Milk-cicles

I am lactose intolerant so milk is not something that I keep around the house. That said, it still has uses in occasional recipes that I put together and it can be frustrating to have to buy one of those little bottles of milk at premium prices just to make up one meal.  I have tried dry milk in the past, and there is nothing wrong with it but the up-front cost is high and my dry goods storage is very limited so it somehow never makes the cut when I am doing groceries vs budget. Evaporated milk is even pricier and I am not too keen on having to deal with portions left over in the can after using what I need (and again dry storage space issues). So that leaves good old milk in a jug, and my roomy chest freezer.

I started reading on how to freeze milk and most posts deal with full jugs, removing an inch or two of the milk for expansion, and freezing them as is. While useful for normal people, there is no way I can ever use a full jug before it goes bad so I decided that pre measuring and freezing in small batches would work better. In one of the comments I read, it was suggested to use silicone measuring bowls to freeze liquids then just pop them out of the silicone and store in freezer bags which seems brilliant... then I remembered I have no silicone measure bowls.


A dig through the kitchen, however, did turn up some silicone muffin pans and some individual silicone cupcake cups (shaped like flower pots no less) which I guessed would work just as well.  I placed the silicone cups in regular old muffin tins to give them strength, filled them with measured amounts, then placed them inside plastic cake carriers to help keep out any dust and freezer smells.

Really old, hard water spotted muffin tins...

The carriers were stacked in the freezer to solidify for a day then the frozen milks were popped out and put in freezer baggies and marked them with an exp date of three months from now.  I have to say that I am very happy with these new, handy milk-cicles.

Posted in: Kitchen