I've never used buttermilk for baking before (it's not very common in the UK, although I believe it was in the past), but I found this great recipe for chocolate brownie cake for my brother's 15th birthday (pics here)- and it had buttermilk it (it also had sour cream, which is like buttermilk made from cream which I substituted with 3/4 buttermilk and 1/4 butter), previously I have just used milk with a little lemon juice left for 15 mins 'til it sours, but I thought that as it was such a crucial part of the cake. It's not too hard to find in where I live - I just picked some up in Tescos.
I had a little bit of buttermilk left over and when looking up what to do with it, I found out that modern 'buttermilk' is not really buttermilk at all (as in the slightly sour milk left over from churning butter), but it is a cultured product similar to yogurt. Even better was that you can 'make' your own buttermilk using a bit of bought buttermilk as a starter, I just put the leftover buttermilk in a container, topped it up with milk and left it in a cupboard for about 15 hours, until it thickened and smelled a bit like yogurt. Not sure why it doesn't go bad, like milk usually would being left on the side, but it didn't!
My buttermilk didn't come out as thick as the store-bought kind that I used as a starter, but that may be because they used something else to help thicken it, next time I'll add a little powdered milk, as I have read online that people use this to make homemade yogurt thicker. I am a bit confused tho' as PrayzGod says on her blog that homemade buttermilk generally comes out thicker than the stuff from the store, so I don't know where I went wrong! The white 'blobs' on the side of the container and left on the spoon are where the lactic acid in the milk has caused it to clabber, which is what makes it into buttermilk.
Of course once I'd made it I wanted to make something with it - I made some super yummy buttermilk oat scones and added dried cranberries and sultanas to the mixture - so yummy. I'd recommend making scones with buttermilk, it really does make them lighter.
7 comments:
Buttermilk is delicious. My grandmother loved baking and would always swear by it. Surprised it's not more popular in the UK...I'm in America btw
I have always done the milk and lemon juice. Buttermilk is just something I don't usually keep around the house.
I never have buttermilk around my house either, so it is nice to have a solution.
Don't use a plastic container as it my contain harmful bacteria, glass jar is good. Make sure you sterilise the bottle before use. Cleanliness is Godliness when it comes to making buttermilk.
Ingredients
1 1/3 cups powdered milk
3 3/4 cups water
1/2 cup fresh buttermilk
Directions
1.Mix up a quart of reconstituted powdered milk by combining dry powdered milk with water.
2 . Add fresh buttermilk, mix well and seal the jar.
3 . Evening: Allow it to stand on the kitchen counter overnight; during winter months stand next to a radiator in the morning it will be buttermilk.Even temp of 21C.
4 . or Morning: Allow it to stand on the kitchen counter through afternoon; in the evening it will be buttermilk.
5. Store in refridgerator up to two weeks.
mm buttermilk!
this article makes me really hungry while i am in the middle of completing a college paper. thanks a lot!
I like to use buttermilk. When I bake smth I often use one. Thanks for your post
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