Milk soured with lemon juice and left to stand for ten minutes until it curdles. Two ingredients and no heat, and it is what to make when a recipe asks for buttermilk and there is none in the shop.
What this actually is
Two ingredients and ten minutes: 250 ml of milk and the juice of half a lemon, stirred together and left alone.
It is a substitute, not the real thing. Cultured buttermilk is what is left after churning butter, or milk deliberately fermented with bacteria, and it has a body and a depth of sourness that ten minutes with a lemon does not reproduce.
What it does reproduce is the acidity, and that is what almost every recipe calling for buttermilk actually wants: acid to react with baking soda, or acid to tenderise. For pancakes, biscuits, cornbread or a chicken marinade, this works.
It is supposed to look wrong
After ten minutes the milk separates slightly and small lumps appear through it. It looks like milk that has gone off.
That is the point. The lemon juice has dropped the pH far enough for the milk proteins to start clumping, which is the same process that makes cheese, stopped very early.
Stir it and use it as it is. Do not strain: those curds are the body of the thing, and without them you have sour skimmed milk.
Two days, not after two days
The last instruction on this page used to say to start using it after two days of making it, which contradicted the step before, where it is already made and ready.
The Spanish was about how long it lasts rather than when to start. Use it within a couple of days and keep it in the fridge. It is a fresh preparation with nothing in it to preserve it, unlike a cultured buttermilk from a carton.
Vinegar works too
White vinegar in the same quantity does exactly the same job, and it leaves less of its own flavour behind, which can matter in something savoury.
Lemon is better in anything sweet. In a pancake batter nobody will notice either way.
More basics
- Béchamel sauce — the other thing worth knowing by heart.
- Homemade bread — where an acid dough helps.
- Homemade pancakes — what buttermilk is usually for.
- Colombian hogao — the other kitchen staple.
Homemade Buttermilk FAQ
No, and it is worth being clear about that. Real buttermilk is cultured with bacteria over hours and has a thicker body and a rounder sourness. This is milk soured with acid, which gives you the one property most recipes actually need.
Acid. It reacts with baking soda to make pancakes, biscuits and cakes rise, and it tenderises batters and marinades. A lemon juice substitute delivers exactly that.
About ten minutes standing at room temperature. You will see the milk separate slightly and go lumpy, which is the signal that it is ready.
No. The recipe says to use it directly and it is right: the curds are part of what you are making, and straining them out leaves you with thin sour milk.
A couple of days in the fridge. The old instruction said to start using it after two days, which contradicts the step before it, where the buttermilk is already ready and being used. The Spanish meant the other way round: use it within two days.
Yes, white vinegar in the same quantity. It works identically and leaves slightly less flavour behind, which some people prefer in a savoury recipe.
Whole milk gives a thicker result than skimmed, which curdles into something noticeably thinner. Either works.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 250 ml milk
- The juice of ½ lemon
Notas
Instructions
- Add the lemon juice to the milk.
- Stir it and leave it to stand for about 10 minutes at room temperature.
- By then it will look curdled, with fine lumps through it. That is the texture you want. Stir it and use it as it is, without straining.
- Use it within about two days. It is a fresh preparation and it does not keep the way shop-bought cultured buttermilk does.
Comments
No Comments