Pastillas de Leche Recipe

This Pastillas de Leche recipe or a Filipino candy made with powdered milk is a delightful homemade or store bought candy-snack that many Filipinos love. It’s a snack many sellers or well known bakeries/brands have a twist on. This candy is made with just 4 ingredients; fresh milk, sugar, unsalted butter, and milk powder. How to make condensed milk candy? Check out Yummy Kitchen’s Easy Pastillas de Leche recipe down below!

Pastillas de Leche Recipe :

Ingredients

• ½ liter fresh milk
• ½ cup sugar, more for later
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• ¾ cup powdered milk
• Pastillas wrapper

Steps:

1. In a pan at medium heat. Pour in milk, let it simmer till it’s reduced in half. Add in sugar, mixing till it has a paste-like consistency, or when you can almost see the bottom of the pan.
2. Add in butter and keep stirring. Turn the heat off, and mix in the powdered milk until you form a ‘dough’. Let this cool down.
3. Once cool, roll this into a log, dividing this in half (keeping the other half). With one half, roll this into a log again, divide into two. Repeat the process.
4. For the final log, slice this into smaller pieces (around a half or a whole tablespoon big).  Roll into a 1 – 2 inch cylinder. Then dredge this in white sugar. 
5. Finally, wrap these each in their own pastillas wrapper. Rolling from one end till the top. Then twisting the ends.

How to make Pastillas de Leche sticks ?

Pastillas in English literally translates into “Milk Pills” . These milky soft or hard candies came from Bulacan, from the town of San Miguel, spreading into other provinces like Masbate and Cagayan. The traditional candy is made with carabao’s milk, refined sugar, and sometimes calamansi juice. Nowadsy you can find these more commonly made of cow’s milk, or any regular milk. This sweet treat is so popularly loved it’s even celebrated in a festival since 2006, every May where pastillas wrappers are cut and used as decorations or intricately cut and placed all around, even having contests with other paper form arts like origami or bookmark making, and more.

You can find these in souvenir stalls/shops, food chains like Red Ribbon (a Filipino cake-bakery) “Red Ribbon Pastillas” used to be sold in a good amount but are now sold in the usual packaging with just ⅓ of the actual pastillas. “Goldilocks Pastillas” or “Pastillas de Leche Goldilocks” from another popular bakery-Goldilocks which are slightly bigger and are still popularly bought by many Filipinos. Nowadays you can find more than a handful of different flavored pastillas depending on the region, for example Davao having durian flavored pastillas, and many more creating their own version being sold at small stalls online. 

A great business startup (pang negosyo) snack that just needs a few Pastillas de Leche ingredients and steps which are heating milk in a pan or pot, letting it simmer till it’s reduced into half, then add in sugar stirring till it’s dissolved and it turns into a paste-like texture, or it’s thick enough that you can see the bottom of the pan if you swipe the mixture with a spatula or spoon. Add in butter and keep stirring till it melts. Take this off the heat then add in the powdered milk, mix till it looks like a dough. Let this cool down before taking it off the pan to form into a log, which is then rolled and sliced 2 times in half till you form a nicely thick log that you can slice into 2 inch pieces. Dredge in white sugar to avoid these sticking to one another. Then wrap these in pastillas wrappers rolling the pastillas from on one end to the other, then twisting both sides.

Questions :

• Pastillas de Leche calories ?

For a serving, this sweet can have around 260 calories.

• Using other milks ?

While this recipe usually calls for whole milk or full cream milk. This milk candy recipe can also be used with other milks such as evaporated milk which is slightly thicker than regular milk, condensed milk to make “Pastillas de Leche recipe Condensed Milk” which thickens faster, needs no additional sugar, but might burn easily. And some use carabao’s milk (“Pastillas de Leche recipe Carabao’s Milk”) which is creamier and many believe are a ‘healthier’ alternative. Some you might be able to find being sold on the internet are the dairy-free alternatives that use coconut milk or coconut cream.

• The difference with “hard pastillas”

When buying in a store, bakery, in the snack aisle, canteen, or from a souvenir shop. Sometimes you might confuse the different types of ‘pastillas’.  There are the slightly long and rectangular “Pastillas Sticks” sold in a bundle of 12 wrapped in colorful thin papers, the color depending on the flavor used like white-for the original, purple-for ube, yellow-for langka (jackfruit) and so forth. These hard pastillas were once almost everywhere from the supermarkets to an all around drug store (Mercury Drug Store) but now are hard to come by. Tastes similarly to the soft candy but has a snap to it due to it being more solid, these are also typically made with carabao’s milk.

• Other ways to enjoy this Filipino candy ?
  • Try adding flavorings like 1 – 2 teaspoons of ube flavoring or a tablespoon of ube halaya or jam for an “Ube Pastillas de Leche recipe”.
  • Or add these inside a hopia for “Hopia Pastillas de Leche”, which is a fun way to use up your leftover pastillas if you’d like.
  • Add 1 – 2 teaspoons of powdered or liquid flavorings like coffee, matcha, strawberry or more to add different flavors as well as colors into your pastillas!

• Can you freeze Pastillas de Leche ?

To store these, if unwrapped, place in an airtight container, in layers with parchment paper in between the layers. This keeps in the fridge for around a month. For wrapped pastillas, place this in a container or any plastic bag or a box to keep in the fridge for a month or so.

Other Yummy Filipino Filipino Milk Dessert Recipes!

• Mango Pudding
• Ube Halaya
• Ice Candy ( a Filipino frozen summer popsicle) Mango flavored, Buko (Coconut Flavored), Buko Pandan (coconut and pandan flavored)
• Ube cake (this version is made with condensed milk)
• Leche Flan or this Banana flavored Leche Flan
• Fruity Maja Blanca (a colorful Filipino milk pudding)
• Yema Cake, no oven (a condensed milk based cake)

Pastillas de Leche Resipi: (Tagalog version)

Mga Sangkap :

• ½ litro gatas
• ½ tasa asukal, dagdagan ng sobra
• 1 kutsarang mantikilya (na walang asin)
• ¾ tasa powdered milk
• Pastillas wrapper

Paano Lutuin :

1. Sa kawali na nasa katamtamang init. Ibuhos ang gatas at pakuluan hanggang mabawasan sa kalahati. Idagdag ang asukal at haluin ito hanggang magkukang parang paste, o halos makita na ang ilalim ng kawali.
2. Isama ang mantikilya at ipagpatuloy ang paghalo nito. Tanggalin sa init at haluin ang powdered milk hanggang makagawa ng parang ‘masa’. Itabi at palamigin.
3. Pag lumamig na ito, irolyo at hatiin sa kalahati (tabi ang natira). Ang kalahati nito ag irolyo muli at hiwain sa gitna, ulitin pa ito ng isang beses.
4. Ang huling rinolyo at hatiin sa maliliit na piraso (mga 1 kutsarang laki). Irolyo ang mga ito ng 2 pulgadang haba. Takpan ang mga ito ng asukal.
5. Pagkatapos, balutin ang mga ito sa pastillas wrapper. Igulong mula sa dulo hanggang sa itaas. I-twist ang mag kabilaang dulo nito.