Milk adds a lot to a cake recipe which is why you see it in just about all recipes. If you have powdered milk you can get by with mixing some of that up and increasing the amount of oil slightly. I always try to keep powdered milk on hand because it keeps a long time and comes in handy quite often.

Now that most milk is UHT pasteurized, shelf stable milk is really no different other than it's packaged to keep spoilage bacteria and pathogens out so no refrigeration is needed (until it's been opened) and it keeps longer.

Milk has solids and fats that you really need.

This is a good time to suggest that everyone keep some shelf stable milk around.

It's delicious and needs to refrigeration for a very long time.

I know that to americans, this is a scary concept, but this is pretty much the only milk that they drink in Mexico.

They also do not refrigerate eggs and that works out great as well.

and all they had was the stuff packaged in Mexico.

Works for me, aside from a little culture shock.

sell just plain milk in a shelf stable carton.

I'm a milk lover and was apprehensive, but I love the stuff.

And it's inexpensive…. well, just like pretty much everything here.

It is the same section as the evaporated milk and dry milk. The Mexican products are very good, crema media is excellent, it is a heavy table cream, I always use it when I make pumpkin pie and in place of cream in some soups such as baked potato chowder. Because it is canned, I can keep some in the pantry and not worry about it going bad on me. The condensed milk can be cooked to make cajeta (Mexican carmel), put the can (unopened) in the crock pot, cover with water, simmer about 2 hours, turn the can over and simmer about 45 minutes longer. Remove from water and when cool, open can, you will have a thick carmel cream. You can use it to spread on crepes, just eat it with some raw apple slices or thin it down and cover a sheet cake - so rich and yummy!

and I live about a 10 minute walk from a supermercado. Also, I defy anyone to come up with a frozen treat joint better than Paleteria Michoacan and they're a 5 minute walk.

I just thought it a little odd that it's all they had in stock.

However eggs stay fresh a lot longer in the refrigerator.

Eggs are naturally completely sealed and will last for very, very long periods of time without any refrigeration.

Eggs in the US receive some kind of treatment which removes this natural insulation and that is why they have to be refrigerated.

What they say here is that these untreated eggs will actually stay fresh much longer without refrigeration than the treated eggs that require refrigeration from the get go.

But refrigerating eggs still increases the shelf life regardless of whether salmonella is an issue or not.

I have not been refrigerating them and find they last for several weeks.

But it's gotten really, really hot lately, so I think I might start refrigerating.

This standard starts from when the egg was laid, so if it takes a week from that time to your home, you've only got 3 weeks of useable unrefrigerated shelf life and the quality will start to degrade before then. The EU requires egg producing hens to be vaccinated for salmonella, while the US does not which is one reason why they can get away with not refrigerating them. Salmonella can infect eggs either externally, or internally via the chicken that laid them.

I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska in the 1960's and we ate cold storage eggs, I don't know how old they were, but they were shipped in and sold in at Foodland and Safeway, the only two grocery stores in Fairbanks in those days. They were strong and sulfur tasting - terrible!. When you used them in a cake, you would have to add vanilla, almond, rum, cinnamon, nutmeg, and any other flavoring you had on hand to cover the taste. The egg whites would not beat up high for meringues, when you fried an egg, the white and yolk would start to part company. So I can tell you that eggs will keep a long time, but trust me, you don't want to eat them. Robert Service, the poet of the North country, even wrote a poem about cold storage eggs.

I'm not a big fan to begin with, but that sounds absolutely sickening.

Yes, I routinely keep some on hand for emergencies--power outages and the like But once opened, stick that package on some ice.

I am going to make fresh cheese.

Now, that is a process that initially kind of freaked me out because you basically just let the milk go "bad".

But it came out great!

Baking chemistry is one of those things you can't monkey around with much and the recipe depends on the proteins, sugars, sodium and solids present in milk. The richness and fineness of crumb will both be affected. It's why I always keep a jar of powdered milk in the fridge and a small can of evaporated milk in the cabinet.

While I've gotten away using powdered soy milk, the off the shelf dairy substitutes can be a little weird because of the additives that keep the particles of rice, soy, or nuts in suspension.

Bottom line: I'm not a milk user but I do keep a couple of stable forms that can be mixed up to resemble milk if I need it in cooking or baking.

wait until tomorrow. Thank all of you for the help.

For instance:
http://www.food.com/recipe/white-wacky-cake-340831
http://www.sweetlittlebluebird.com/2013/03/tried-true-tuesday-crazy-for-crazywacky.html

Wacky cakes were popular during times of rationing, as they require no eggs or milk and many variants require no butter. Still very tasty, though!

Used to make this all the time as a kid and loved it.