Brazilian Lemonade

When I saw the recipe for this drink, I was sort of scared.  I had never heard of brazilian lemonade.  Yet, it was the author’s favorite drink…ever.  It’s lemonade, but it’s not made with lemons.  And it mixes lime juice with sweetened condensed milk.  What?!?!  I could not compute.

Never fear, I recovered and made it the other weekend.  And was very surprised.  First, I figured that 5 pulses of a blender to mix the limes and sugar water wouldn’t do that much.  Well, it absolutely pulverized the limes and gave the water a great lime flavor.  I am considering using this as my new method for making all limeades and lemonades.  Then I went to stir in the sweetened condensed milk and thought “this is never going to dissolve.”  It did…pretty easily.  Then I was still sort of scared to taste it.  But it was very good…very different from anything I’ve every tasted, but very good.   After drinking a virgin glass of it in the afternoon, I added rum to it for an adult version with dinner.  Although all  I had was spiced rum and I was worried it would taste weird, it was actually great.  Sort of pina colada-esque

The original author said that this doesn’t keep well, but we had a busy weekend and I had the last virgin vestiges of mine two days after I made it…it may have tasted even better!

You, too, are probably scared of this recipe right now.  So I’ll tell you what…just make a half or quarter recipe at first…not a big commitment if you don’t like it.  But you will.  I know it.  (You’re welcome.)

The only change I made was to cut down the sugar a bit.  But as noted below, the amount of sugar and milk you need depends on the limes you use.

Ingredients:

4 juicy limes (try and find ones with thin, smooth skins; they’re the juiciest and the thin skin cuts down on the chance of your drink being bitter)
⅔ cup sugar
6 cups cold water
6 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
rum to taste (optional)

Directions:

Mix cold water and sugar very well and chill until ready to use. This step can be done ahead of time.

Wash limes thoroughly with soap (dishwashing soap or regular hand soap is fine). Cut the ends off the limes and then cut each lime into 8ths.

Place half of the limes in your blender.  Add half of the sugar water, place the lid on your blender, and pulse 5 times. Place a fine-mesh strainer over a pitcher (the one you’ll serve the lemonade in) and pour the blended mixture through the strainer and into the pitcher. Use a spoon to press the rest of the liquid into the pitcher. Dump the pulp and stuff in the strainer into the trash. Repeat with remaining limes and sugar water.

Add sweetened condensed milk.  Taste test and if it’s bitter, add some more sugar and a little more milk.  Add rum if desired.  Serve immediately over lots of ice.

Slightly adapted from Our Best Bites.