Kitchen Tip of the Week: Dry Milk vs Regular Milk

I assume everyone has noticed that lately milk prices have been going up, up, up! It's becoming more and more rare to catch a gallon of milk on sale for $1.99. The cheapest I've seen in recent weeks is $2.29. So, that's only $.30 more, but with all the baking we do and 5 people drinking at least 1 glass a day....we go through 2 + gallons a week!

I have recently started using dry milk in my baking. There is virtually no taste difference, and it lets me save the expensive liquid milk for drinking with meals and with cereals.

I bought a cheap box of Meijer Dry Milk to use in recipes. I think I paid $4 for the box. I have used it in 5 different recipes that call for 1/2 cup or more of milk, and I still have more than half the box of dry milk left! I'd say that we made out pretty good with it.

When I mix it up, I've been mixing for a quart of milk at a time. You can mix up 8 fl oz, if you want, but I figured if I'm baking a few things at a time, I might as well just mix up a quart and keep it in the fridge. It's good for a few days (I think the box says to use with 10 days of mixing with water; the most I've gone is 2 days.).

The measurements on my box say to mix 1 1/3 cups dry milk with 3 3/4 cups COLD water. I emphasize COLD water because the directions on the box did, too. :) I have been mixing it in a container with a lid and spout, so I can just shake it up together then open the spout and pour it into measuring cups for the recipes.

I cannot taste any difference in the foods once they're baked. I even used the dry milk mixture in 2 casseroles and we didn't notice a difference in taste for those either.

We are not quite brave enough to drink the dry milk mixture. I think I'll let us stick with our expensive liquid milk for now!

With the way food prices have been increasing, maybe dry milk is something you should start considering to use in recipes. If you can find a box on sale, you'll probably end up spending way less per cup on the dry milk than you would on the gallon of liquid milk per cup usage.