Milk Made - Recap

Alton is in a stable, milking a cow. There he talks about milk with a few words about John Wayne: John Wayne ate steak. But before he did that, he did what every mammal does – he drank milk. Plants and animals live their own lives, and honey is technically a manufactured product. Milk is the only naturally occurring foodstuff that exists solely as food. It is so complex that scientists still study it to unravel its secrets. Most mammals lose their ability to digest milk (actually, the lactose it contains) as they mature – but humans exposed to milk have evolved to retain the trait. Finished milking, Alton leaves the stable with a bucket of raw milk.

Suddenly, the hammering of a helicopter fills the air, and the downdraft lofts bits of hay. Alton struggles to cover his bucket. The helicopter contains agents of Alton’s old nemesis, the Food Police! They’re here to confiscate his bucket of raw milk! But Alton manages to hang onto his bucket, so that he can discuss a food that has more culinary power than even a chicken egg: milk.

Raw milk contains flavor compounds, immunoglobulins and digestive enzymes, which are all helpful. Unfortunately, it can also host salmonella, listeria, campylobacter, escherichia coli and staphylococcus – all bad bugs. This is why most states have laws regulating the sale of raw milk. This is not, Alton hastens to add, the fault of the cow. The problem is that the means of getting the milk from “moo to market” are extremely complex, and therefore susceptible to contamination at many stages. Indeed, our ability to enjoy milk at all is due chiefly to the achievements of Alton’s next guest...

A decorated door opens and Louis Pasteur emerges, wearing a tailcoat and... a flamethrower? Indeed so, for Pasteur’s chief claim to fame is what we now call pasteurization, a process that uses heat to kill bacteria. A cocky bacterium taunts Pasteur, finishing a small carton of milk and tossing it derisively at the scientist, who responds by charging his flamethrower and blasting that bacterium to nothing!

The Food Police return; they still want Alton’s raw milk. They lower a bucket on a rope and order Alton to “put the bucket in the bucket.” Declaring war, Pasteur exits the kitchen to the lawn, ignoring Alton’s warning about the current state of Franco-American relations... A huge confrontation starts, with fires and explosions. Alton winces, noting that “that will leave a mark... on the lawn.”

With Louis apparently having met his fate, Alton takes over the explanation. To pasteurize, one heats milk under pressure to 145º for about a half hour. Or to 161º for about fifteen seconds. Or even to as high as 280º for just two seconds – immediately chilling the milk. Naturally, industry prefers rapid processes that cost less, but Alton believes a low and slow pasteurization produces better flavor and body.

And that brings him to the next process: homogenization. Back when milk men called at the door, drinkers had to shake their milk vigorously to mix the fat and the water into a temporary emulsion. The fat globules in milk start very small, but special proteins push them together into larger clumps buoyant enough to rise to the top of the milk, a process called creaming. Modern milk producers avoid this by homogenizing the milk: they spray it through a tiny orifice, which breaks the fat globules into droplets so small they can never rejoin. The result? Stable and ever so slightly boring milk. Alton demonstrates with an airbrush, a device that uses similar technology for painting. Milk has even been used as a paint; its protein base makes it stable as a vehicle.

Alton sits down to a plate of cake and a glass of milk. Cake and milk. There’s no finer combo on the face of the planet, unless... Alton picks up his cake and jams it into his glass of milk. Cake crumbs and milk splash the counter. Alton notes that there is a neater and more flavorful way to get this effect: tres leche cake. Literally “cake with three milks,” it comes from south of the border. Alton roots through a collection of antique View-Master toys until he finds the one he wants. Putting it to the camera eye, he narrates the slides: soaked cakes date back to medieval times, when folks ate bread soaked in wine. More recently (but not too recently) a milk company in Mexico began printing traditional recipes on cans of evaporated and sweetened condensed milk. One of these, pastel tres leche, became a hit.

The texture of this cake depends on an even layer, so Alton starts by checking his oven rack for level (in both directions) and adding shims made of folded aluminum foil where necessary to level the rack. He also sets the controls for 350º.

The first part involves making a sponge. Well, actually, a cake that acts like a sponge, but not a sponge cake. Alton starts with butter in his stand mixer bowl, beating that until it resembles really thick mayonnaise. While that’s going on, he mixes some cake flour, some baking powder, and some salt and whisks them together. Back at the mixer, when the butter reaches the right color he slowly adds sugar. He wants each granule to “punch a hole in the butter” and that means patience. Rushing this step will ruin the texture. Correctly mixed, the “dough” resembles mashed potatoes. That’s when Alton adds eggs, one at a time, adding each egg only after the previous egg integrates completely into the batter. These eggs, Alton notes, contain proteins that build and strengthen the batter. Finally, a little vanilla extract and the dry goods. Alton switches to a lower speed to avoid throwing flour everywhere and adds the dry team in thirds, nice and slowly. He pours the completed “goo” into a 9” x 13” pan – the eggs mean this batter will be sticky, so Alton uses a bowl scraper to get every bit of it and then uses the same scraper to distribute the batter in the pan. Alton finishes by wiping the scraper into the batter with his fingers. He briefly weighs licking off his fingers, but perhaps decides he’s had too much trouble with the food police already, and foregoes that. Right now, there doesn’t appear to be enough batter in this pan, but Alton reminds viewers that he’ll soon add more ingredients, as he slides the batter into the oven for twenty to twenty-five minutes – until the internal temperature reaches 200º and the top is lightly golden.

While the batter bakes, Alton assembles the second tier. This dessert gets body from the cake, but it gets “soul” from the three forms of milk that provide the name tres leches. From his pantry, Alton fetches a can each of evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk. Alton notes that both forms of milk have had about sixty percent of their water driven off. Evaporated milk then gets homogenized and sterilized (the very light brown color comes from caramelization). An equal amount of sugar is added to make condensed, sweetened milk, yielding a product with a very long shelf life if unopened. After adding these two milks to a mix, Alton gets the third milk from his fridge – half and half. This adds a fresh, milky flavor that the other two forms cannot.

The baked cake must cool completely, which takes around thirty minutes. When his cake has cooled, Alton grabs four skewers and punctures it liberally. Then he pours on his milk mixture and waits for three minutes. At that point, most of the milk mix has soaked into the cake, but complete integration requires a night in the cooler.

The next day, no liquid evidence of the milk remains, so it’s time for the topping. Alton’s topping takes advantage of the fact that milk products containing thirty to forty percent fat – such as heavy cream – can be whipped into a big pile of bubbles. To his heavy cream, Alton adds sugar and vanilla extract, then stirs it at a low speed. When it starts to thicken, he increases the speed to the high side of medium for awhile, checking for peaks. He’s looking for soft peaks. Once he frosts the cake he recommends a few hours in the refrigerator... okay, not really. He grabs a fork and digs in right away, advising cooks to cover leftovers (if there are any) with plastic wrap since cream soaks up ‘fridge odors.

Alton’s next topic is milk sugar, or lactose. A disaccharide formed from one glucose molecule and one galactose molecule, lactose is less sweet on the tongue than cane sugar. Alton’s proof is another milky marvel from south of the border, dolce de leche. Literally, “milk jam.” Alton suggests this recipe evolved as a way to preserve milk without refrigeration in tropical climes.

Alton pours whole milk, sugar, and a stripped and split vanilla bean into a sauce pan, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Then he adds a little baking soda to increase the pH, encouraging browning while discouraging coagulation of the whey into a nasty kind of grit that’s not Good Eats. Alton reduces the heat to low and cooks the mix uncovered for an hour before removing the vanilla bean. Another few hours or so and the mixture has thickened and turned a rich caramel brown color. Alton strains that into an ordinary mason jar (straining catches any grit that formed despite the soda). Dolce de leche keeps for as long as four weeks in the refrigerator, but it is so delicious and so useful that it will certainly keep longer than it lasts.

Dolce de leche appears in a number of Latin American deserts, including alfajor, an Argentinean cookie, and teja, a Peruvian confection. It also works as ice cream or cake topping, or right out of the jar – it looks and feels like caramel but has a more complex flavor and less overwhelming sweetness. Jar and spoon in hand, Alton needs some “alone time” now...

There is a curious disadvantage to lactose as well. The bond joining glucose and galactose is referred to as a β (1,4) glycosidic linkage. Babies produce an enzyme called lactase that cleaves lactose into its component sugars at this bond. But only northern Europeans, Middle Easterners, Indians and the Maasai retain this trait into adulthood. Alton asks Ramon, his cameraman, to come on set where he offers the man a spoonful of dolce de leche. Ramon likes it, it’s good – and then Lactose Man returns! He belts poor Ramon in the stomach, doubling him over, and then departs. What’s really going on? Alton guesses that poor Ramon has some southern European or Native American in him and cannot readily digest lactose. His gut does not make lactase, and so the sugar passes to bacteria that are only too happy to digest it, producing, well, Alton dons a gas mask and clears the set... At one time, all adult humans were lactose intolerant; anthropologists believe lactose tolerance is a very recent evolutionary adaptation.

In a pleasant “meadow” a little girl eats from a bowl. Somewhere, Alton recites the nursery rhyme, revealing that she is Miss Muffet, on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey. When along came a spider... and sure enough, a spider drops down, scaring the child away! The camera pans up to Alton, operating the spider with a fishing pole and an evil laugh. Once Miss Muffet has left for less spidery climes, Alton recovers her bowl. The curds and whey are darn close to cottage cheese, and showcase the two chief proteins found in milk: casein and whey.

Alton generally doesn’t like skim milk, but concedes a use for it: he puts a gallon into a sauce pan over medium heat until the temperature reaches 120º. Then he turns off the heat and adds white vinegar. Soon the milk curdles and he removes the curd by pouring the mixture through a clean tea towel. He wraps the tea towel around the curd, rinses it under clean water and then breaks it apart. He prepares this with some half and half and a little salt, and claims no one who tries it will ever buy cottage cheese from the store again – or, if they do, they won’t like it. Suddenly, a spider drops down onto Alton! Screaming, he runs away – and Little Miss Muffet climbs from under the table and begins to eat Alton’s “curds and whey!”

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