I found a pretty good substitute for buttermilk for baking!

[thewayne]

It's not like I discovered it - I wish! I subscribe to Milk Street Magazine, Christopher Kimball's revenge for being unjustly turfed from America's Test Kitchen. I received a recipe in email recently that looked interesting, but it also included an article link about a "great substitute for buttermilk: kefir".

Color me interested!

As far as I'm concerned, since I don't live near a good dairy, there is no more such a thing as good buttermilk. (most people would argue that there has never been such a thing as good buttermilk!) I loved the buttermilk that I had as a kid and wanted it for certain applications, but the garbage they sold in the stores here was just that - garbage. The stuff they sell today is milk with an added enzyme culture that is just gross.

Well, Kimball's people had an epiphany and did some testing, substituting kefir 1:1 in recipes that called for buttermilk, testing it against a horror that some people use where you mix 1 tablespoon of white vinegar into a cup of 2% milk and let it sit for 5 minutes. They made biscuits, pancakes, yellow cake, and cornbread. The kefir worked perfectly in all applications, the only case where there was a noticeable difference was in the yellow cake where it was a bit denser but still had good flavor. The vinegar abomination was a fail in everything except the cake - go figger.

I've bought decent buttermilk from Sprouts in Las Cruces, but I don't get there very often and it doesn't last forever, so I added kefir to my shopping list, and tonight I went shopping. And I found some! It was actually a plain, unsweetened kefir 'smoothie' and it has a taste not unlike buttermilk - somewhat sour/astringent. My test recipe: Zatarain's cheddar garlic biscuit mix! I have a special butter recipe to make them quite a bit like Red Lobster biscuits.

And the recipe came out perfect. The biscuits were great, rose perfectly, flavor was excellent. I think the kefir adds a bit of zing, which is what I wanted. And smothered in the butter they are appallingly good! I finished off the gazpacho that I made last week for dinner, having perhaps a biscuit too many, which sometimes happens right after I make them.

So if you're like me and you sometimes need buttermilk but can't find a good one, try plain, unsweetened kefir! I don't know if it'll work in all applications, but it definitely worked for this biscuit mix.

https://www.177milkstreet.com/2019/02/buttermilk-substitute-kefir

Comments

[seasonoftowers]

Hmm, good to know. Haven't ever seen buttermilk around here but jefir is everywhere

[thewayne]

The article mentions kefir as originating in the Caucasus, Russia, and points east, and the Caucasus are just across the Black Sea from you, and it is really quite a 'thing' all over the place here.  I can see it being all over the place in all sorts of places.  It's a very popular health food, very high in probiotics.  You can get a mother culture and create a self-sustaining growth and never run out of the stuff if you're diligent about maintaining it, but the stuff that I got is more like a liquid yogurt drink which is much more what I'd be interested in using for baking.

You might not find good buttermilk unless you had a really good dairy industry nearby.

[moonhare]

We started buying the Saco dried buttermilk on a recommendation from America’s Test Kitchen (Kimbell, again). Considering how infrequently we use it, this was a great substitute for trying to find fresh, or experiment making, this ingredient.

[thewayne]

I'll look in to that, just added it to my Amazon wish list.  I wonder what would happen if you mixed it with milk or kefir?

[terribleturnip]

I've kept that in my pantry -- it's a decent shelf stable sub. But, I"d go with even regular store buttermilk if that was reasonable option. Mixing the Saco with milk or kefir -- would be fine in any sauce, but for baking, would make me nervous -- you're sort of doubling down on fats and proteins. So unclear how that's going to affect the sugar/liquid take up, the protein matrix. I'm not a good enough baker to know how that would change the chemistry.

[thewayne]

Excellent point about the increased protein.  I have frequently substituted milk or buttermilk when baking mixes have called for water with no problem, but doubling up using milk to mix a buttermilk powder would be pretty much squaring the protein.

[acelightning]

Just buy a container of SACO Powdered Buttermilk - it keeps practically forever in the fridge. You combine it with the dry ingredients of your recipe, and use water as the liquid when you mix everything up. It is perfect for biscuits and cakes - I make Irish Soda Bread with it. But you can't rehydrate it into a liquid, so it's no use for buttermilk pie or a buttermilk marinade.

[thewayne]

I'm definitely going to buy some and play with it when we get back: we're headed to Phoenix in a few days and I don't see any need to order it now and having it take up space at the post office.  Should be interesting to play with!

[acelightning]

Well, it's only a month until Saint Patrick's Day. And the sweet, currant-studded tea cake they sell as "Irish Soda Bread" in most American stores is nothing like the staple bread in the average Irish kitchen during the potato famine! But some buttermilk (in any form) and baking soda, and some coarse whole-wheat flour, would make a filling quick-bread that went just fine with corned beef ;-)