6 Condensed Milk Brands, Ranked Worst To Best

What do tres leches cake, dulce de leche, and fudge have in common — besides being delicious, of course? They all wouldn't be the same without one key ingredient: sweetened condensed milk. This sugary, milky concoction is truly a baker's secret weapon, as it can take your Rice Krispies treats to a new level and add a delectable flavor to your cherry pie filling. But, there are also other, more niche uses for sweetened condensed milk, too — all of which employ the product's thick consistency and saccharine flavor.

If you have a go-to brand of sweetened condensed milk, then so be it. But, if you want to see how different manufacturers of this seemingly standardized product vary, then you're in the right place. In order to test the flavor and discover the nuances between different condensed milk brands, I added them to a simple, three-ingredient pound cake recipe and tasted them in a refreshing Thai iced tea. Then, I ranked each can based on its flavor, value, and overall utility in the kitchen.

Great Value's products are either an automatic win or a big pass — and unfortunately, the Great Value sweetened condensed milk that I sampled falls into the latter camp. Going into this experiment, I thought to myself, "How much different can sweetened condensed milk taste?" Well, the answer is very, very different. But it isn't the taste that's an issue here — it's the texture.

The Great Value condensed milk is far thicker than any of the other brands that I sampled. While other brands plopped into the mixing bowl with the flour and the eggs, I had to go in with a spatula to try and extract the right amount of condensed milk for the cake batter. It was even stickier than Eagle Brand. I found its consistency made it difficult to stir and mix it into the rest of the batter. And like the thick (though comparatively less gloopy) Eagle Brand, Great Value's cake came out hard like a rock, with very little softness and few air pockets. The cake was dense and heavy, though it didn't have the sweet flavor that I was expecting. It wasn't milky-tasting like a cake made with the Carnation brand, either. I wouldn't say that the cake made with Great Value's milk had any flavor, really.

The woes continued when I tried to make Thai tea. I had to stir for several minutes before the beverage started to lighten in color, which was nothing short of a pain. While this was the cheapest product that I sampled, I think that its thick consistency played a role in the poor results of both the cake and the Thai tea. If you were whipping it into a Russian buttercream frosting, where you could introduce more air into it to help stave off the thickness, I think it would help. But it's not my pick of the litter for every other baking application.

One perk, right off the bat, with Eagle Brand's sweetened condensed milk is that it comes with a pop tab — so no can opener is required. This would make working with it in the kitchen super easy, so it won some brownie points for itself before I had even cracked the seal. But when I finally got the can open, I found that it had a far thicker consistency than the Carnation brand that I had just worked with prior. I suspected this would be a problem later on with the bake, as a thicker consistency may suggest a lack of moisture, which would, in turn, impact the crumb structure of the cake.

As I suspected, this highly thick, gooey condensed milk really influenced the consistency of the cake. Whereas the other samples were light, airy, and fluffy, the crumb structure of this one was very tight. The top was a little more browned and had a delectable sheen, and I found the sweetness of the cake to be slightly more apparent than with other brands. Moreover, I noticed that there were a lot of pockets and streaks of flour in this cake. While this may look like a baker's error, I was completely sure that I mixed well before I poured it into the liners to ensure that no pockets of flour remained. So, my only reason for why this streaking may be happening is because the condensed milk was so thick that it couldn't be evenly distributed with the flour.

I also found that this milk struggled to integrate with the thinner Thai tea for the beverage test. It took a whole lot of stirring to get the two to mix together, and even then, I could still scrape the bottom of the glass and find some spots where the condensed milk just sunk to the bottom.

Overall, I think this was a good condensed milk to use in the kitchen, but you just have to be aware of the fact that it was sweeter than you might expect. As a result, I ranked it lower than the Carnation milk, which seamlessly mixed with the tea.

I didn't have any particular thoughts or feelings about the Nestlé Carnation canned condensed milk right off the bat. It had a middle-of-the-road sweetness and consistency compared to other brands. The flavor is very milk-forward, and the sweetness is milder than that of some of the other brands, which I think ultimately had an effect on the taste of the cake. While the other cakes were darker in color, almost taking on a golden-brown hue, this one remained beautifully golden and soft. It had a slight crust on the outside, which meant that there was some sugar in this can that caramelized as the cake baked, but the crispy skin was less noticeable than with other brands. Since a higher sugar content would potentially lead to a crispier crust and a darker color, I suspect that Carnation instead opted for a more milk-forward formula rather than one that was purely sweet.

The tea that I made with this product was not overwhelmingly sweet, which I can appreciate. The Thai tea concentrate was already sweetened, which means that adding in too much condensed milk could potentially make it too sweet. It did, however, impart a creamy mouthfeel that was worthy of note.

Overall, I preferred using this canned condensed milk for the Thai tea, but not necessarily for baking. If you buy it for your own personal uses, expect that its flavor will be less sugar-forward than other brands. Granted, if you use it in a tres leches cake, I don't think you'll really be able to tell, but some desserts may just require a bit more sweetness than this brand can offer.

Nestlé is a relatively reputable brand within the food space and one that I, along with many consumers, are familiar with. Its La Lechera sweetened condensed milk was a product that I knew right off the bat that I could trust — after all, there is a delicious-looking flan on the label. Like many of the other brands, this product had a goopy and easy to mix consistency; there wasn't any noticeable issues with its structure that would otherwise make me concerned about how it would perform. The color of the bake was standard; it was just a golden as the other brands.

When I cracked the cake open, I noticed that it had a texture that was a bit dry and stodgy, but it wasn't as thick and dense as some of the other brands — especially the one made with Great Value's product. The flavor of this cake was no doubt milky and pleasurable, though I can't say that I would want to eat the rest of the cake on account of its slightly dry mouthfeel. Though "sweet" isn't the first word that comes to mind when I bite into it, "milky" is more like it.

The Thai tea beverage that I made with this milk was adequate; I didn't find that it was anything particularly interesting. The milkiness was appreciated, though there could have been a little more sweetness to it. It also stirred in easily with the other liquid, which made for a beverage that was both easy to make and sip.

I would have liked to have a bit more sugar all around from this condensed milk. But I think if Nestlé revisited its formula, it could be a great (and affordable) addition to a whole host of different recipes.

Store-brands aren't always as quality-comparable as some name-brands, but this Stop & Shop sweetened condensed milk proves that you don't have to spend a ton of money for a product that is equally as functional as a name-brand selection. Like many of the other brands I sampled for this review, this condensed milk was easy to work with. It dripped out of the can perfectly into my bake and distributed easily without too much mixing involved. Moreover, I can also appreciate that it offered the same yellow shine as some of the more expensive brands on this list.

When it came down to the bake, I found that this Stop & Shop product wasn't anything out of the ordinary, nor was it particularly special. The structure of the cake was solid, but it wasn't so dry and dense that I needed to gulp down some water after I took a bite. The sweetness was certainly present, more so than Nestlé's La Lechera, so it had a more apparent "crust" on the outside of the bake. Its aroma was milky, appetizing, and balanced — which not many of the lower-ranked brands offered. Another thing that I could appreciate about this condensed milk is how easily it blended in with the tea. It took only a few stirs for my beverage to take on the familiar coral color of Thai iced tea.

The Stop & Shop product was neck-and-neck with the Borden Magnolia product, but ultimately, the fact that it didn't produce as airy of a crumb structure in the cake is what pushed it into second place. It's a valiant effort, though, and one you should take note of if you're looking for a store brand that's both affordable and high-utility.

By this point in the ranking, I was craving a condensed milk that produced a soft yet sweet sponge and could also integrate easily into the cold Thai tea. I thought that it would be a shot in the dark, and then I met Borden Magnolia's leche condensada azucarada — sweetened condensed milk if you couldn't tell.

This brand easily poured out of the can, which was far from the case of several of the other selections. It was easy to work into the flour; there were no odd pockets of flour or issues mixing with the eggs. When the bake came out of the oven, I found that it had a color that wasn't super dark; it was lightly golden, which clued me into the fact that it probably wouldn't have as crispy of a shell as some of the other brands that I sampled. After it came out of the oven, my suspicious were deemed correct; the shell was very minimal, and the cake itself could be easily poked and prodded without much resistance — which is desirable, if you're making something like a poke cake. This milk also did not produce a cake with the same claggy structure as the Great Value and the Eagle Brand products did. Instead, the crumb structure was light, airy, and absolutely perfect for a cake. It even had a deeply milky aroma that made me want to come back to it again and again.

As I suspected, the milk also mixed in with the Thai tea better than some of the other brands that I sampled. While its flavor was certainly sweet, I found that the milky undertones helped neutralize the cloyingness perfectly.

This was the second most expensive condensed milk that I sampled, but I think that if it gives these consistent results, it may be worth buying. It was one of the few products that did well on both the tea and the cake test, earning itself high marks on this ranking of sweetened condensed milk brands.

I picked up all of the different brands of sweetened condensed milk that I could find for this experiment. I wanted to run two different tests for each product to see how each brand would perform in a baked good as well as in a beverage. For the first test, I located a three-ingredient pound cake recipe online, which calls for only self-rising flour, eggs, and sweetened condensed milk. My original plan was to make each one in a loaf pan, but I quickly realized that the recipe didn't make enough batter — so I opted to make it in a cupcake tin instead. I cut the recipe in half, so I used 80 grams of self-rising flour, two eggs, and 7 ounces of sweetened condensed milk to make each sample. Then, I baked the cups until a toothpick came out clean. After the samples cooled, I tasted them without any frosting or other accompaniments.

I also tracked down a bottle of Thai tea extract on Amazon. I used 1 fluid ounce of this extract per 6 ounces of cold water; then I stirred 2 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk into each glass. I did not use any ice, as I didn't want the tea flavor nor the condensed milk to be diluted.

I sampled the tea and the cake from each brand and then ranked those brands from worst to best. I was looking for a cake that was soft and plush with a balanced sweetness. The condensed milk should also stir easily into the tea rather than solidifying at the bottom of the glass. If the brands performed well in both tests, I opted to use the cost of the cans to compare each brand to the other.