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Friday, March 25, 2011

Tools, Tips, and Techniques: Buttermilk


Cultured buttermilk - a handy baking
aid to have in your refrigerator

I expect many of you that are bakers make recipes that call for buttermilk, e.g., biscuits, bread, cornbread, etc.


Usually these recipes call for half or maybe a cup of buttermilk, then a month later we pour the remaining three cups down the sink because it got buried in the back of the refrigerator and forgotten about. I’m sure you can relate.


Well did you know that you can buy powdered buttermilk at the grocery store? It’s actually called Cultured Buttermilk Blend.  It comes in a round canister and can be found in the baking products aisle.


Each canister is equivalent to 3.75 quarts of buttermilk and should be refrigerated once it is opened. I can’t quite make out the sell by or use-by date on mine, but I keep it for months in my refrigerator and it seems to do just fine!


It’s very easy to use also and the directions are on the container. Basically if the recipe calls for one cup of buttermilk, you use one cup of water and four tablespoons of Cultured Buttermilk Blend. Rather than mixing the powder with the water, the powder is added to the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, etc.) in your recipe, and the water is added to the wet (eggs, melted butter, etc.)


It’s very handy for those times when you suddenly get the urge to bake but don’t have any buttermilk in the fridge. Pick some up next time you are at the store.

2 comments:

  1. Sometimes I read about a new (to me) item and want to try it, but don't know where to find it in the store. Thanks for letting us know where to buy this product. Helpful post.

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  2. This has been my favorite for a loooong time and it keeps forever! Love your blog :-)

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