Milk powder sweet recipe featuring Leche Flan, Pumpkin Pie and Banana Cake

It's a tad difficult to narrow down recipes that exclusively use milk powder and not fresh milk in their recipes because nothing beats fresh milk as compared to powder. While desi sweets extensively use it instead of fresh milk or in combination with it, the rest of the world hasn't adapted this practice as rigorously. But we do have some classic desserts that use milk powder. that taste just as delicious, if not similar. We don’t have just one milk powder sweet recipe, but three! Perfect for self or a small group of people, if you ask us.

1. Crustless Pumpkin Pie

This recipe makes a crustless pumpkin pie, so you can forget the hassle of working with dough or even purchasing a readymade frozen crust, to bake your pie in. This recipe makes enough to make 8 slices to be shared among four people with a case of sweet tooth.

Ingredients

- 425 gm pumpkin puree

- 180 gm sugar

- 2 eggs, room temperature

- 1 tbsp cornstarch

- 125 gm powdered milk

- 350 ml warm water

- 1 tbsp choice of ground spices: cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and salt

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Take warm water in a shallow bowl, add the powdered milk, and whisk until mixed and no lumps are visible in the bowl. Set aside.
3. Take a big bowl, add the rest of the ingredients to it, give it a mix, and add the liquid powdered milk from the shallow bowl into it. Mix to combine and make your custard.
4. Grease or use cooking spray on a pie plate, and pour the liquid custard you just made.
5. Bake the crustless pumpkin pie at 180°C for one hour.
6. Once nicely baked, remove it from the oven and serve the pumpkin pie with either vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. You could also lightly dust it with ground cinnamon.

2. Banana Cake

This recipe makes one standard loaf and is different from a loaf of banana bread, the latter being denser and less sweeter, and the former the exact opposite. This recipe makes a moist banana cake that is sweet and makes use of two to three spotty bananas.

Ingredients

- 240 gm mashed ripe bananas (about 2-3 overripe bananas)

- 125 gm all-purpose flour

- 180 gm milk powder

- 180 gm powdered sugar

- 180 ml cream (malai)

- ¾ tsp baking soda

- ¼ tsp baking soda

- ¼ tsp cinnamon powder

- 25 gm walnuts, chopped

- ½ tsp vanilla essence

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, grease a 9-inch loaf pan, round or square pan, with butter, then flour it, tap out the excess, and set aside.
2. Mash the bananas in a bowl until smooth, trying to get as little lumpy texture as you can.
3. In the same bowl add the flour, milk powder, powdered sugar, cream, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. Mix until just combined.
4. Fold in the walnuts in the last step, being careful not to overmix.
5. The batter will be light and fluffy but dense.
6. Pour the batter into the greased and floured pan and smoothen the top with a spatula.
7. Bake at 180°C in the preheated oven, for 40-45 minutes.
8. Let the timer go off then check if the cake is fully baked, by inserting a toothpick into the center of the cake, if it comes out clean, your cake is done.
9. Serve the cake, sliced, warm with vanilla ice cream.

3. Leche Flan

Straight from the Philippines, comes this easiest dessert recipe for a classic favorite of the country – the Leche Flan. It usually uses evaporated milk, condensed milk and a few other ingredients, but we made it simpler with powdered milk.

Ingredients

- 3 eggs

- 1 can of condensed milk

- 1 pack powdered milk

- 2-3 tbsp sugar (for the caramelized coating)

Instructions

1. Whisk whole eggs in a bowl using a whisk or fork, then carefully add the powdered milk to the eggs, whisking until you have a lump-free and smooth mixture.
2. Add the condensed milk next adjusting the quantity depending on the sweetness you want in your Leche Flan.
3. Take a metal ramekin, similar to the traditional Leche Flan mold used in the Philippines, and place it on top of the stove. Heat on low flame then put the sugar in it, and mix until the sugar caramelizes into a liquid.
4. Pour the ingredients you had mixed into the mold with the caramel.
5. Put your mold in the steamer and steam it for 30-45 minutes. Let the Leche Flan cool down to room temperature, then refrigerate it to chill.