Buttermilk is the secret ingredient to good baking and cooking. It is used in many recipes to add flavor. And oh what flavor it adds! Also buttermilk improves the texture of the food by making it lighter. Buttermilk can practically be used in any recipe by substituting it for milk when cooking soups, sauces, breads, desserts and much more. Also buttermilk can be used to tenderize meat, make homemade salad dressings, and used to make your own sour cream, cottage cheese, feta, and hard cheeses.
Once you discover the many uses of buttermilk you will be using it a lot. Instead of buying buttermilk make it yourself; it is so easy to make it at home. To make your first homemade buttermilk you will need to buy cultured buttermilk from the store. Once you use it to make your first batch of buttermilk you will need to retain at least a ¼ cup of your homemade buttermilk to make your next batch of buttermilk.
Homemade Buttermilk
¼ cup of cultured buttermilk
1 quart of milk
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| Add Buttermilk Starter |
Put the ¼ cup of cultured buttermilk in a clean glass jar. Make sure jar has a usable lid.
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| Heat Milk |
Heat the quart of milk to room temperature on your stovetop, which should be about 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
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| Add Heated Milk |
Pour the heated milk into the glass jar with the ¼ cup of cultured buttermilk.
Stir the milk to blend the ingredients well and remove any lumps.
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| Place Buttermilk in Oven with Only Light On |
Screw on the lid and place jar into the oven with only the oven light on. Do not turn the oven on! The oven light will keep the oven at the desired temperature needed to help milk turn into buttermilk.
The jar needs to sit in the oven undisturbed for about 12 hours.
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| Buttermilk Has Thicken |
You can tell that the process is complete when milk starts to thicken. Place the buttermilk in the refrigerator and use it as needed with your recipes.
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| Buttermilk Ready to Use in Recipes |
Be sure to save at least a ¼ cup of buttermilk for the next batch of cultured buttermilk!
Now, get in the kitchen and start using your secret ingredient, homemade buttermilk!
Thanks for the recipe, I'm going to try it along with the sour cream!
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you are making your own dairy products. It really is so easy to do! After the sour cream is done, I refrigerate it for a day and then pour it into a fine weaved cheese cloth or milk cloth and let the whey drain off for a few hours. This is now cream cheese. Homemade cream cheese is addictive!
DeleteWhat is cultured butter milk? Is it just reg. B milk?
ReplyDeleteCultured buttermilk has active live cultures in the milk which help to develop flavors. It is basically regular buttermilk. I just didn't want people to confuse it with the by- product of butter making, the liquid leftover after making butter.
DeleteHow long does the culture keep for? do you have to keep remaking it to keep a good culture? Thank you for sharing your knowledge, I have been wanting to make sour cream for a long time now but never knew how, Thanks to you not only can I make sour cream but cream cheese too. Yippee!
ReplyDelete