How To Make Buttermilk
Let’s be clear from the start, it’s buttermilk we want. Not a substitution for buttermilk like when we find ourselves in one of those “Kitchen Pinches”. You know, when the recipe calls for a 1/2 cup of buttermilk and we neglected to buy it at the store so we frantically look for a substitute because we didn’t really plan to make the recipe. We came across it on twitter and then figured we could juggle the ingredients we have together in a way that works. We then make sour milk by putting a teaspoon of lemon juice in a cup of milk and keep our fingers crossed that it will do the job in our recipe. That’s what the super highway says so, it could work. No, it is buttermilk we want.
The stuff we buy at the store isn’t exactly the same thing, but it is closer. A carton of buttermilk, called cultured buttermilk, is fermented milk, much like yogurt. Buttermilk is the stuff you can’t get at most stores although its popularity is surging and more stores have it. The liquid leftover from the process of churning cream that has naturally soured into butter is the real McCoy.
In the absence of a stash of raw milk that can be left to sour on the counter, cultured buttermilk from the store works, but if we sour our own cream we can get the butter milk and the butter! How do we do this? Instead of culturing milk to make yogurt, cream is cultured then churned. We have a choice – buy the powdered culture or take it from purchased buttermilk. We can also make sweet buttermilk simply by avoiding the culturing step and just churning the sweet cream. This results in a rich, buttery tasting milk. It doesn’t have the sour, depth that the cultured stuff has, but it is still tasty. Here is how it is done.
How To Make Buttermilk – Cultured
How To Make Buttermilk – Sweet
How To Make Buttermilk Biscuits
The obvious thing to do with the butter is to slather it on something. Toast would be fine, but what better to slather it on than hot, buttermilk biscuits. For this recipe, the cultured buttermilk is needed as its acidity is what makes the baking soda do its leavening work.
- 2 cups of all purpose flour
- 1 tbsp of baking powder
- 1/4 tsp of baking soda
- 1 tsp of salt
- 8 tbsp of butter – cold
- ¾ cup cold cultured buttermilk
- Preheat the oven to 400 F.
- In a large bowl mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- In the bowl or on a clean work surface, cut the flour into the butter until the mixture looks sandy and the butter is fully incorporated.
- Make a well in the flour. Pour the buttermilk into the well slowly mixing with a fork to form a loose dough.
- Gently work the dough until it just comes together kneading and folding it just a few times. Don’t over work it. You can use a pastry scraper to to fold and push the dough together.
- Using your hands, not a rolling pin, pat the dough into a round about ½ inch thick and cut the dough with a biscuit cutter to the desired size.
- Push the remaining dough back together into a disc and cut more biscuits.
- Place the cut biscuits on to a sheet pan sprayed with baking spray. The biscuits can touch each other. (A further optional step is to brush the biscuits with melted butter before baking).
- Bake 10 to 15 minutes until golden.
- If you can get real buttermilk, by all means, do so. The stuff from the store will work fine, too.
I hope you enjoy.
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Have you made buttermilk at home? What do you make with the butter? Let us know all about it in the comments or on Facebook.
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