Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ Buttermilk Substitutes

Buttermilk.  You most likely either love it or you hate it.  I, myself, absolutely abhor the taste of buttermilk on its own but love "buttermilk" recipes (i.e. buttermilk biscuits, buttermilk pancakes, etc).  I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I'm not sure I've ever actually tasted plain buttermilk, but the thought of thick milk kind of makes me sick.

But what exactly is buttermilk?  The lactic acids in buttermilk are what gives it that sour taste, while the thick texture of buttermilk comes from the slightly curdled proteins.  Buttermilk is in between milk and cream as far as the thickness of the liquid is concerned, and it is also lower in fat than both regular milk and cream.

A quick history lesson in buttermilk from way back when: If you wanted to make buttermilk back in the olden days, you would first take the milk you milked from Bessie the cow and let it stand in an open container at room temperature for a few days.  Over these few days the richer cream would separate and form a thick, gunky (is that a word?) layer on the surface of the milk.  During this time the milk would have fermented a little bit from the lactic acid-forming bacteria in the milk.

Yuck, right?  Well, sort of.  But the good part about this gunky layer is that it allowed this bacteria to form, which in turn lowers the pH of the milk making it harder for unhealthy microorganisms to begin cropping up.  And this, my friends, made the butter easier to churn.

Once the butter is churned, the liquid that is the byproduct is buttermilk.  Ta da!

These days we have the technology available to make this whole process seamless.  Instead of letting the milk ferment naturally, lactic acid is simply added straight to the milk to produce the same sour/curdled effect.  Dairies also tend to add tiny specs of yellow colored butter to make it seem more old fashioned.

Ok, that's all great, but what about a substitute for buttermilk?  So many recipes call for it, and I never seem to have any in the house.  And when I do I'm frantically trying to whip up every "buttermilk" recipe available for fear that it will go bad before I can use it all.  Fortunately there are several substitutes for it though.

Remember Tuesday's post from last week that talked about how baking soda will react and produce a rising effect once combined with an acidic ingredient such as buttermilk?  If not, check it out here.  Well the important part to remember is that it's the acid in buttermilk that you need.  And luckily, there are several other ways to get that acidic component in regular milk.  Below are some substitutions....

Lemon Juice
In a one cup measuring cup, add one tablespoon of lemon juice.  Then top off the cup with skim, regular, or whole milk.  Allow this mixture to sit for 6-10 minutes, and you will have milk that is both acidic and curdled.

Vinegar
Use the same method as the above one listed for lemon juice.

Cream of Tartar
Mix one cup of milk with 1 3/4 teaspoons cream of tartar.  To keep the cream of tartar from getting lumpy, take 2 tablespoons of the one cup of milk and mix it together with the cream of tartar.  Then add this mixture to the rest of the milk.

Also, I can't close without wishing everyone a happy Valentine's day!  Stay tuned from some fun VDay recipes later this week!

XOXO

Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits ~ Baking Soda vs Baking Powder

So I've been thinking of just how I'm going to make sure and post a blog entry every day.  Regular posts are something that has become quite a priority now that my brain isn't completely consumed with wedding fluff, but I just needed to figure out how to make it work.

In my ideal world I would cook a scrumptious meal worthy of sharing five nights per week, but I know that inevitably something in life will go awry and that just won't happen.  As a result, I came up with the idea for "Tuesday's Tips, Tricks and Tid-Bits".  Bear with me if you will, as I know the name sounds rather corny.

One of my favorite things about the internet (that relates to cooking) is that any time I have a problem I can go google it and I know that google will faithfully return umpteen results to me, and that in at least one of the results I will find my answer.  Need a substitute for buttermilk?  Google it.  Can't decide whether or not to use cake flour or regular all purpose flour for the red velvet?   Google it.

So on Tuesdays I will now bring you these tips and tid-bits that have always been most helpful to me.

Today's post concerns baking powder and baking soda.  One comes in that little blue can with the Indian on the front and the other comes in the classic Arm and Hammer yellow box and can be used for everything from cleaning stains to brushing your teeth.  They both start with the work "baking" and are both a white, powdery substance.  So what's the difference?

Well, there's a big difference.  But let's start with the similarities.  Baking powder and baking soda are both leavening agents which cause baked goods to rise.  I'll spare everyone the chemistry behind everything, but both ingredients produce carbon dioxide to achieve this "rising" effect.

Baking soda will produce this effect once combined with an acid.  Case in point, if a recipe calls for baking soda it will most likely call for another acidic ingredient such as buttermilk or vinegar.

Baking powder on the other hand already contains this acid in a powder form.  As a result, you can use baking soda when a recipe calls for baking powder (provided you add some cream of tartar and cornstarch), but not vice versa.

To use baking soda in place of baking powder, add an equal amount of cornstarch and twice as much cream of tartar.  Use about one fourth of the amount of baking soda as the recipe calls for the baking powder and then add the appropriate proportions of cornstarch and cream of tartar.

For example, if the recipe calls for 1 tsp of baking powder, you'll need 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp cornstarch and 1/2 tsp cream of tartar.

For more in depth details about baking soda and baking powder, I would recommend reading this post from Kitchen Savvy.