More Praise for Condensed Milk

Time to use up the rest of that can of condensed milk.

And by lucky coincidence, there's an interesting article in the New York Times about the fondness for sugary canned dairy products in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Someday I'll get around to laboring over a tres leches cake, but for this weekend I decided to go with brigadeiros, a Brazilian confection made by heating condensed milk until it thickens into a chewy fudge.

Though the NYT article gives some worthwhile recipes, I can't totally understand its lamentation of how condensed milk has been shunned by Westerners for so long, or its claim that it's only just now coming to be appreciated. Personally, I've been appreciating condensed milk for a long time. At one fortunate period in high school, Canned Foods must have been selling eight-ounce cans of it for about six cents each, because my mother came home with around 50 of them. After she reminded me of her favorite childhood recipe of fried bread with condensed milk, Katherine and I took to pan-frying slices of bread in butter and dipping them into a communal bowl of the wonderfully sticky milk. It became a common afterschool pasttime, despite Marc's looks of disgust.

But I was introduced to condensed milk long before high school, as evidenced by a quote from one of my favorite books at age five:

"Pooh always liked a little something at eleven o'clock in the morning, and he was very glad to see Rabbit getting out the plates and mugs; and when Rabbit said, 'Honey or condensed milk with your bread?' he was so excited that he said, 'Both,' and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, 'But don't bother about the bread, please.'"

But the New York Times did introduce me to this foolproof way to make fudge. Regular brigadeiros are flavored with cocoa powder, but Brazilians are well aware that combining rich, buttery sweetness with coconut is a great idea, so I imagine this type is quite popular too. I had to adjust the recipe to the amount of condensed milk I had left, but I wish I had been able to make a bigger batch. All kinds of colorful garnishes, like crushed nuts, colored sprinkles, candy-coated fennel seeds, even a small amount of fleur de sel, could make a very whimsical fudge ball platter.

Coconut Brigadeiros

1 cup sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup coconut milk

2 tablespoons butter

2 teaspoons corn syrup or agave nectar

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut, divided

Combine all ingredients except 1/2 cup shredded coconut in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer, whisking constantly, until mixture thickens and starts to come together into a ball (about 10 minutes). Pour into a bowl and allow to come to room temperature, then cool in the refrigerator for at least four hours. Using a teaspoon measure, scoop fudge and roll into balls about 3/4 inch in diameter. Roll in the remaining shredded coconut to coat.