Pioneer Woman’s Creamy Lemon Crumb Squares and Crying Over Sweet Condensed Milk

by Lora Wiley-Lennartz

You have to know how much I wanted to make these to do what I did to make them.  I pulled this recipe off of her site several months ago.  Since then, I have been taunted by several food bloggers posts about them, how much they loved them, how easy they were to make….

I was holding out.  When I finally broke down and did make them, I used up my entire store of sweetened condensed milk.  Those of you expat cooks/bakers understand how we love honor and cherish and hold close those hard to get American food stuffs.

My tubes of SCM I found last December in Julius Meinl’s at their flagship store in Vienna..

That’s right people, I had to go to a gourmet store in another country, pay 4 Euro a tube for 6 ounces of sweetened condensed milk.  So I did what any self respecting expat/frustrated baker would do….

I bought every tube they had.

You USAers who freely wheel your shopping carts up and down miles of supermarket aisles overflowing with giant size, reasonably priced goods…  Yeah you people, who carefreely throw can after can of sweet condensed milk in your carts can all mock me now.

Sorry about that momentary relapse into shopping and product envy..

Anyway, back to the squares.  They were as good as everyone said and more. Also very simple to make technically… emotionally not so much. After I got done crying over using up my SCM, I had a square, or maybe 2 or 3 to drown my sorrow.

Btw, I may have overdid it with the lemon zest.  You can see it in this picture.  What I don’t understand are those spots of blue.  How the hell did they get there?

Now if you excuse me I have to go google SCM and see if I can make my own or find somewhere in Europe to ship me some.

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5 comments

Anonymous December 27, 2010 - 8:10 pm

Hallo,
gezuckerte Kondensmilch gibt es auch in Deutschland in jedem größeren Supermarkt. Sie heißt hier "Milchmädchen" und ist von Nestlé. Ich musste auch erstmal suchen. Wohne in einem kleinen Dorf und da gibt es das auch nicht, dafür aber im Nachbarort.Hoffe ich konnte helfen.

Reply
Lora September 8, 2010 - 2:26 am

@Jessica – Thanks for the info! I googled some online food suppliers and found a few sources in the UK. I also was able to find out how to make it from scratch.

I really appreciate you taking the time to comment and help me out with my SCM dilemma.

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Jessica September 7, 2010 - 10:02 am

Hey, I happened to be looking through your blog when this post caught my eye. I'm an American currently living in the UK, and whilst there are many American products I can't get, sweetened condensed milk is not one of them. It's available at pretty much every large supermarket here, and costs around a pound for 400 grams, enough for most standard recipes. Also, I've seen really massive tins (at least 2 kgs, I'd say) of it in the Indian foods section that are even cheaper. So maybe ordering from the UK, or trying to find an Indian supermarket that will ship it to Germany would be a cheaper option.

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SprinkleBakes June 18, 2010 - 8:20 pm

Haha! Awesome post! I will have to try these, and remember to be thankful for readily available SCM.

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The Duo Dishes June 17, 2010 - 6:49 am

Guess we take our SCM for granted! You can make some great desserts with it, though it is super sweet. It's awesome in pies!

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