Let’s take a quick minute to talk about buttermilk.
What is buttermilk? Buttermilk is a slightly sour milk. The sourness of buttermilk comes acids in the milk, most notably, lactic acids. Because the proteins in buttermilk are slightly curdled, buttermilk is slightly thicker than regular milk, but not quite as thick as cream. Buttermilk is also usually much lower in fat than regular milk and cream.
Say you wanted to make some butter and buttermilk waaaaay back in the day. First you’d take your fresh milk from the cow, let’s say a big old bucket full… and you’d leave it out at room temperature for a few days. After a few days the rich cream would separated and formed a thick layer on top of the milk. During these few days, the milk would fermented a bit from the lactic acid forming bacterias in the milk. Gross? Not at all! The bacteria produced would help lower the pH of the milk and protect with milk from icky microorganisms, making the butter easier to churn. Once the butter is churned the residual liquid that’s produced…. that’s buttermilk!
Nowadays, buttermilk is a whole other production. Cultured buttermilk, as it is called in the United States these days, is a pasteurized milk product. Instead of letting the milk ferment naturally, most dairies now add a culture of lactic acid bacteria to produce the same thickening and curdling of the milk. Many dairies also add tiny yellow colored flecks of butter to simulate the old fashioned product.
Buttermilk is an important part of baking. The acidic milk combined with baking soda in a recipe is a baker’s dream. See… when baking soda is combined with the lactic acids of buttermilk, the soda releases carbon dioxide that when heated, released tiny bubbles that expand and lift and lighten whatever you’re baking.
But what if you’re plum out of buttermilk? There are solutions…. let’s talk.
In a pinch and you’ve run out of buttermilk?
Lemon and Milk
In a 1-cup measuring cup, add 1 Tablespoon of fresh lemon juice. Top the lemon juice with with skim, low fat or whole milk. Stir and let sit for two minutes. After two minutes, your milk is both acidic and curdled. Perfect!
Yogurt and Milk
Mix 3/4 cup plain yogurt with 1/4 cup of milk. Stir and make it a quick substitution for buttermilk.
Milk and Cream of Tartar
Mix 1 cup of milk with 1 3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar. To ensure that the mixture doesn’t get lumpy, mix the cream of tartar with 2 Tablespoons of milk. Once mixed add the rest of the cup of milk. Cream of tartar is an acid and will simulate the acidic environment of buttermilk in a pinch.
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Hi, Joy! Love your blog. SO cute.
I’m too lazy to read through all the comments, but Food Blogga (Susan) turned me onto powdered buttermilk, which I keep because the real stuff always goes bad on me before I use it all!
Great post!
oh my goodness! yes yes yes! now i dont have to keep begging my dad to buy me buttermilk, when i’m only going to use a little! thank you thank you thank you!
-catherine eng, 11, 12 on october 16!
wow! thanks! I can never find buttermilk here and now I don’t have to ^_^
I love your blog! Thanks for all your help!
Thanks for the tips – I’d never heard of the yogurt or baking powder. My mother taught me to add one-quarter cup of milk with one tablespoon vinegar in cake, muffin, and quick bread recipes to make them moist. I love your posts like this, and make your own cake flour (and, of course, your recipes rock.)
Oops! Cream of tartar, not baking powder.
Sour cream works in a pinch…
This is awesome advice!!! Just think of all of the money I’ll be saving now :O)
Hi Joy!
Thanks a lot for posting these great ideas, here in South America, cultured milk is sweetened and flavored, no chance to get plain buttermilk, i used to add 1 Tablespoon of vinegar to whole milk .Will try with these buttermilk substitutions and prepare again those amazing buttermilk pancakes( that my family loved!)
I’m so glad you wrote this Joy! I’ve heard of various ways to substitute for buttermilk here and there, but I have yet to hear anything definitive from a real baker. Thanks for that :)
Thank you for these substitutions. I had heard of the milk and lemon juice, but not the others. This will definitely help me when I’m in need of buttermilk :)
Hi Joy, my husband is allergic to dairy (anaphylatic) so instead of buttermilk I use coconut milk with apple cider vinegar and it works wonders. You can also keep your buttermilk supply going by adding a T of cultured buttermilk to regular milk and let it sit out at room temp to culture for 24-48 hours. It must be cultured buttermilk though to work…it will say on the carton. You can also buy buttermilk cultures online. I guess you have also used buttermilk to make your own creme fraiche??? You do essentially the same thing: add a T of buttermilk to whole heavy cream and let it sit out to cultue for 24-48 hours- it is the thickest, nuttiest, dreamest creme fraiche I have had since drowning my frites and steak in it in La France!:)
Cool!! Thanks for sharing these tips. Have you tried out all 3 methods before? Which do you supposed produce the best consistency?
Thanks for this info and the substitutions, great post. I don’t buy buttermilk so when I see it in a recipe, I often add a tiny drop or two of vinegar to milk. Would Vinegar be similar to lemon juice, or would lemon juice do a better job making it more buttermilk-like?
In a commercial muffin bakery setting I’ve used both the “add vinegar” and the “add lemon juice” trick. I will tell you that the milk + lemon juice is infinitely better. Even an added squirt of the pre-packaged lemon juice is better consistency and taste than the vinegar solution. It makes noticeably better “blueberry buttermilk bliss muffins”, that’s for sure.
You can also do 3.5 tsp. of white vinegar in a 1 cup measuring cup and then fill to the 1 cup mark with milk.
I love not having to buy buttermilk! Great post!
Thanks – this is going to come in very handy! I don’t regularly keep buttermilk and it’s not always convenient to go to the store especially to buy some.
Your timing couldn’t have been better… I am a vegan and I just found a delcious dessert recipe for Thanksgiving and the only non-vegan ingredient is buttermilk! So I am definitely going to try these options out:)
I use lime and milk. Never heard of the cream of Tarter one before, great tips
Do you think that kefir would work? We’ve been making that at home – so easy!- and since it is slightly sour tasting and cultured, it seems like it could be a good substitute. Any opinions?
Another quick substitute would be to use 1 tablespoon of vinegar (I use apple cider) and enough milk to equal one cup.
I’ve always used distilled vinegar that you often use to dye eggs. I add that to the milk and allow to sit for about five minutes-hopefully I haven’t been damaging my cooking reputation with this-will have to try some of your suggestions! thanks
add 1/2 tsp vinegar to 1/2 cup milk and you have buttermilk
Thank you, it works and now I can see what a difference it makes!
What about the substitutions for sour cream? I can’t find it in Italy.
SOUR CREAM for ITALY
PLAIN WHOLE MILK yogurt + Lemon juice = sour cream
Must be PLAIN WHOLE MILK yogurt. I found PLAIN Greek yogurt at all the Ipersisa stores.(Greek tastes best)
Not as thick as making it from real cream + cultures but ALL of my Italy relatives just loved it !
RECIPE:
1 small container of WHOLE MILK PLAIN yogurt
ADD juice of 1/2 lemon (strained)
Let sit in fridge for 3 hours (or more)
Done.
SUBSTITUTE FOR EVAP MILK ( 12 oz can )
Put twice the amount of fresh milk that you need in a saucepan, and let it slowly simmer until only HALF remains in the saucepan. (can take hours)
OMG ! This worked fantastic !
SUBSTITUTE FOR PHILADELPHIA CREAM CHEESE
Italy does have this product on the shelves but at the exhorbitant price they charge it makes it far too expensive to make even a simple cream cheese frosting.
HOMEMADE PHILADELPHIA CREAM CHEESE
Do this at noon.
1 quart PLAIN WHOLE MILK YOGURT
1/2 tsp salt
1 new knee high panty type stocking
Colander with handles
Instructions:
Stretch out the stocking
Tie a knot 1/3 up from the toe
Place the stocking in a tall clean beverage pitcher, overlap the elastic part of the stocking over the edge.
Bring the knot 4″ from the top.
Stir the salt into the yogurt
Dump all of it into the stocking. (do not squeeze)
Lift stocking out, tie a knot right after the ball of yogurt.
Tie each side of stocking to the colander handles.
The ball should be totally suspended.
Put colander into a larger pot or pan.
Put both into the fridge UNCOVERED for a min. of 12 hours to drain.
When you wake up the next morning … Voila!
The best tasting cream cheese …ever !
Store in a resealable container.
* NOTE: When i first read this recipe it just didn’t make sense to me. Then when i did it, not very much liquid drained out and it made even less sense. But when i tasted it … i was blown away ! I may never buy cream cheese from a store again, even here in the USA.
SUBSTITUTE FOR BOURSIN (not found in Italy)
1 cup cream cheese
1 cup butter (room temp softened)
1 large clove of garlic smashed into a paste
1 T dried parsley, also smashed into a powder
Mix
Refrigerate so it hardens a bit
Very simplistic recipe but is identical to store bought
at much less than 1/2 the price.
MY NEXT EXPERIMENT IS – SOUR CREAM # 2
Homemade Sour Cream
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup LEMON JUICE
In a screw-top jar or mason jar with lid, combine the heavy cream and lemon juice. Shake the ingredients up a bit to thoroughly mix and let stand, COVERED, at ROOM TEMPERATURE for about 24 hours or until it becomes very thick. You can store your sour cream in the refrigerator in the original jar you mixed it in (or use some other resealable container) for up to one week. Make sure that sour cream is well chilled before using.
THANK YOU! This is fantastic! I’m here in Italy as well and I have looked in every store for sour cream with no luck. This is so helpful!
THANKS! I live in the Middle East and there is no buttermilk to be found here, so I really appreciate it.
Now I just need you to explain how to make/produce brown sugar…
Already done!
http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2010/08/how-to-make-brown-sugar/
Great advice for buttermilk substitution. I always ended up throwing away most of the buttermilk. To top it off where I live I can never find small containers so always have to buy a big one. I felt bad throwing it away, NOT ANY MORE! THANKS TO YOU!! LOVE YOUR RECIPES AND COOL IDEAS! AWESOME!!
thank you for these tips,
i never have buttermilk when
i need it.
WHERE CAN I FIND WHOLE BUTTERMILK , OR CAN I MAKE IT
Will this work with soy milk?
Fran
thanks for the tips! Buttermilk is not always easily found in Asia, but milk, lemons and yoghurt are! can’t tell you how many recipes i’ve longed to do but couldn’t do because i can’t find buttermilk. thanks so much! love your blog!
Thank you so very much….I live in the caribbean where we import all of these diary products and they are costly especially as it is not really used in our normal baking repertois. Your advise just made it easier for me to experiment with more recipes…
Thanks to MML as well…..her idea with the coconut milk sounds delicious and of course is readily available :D
The buttermilk pie is a certified HIT. I made it several times last year.
Ahhhh, you read my mind! I made home made scone dough yesterday which calls for buttermilk! But, did you know that IF, you don’t have a lemon….. you can mix your milk with vinegar? Sames amounts… and it turns out just wonderfully! Oh…. and I have a recipe for making baking powder substitute. Let me know if you want it!
Yes, please give the recipe for baking powder substitute. I use so little, that mine is always stale. Thanks.
I can never find buttermilk in the U.K. so thank you very much for letting us know how to make it. Your site is amazing!!!!
Just another expat who can NEVER find buttermilk (in Macedonia)… I almost always substitute it with drinking yogurt, which is handy around here because it is easy, plentiful, and I haven’t had a recipe flop yet… :)
I make my own buttermilk all the time! It’s way easier! Somehow I always have lemons and milk so it’s my go-to. Not to mention that it makes 1 perfect cup – the measurement most frequently required in recipes!
thank you! because in my country there’s no such thing as buttermilk, and i have found so many recipes that include it in their ingredients, and i had no idea what to put instead of it! thank you!
Just the thing needed to get some of that beautiful avocado pound cake of yours in the oven!
Brilliant suggestions … here in the UK it’s often hard to find buttermilk so I usually have to resort to normal milk … not anymore! Thanks for the tips!
S.
Hmm…I’ve always used some milk and a splash of apple cider vinegar.
I love your blog and everything you do in the kitchen! you are a very nice cook!
I use buttermilk since I discover your Blog, at first it was difficult to find buttermilk and I made the mix , milk and lemon.
I live in Madrid, Spain and hard to find it, and voilá I found it in Alcampo, a big supermarket, it was a great discovery!
Great hint – Always finding recipes with buttermilk but never have it. Thanks
what about vinegar and milk to make buttermilk?
Thanks, sometimes it’s hard to find buttermilk here.
Now I know what to do.
For the lemon + milk version, can I use bottled lemon juice?
Just reading these posts now in Jan. I accidentally purchased nonfat buttermilk. Would this work?
thanks!
This was so helpful and VERY interesting! Great information and a trip saver to the grocery store for buttermilk! Thank you!
Brilliant suggestions With lemon halps me with my cheese making in the UK. Thanks for tip
This is sooooooo great… looks like ima have some nice buttermilk pancakes in the morning without having to go buy buttermilk… thanks so much.. ur great joy
thank you! i used this recipe today.
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