Tip

If you don't have sweetened condensed milk on hand or the dry milk powder stuff, here is an alternative substitute.

One cup evaporated milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Add 1 1/4 cup sugar. Stir until dissolved. Let cool.

That "let cool" part. It's important. But otherwise this substitution worked like a gem for my cookies yesterday.

Who knew there was SO MUCH sugar in sweetened condensed milk?! Oh my!

Milk v. Condensed Milk : Something I learned last night

Do NOT fool around with baking recipes. How many times has my mother told me to always make a recipe exactly as it is the first time around. How many times have I not listened to her. Too many times. "You can fool around with cooking, but NOT with baking," she says. Tonight I'm going to a girl's night sleepover with my cousins and I promised to make cookie dough balls. I can't recall who's blog I got them from..I should really start tracking that, so I apologize to whoever's recipe I'm going to post eventually. Last night, my dinner obligation canceled on me due to inclement weather we are having so I thought I'd get a head start and make them. The recipe called for condensed sweetened milk, whwich we did not have so I used milk and added extra brown sugar...bad idea. The two cups of flour that the recipe called for gave the dough a pasty flavor that no amount of sugar could destroy. That was the whole purpose of the SWEETENED condensed milk.

sigh.

So, tonight i'm trying again doing it the right way. I will let you know how it turns out.