensed milk.

Ingredients

• 2 cups cornflakes
• 3 cups of milk
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 tbsp milk powder

Method

1. Place the cornflakes in a large bowl and pour over the milk. Cover and place in the fridge for around 2-3 hours to soak.
2. Strain the mixture over a saucepan, pushing it gently with the back of a spoon to get as much of the milk out as possible. Discard the soggy cereal pulp or save it to use in something else (I haven’t gotten that far yet).
3. Add the sugar and the milk powder to the milk and whisk to combine.
4. Heat the mixture over medium-low heat and continue whisking until it comes to a slow simmer.
5. Continue whisking every now and then until the mixture has reduced by about half. Do not leave it because you could risk it boiling over and having a horrible mess to clean up (I speak from experience).
6. When it’s done pour into a sterilised jar or jars and refrigerate until needed (keeps for about two weeks).