Buttermilk

[mizarchivist]

I acquired some for making waffles. They didn't offer me a size smaller than a pint and I'm not making that much waffles. Any suggestions as to what to do with the rest? 

Comments

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Freeze it in 1/2 cup quantities for easy use in future recipes.

[mizarchivist]

I was wondering how it'd go in my steel cut oats instead of regular milk...
but I like your solution, too.

[n-e-star.livejournal.com]

Buttermilk is said to be amazing for the skin. Run a bath and pour it in.

[gamehawk.livejournal.com]

/me whips out trusty red-checkered BHG cookbook:

Page 754, "Creative Uses For Leftovers." Buttermilk gets its own category, so clearly you're not alone (me, I keep the powdered stuff, though I've occasionally been known to throw heavy cream into the stand mixer and DIY, because hey, fresh butter too).

Anyway: Boston brown bread, cakes (spice cakes mostly, looks like), Cheddar Bran Muffins, Cornmeal Griddle Cakes, Cowboy Coffee Cake, Oatmeal Cookies, Sour-Milk Muffins.

And of course by name, they have buttermilk biscuits, brownies, chicken, doughnuts, pancakes, and the aforementioned waffles.

Recipes upon request, though it being BHG I'm sure they're available on the net.

cool!

[mizarchivist]

I have an excess of heavy cream... so I'm liking that butter plan. BHG, I have- the "new" cookbook.
What proportions do you use for making butter?

Re: cool!

[gamehawk.livejournal.com]

Ah, I wasn't clear: the equation is not cream + buttermilk = butter, but rather cream = butter and (sweet) buttermilk.

That is, you throw the cream in the stand mixer (let it warm up a bit, it won't separate if it's below 60 degrees or some such), and you whip it. It's a cool thing to watch - in fact, the first time I did it was when my son had a pre-K reader that showed kids shaking it in a sealed container to make butter. It left out the critical temperature step above, which I learned later, so when we finally got tired we put it in the stand mixer. In theory, though, you can do it that way. Also, if you overwhip your whipped cream, this happens when you don't want it to, and it's not a terribly gradual thing. One minute you have stiff peaks, the next you have watery stuff with a big lump of butter in it.

Buttermilk is what's left over - you knead all the butter solids into a lump to get the last of the buttermilk out, add salt if you want it (I don't, but it keeps longer if you do).

I think you then have to let the buttermilk age a little (I call that "going bad," same with sour cream and bleu cheese, but not everyone agrees...) to get the nasty regular stuff, but I just let my son drink it as is and watch him make funny faces.

So, y'know, doesn't really help with the surplus, other than you now know how to convert a cream/buttermilk surplus into butter and even more of a buttermilk surplus. Which may or may not help.

Re: cool!

[sauergeek.livejournal.com]

In theory, though, you can do it that way.

It does in fact work. My first grade class passed a sealed jar of cream around the class, everyone shaking it for a few minutes, and we had butter by the time it got to the last kid. The teacher also had fresh poppyseed bread. Yum.

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

I use the powdered kind too, keeps well in the pantry

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Looks like you have good suggestions, but should you find yourself in this predicament again, I learned this trick for my lactose-intolerant family: one cup of milk plus one tablespoon of lemon juice, stir well, let sit for a couple of minutes until nice and thick, yields one cup of buttermilk.

It seems to work better for me with higher-fat milk (at least 2%) but that may just have been coincidence. Anyway, it means I can make buttermilk biscuits at home and not drive my spouse or son into agony.

[wolfkitn.livejournal.com]

hmm, so you make it with lactaid or somesuch, and that's how you get around the lactose issue?

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. Sometimes I seem to need more like two tablespoons to make the milk properly sour and goopy, but chemically speaking it works like a charm.

[dani-namaste.livejournal.com]

The last time I made butter, I used the leftover buttermilk to braise tempeh with fennel and spring onions - it was divine. You could do something similar, or I'm guessing it would also be nice with with chicken or pork. It's dead easy - just brown the meat (or tempeh) in some butter, take it out and sauté the vegetables, then add the meat back into the pan, pour in the buttermilk and simmer for about 20 minutes.

[milknut.livejournal.com]

I keep the powdered kind too specifically because I would never be able to use the quantity of buttermilk they typically sell. Reminds me... I have to try to get more soon.

I assume they have the powdered kind at the big grocery stores, but I found my bag o' powder at the Natural Market (Groton).

[kebbykate.livejournal.com]

I have a favorite recipe somewhere for a lemon-poppyseed cake that uses a quantity of buttermilk. If you're interested, e-mail me and I'll e-mail it back.

The other way easy thing to do is to simply make up a batch of buttermilk pancakes and frisge or freeze them--they warm up quite nicely in either microwave or toaster oven (depending on whether you want moist or crispy).

[mizarchivist]

I ended up being the only one eating waffles, so I still have 4 left for the freezer. We killed off a few for dessert with ice cream :)

[wolfkitn.livejournal.com]

my family's traditional pancake recipe is buttermilk pancakes. people who i've made these for say they're more like crepes, and when we ate them when i was a kid, we traditionally filled and rolled them up like blintzes. the only problem i could envision is that one recipe doesn't use a whole lot of buttermilk and does make quite a bunch of pancakes -- but then again the stuff really doesn't go bad very quickly. :) would you like the recipe?

[mizarchivist]

sure!

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Drink it! Back in my lactose-enabled days, I used to buy the stuff just for drinking :)