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I have a book with several bread recipes that call for 1-2 tablespoons of powdered milk. This isn't something I usually use and I was thinking substituting it with normal milk, and putting less water to compensate for the added liquid. Would this be ok? And if yes, how much milk should I put for one tablespoon of powdered milk?

Rox
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5 Answers5

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A general reconstitution of milk with dried powder is 1/4 dry milk and 1 cup water to reconstitute milk. So 2 tablespoons is 1/8 cup to 1/2 cup of water.

If you want to replace 2 tablespoons, replace 1/2 cup water with milk. 1 Tablespoon is 1/4 cup milk instead of water.

I have done this as a replacement for dried milk in bread many times with success.

justkt
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    Yep; note that dried milk is normally non-fat, so if you want a perfectly accurate substitution, use skim milk. But really it won't matter if you use whole, the bread will be a tiny bit richer. – Michael Natkin Sep 06 '10 at 15:37
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    So why do recipes (not for the bread maker) often call for powdered milk? – Jolenealaska Sep 27 '13 at 01:52
  • Does someone know what the conversion would be by weight? I don't know the density of milk powder so this doesn't help me bake by weight. – Jake Sep 24 '20 at 21:27
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Yes, you can. I use the King Arthur Flour Small Pain de Mie recipe all the time http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/a-smaller-pain-de-mie-recipe, which calls for non-fat powdered milk. An answer to another question here Why is milk powder used in bread machine recipes? says to scald the milk, a concept reiterated by the folks at King Arthur. So as an experiment, I made two loaves of bread, identical in every way except that in one I substituted 170 ml scalded skim milk for the powdered milk and that volume of water.

2 loaves

Right out of the oven and three days later, I can find no difference between the two loaves of bread.

My package of powdered milk calls for 7 ounces of water to 1/3 cup powder to make 1 cup of milk, so I figured 8 tsp powder + 7 Tbs water = 1/2 cup milk. I converted to metric just to make the math easier, but it doesn't seem to me to require that much precision.

Community
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Jolenealaska
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One thing to add to the answers mentioned before: if you leave the ingredients in a bread machine overnight, then powdered milk is better as it doesn't go sour.

Erik P.
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Yes, you can substitute as already answered, but you can also just leave it out! I've found it makes no noticeable difference.

Vicky
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Just leave it out - least in those quantities. We make bread in a bread maker with and without it, and anecdotally adding it tends to make for softer, less chewy bread, especially if its a recipe with some sort of fat in it.

Journeyman Geek
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  • "We make bread in a bread maker with and without it, and anecdotally it tends to make for softer, less chewy bread". I'm sorry, which makes it softer? Including milk powder? Or leaving it out? – ziggurism Oct 28 '19 at 16:35