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When I was a child the thought of drinking powdered milk sent chills up my spine. I couldn’t stand the stuff, and always knew when my mom made powdered milk in “real” milk jug. Now that I am older and wiser (I hope) I see the wisdom in my mother’s ways. Even as I type this my oldest daughter is telling me how powdered milk tastes weird, and she only likes it on cereal. I find the fact that she likes it on cereal to be a small victory!
I did some quick calculations and found that powdered milk costs approximately $2 a gallon. Depending on where you live and how much you are paying for milk that could be a savings of up to $3 a gallon for milk. When cooking, I always use powdered milk. Depending on the recipe, sometimes I put the powder and the water with the other ingredients, but other times I premix the milk. When we are running low on milk I will also make powdered milk and mix it with the milk I have on hand to stretch it for another day. We also use pre-made powdered milk in our smoothies and do not notice a taste difference.
One secret to making powdered milk taste better is to mix it in a blender on low. If you mix it on high it becomes way too foamy. Then refrigerate the milk overnight. This does make the milk taste better, I promise. Remember that powdered milk is fat free milk, so it will never have that creamy whole milk taste.
I encourage any skeptics to give powdered milk a try, if nothing else, use it for cooking and you won’t notice any difference at all.
For more kitchen tips stop by Tammy’s blog, and for more frugal tips visit Mary.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I did an experiment with my family – I made up powdered milk, got it good and cold overnight, and put it into the milk container. No one noticed. (Disclaimer – we always drink nonfat milk!) Even if you only use it in cooking, you can save a lot. Some families use half powdered milk and half purchased milk, too.
Unfortunately we are not very healthy people – we don’t drink much milk except on cereal – we do love our cheese, but powdered cheese is really disgusting.
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I also use powdered milk for my kids cereal. They still don’t know the difference. I also use it for cooking….much cheaper and so convenient when you are low on milk! Now, if I could just get myself to use it on my cereal….he he he. I grew up witha real milk cow for my milk….too much of the good stuff makes it hard to go back:)
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I love powdered milk for bread recipes and homemade yogurt and some other things….
I’ve been wanting to use this AS MILK but thought I couldn’t pull it off! You abd Nancy (above) have challenged me…think I’ll have to try it:-)!
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My mom used powder milk for cooking/baking and I do that also. I’ve never been able to tell the difference (unless I have to actually drink it; just can’t do that).
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I really need to do a price comparison for powdered milk. I’d be happy to use it for cooking. We only drink organic milk. I wonder if they have organic powdered milk and how much that costs???
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I am off to the kitchen to make powdered milk into milk… I have several packages that someone gave me and I have been putting off making it and mixing it with the regular milk. I grew up on powdered milk… One thing I remember is we never ran out of milk… My mom was so organized
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I did the same thing your mother did. But we don’t drink much milk either. I make more pancakes etc. instead of cold cereal.
A gal. of milk here in MN is $3.49 give or take.
You can get cal. from other foods.
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