I have a strong reluctance to purchase a carton of buttermilk. For most of my baking batters, I haven’t needed more than half a carton, even for pancakes. So while I’ve never run out of buttermilk, I’ve had to either throw away the leftover countless times or I’ve had to quickly decide on a recipe that can accommodate the remaining buttermilk before it expires and without having to resort to making the same recipe that was intended for the first half of the buttermilk.
Then karma struck.
In the midst of mixing a chocolate cupcake batter, I realized I didn’t have the requisite buttermilk in my fridge! I frantically searched the internet for a quick and easy recipe. Well, guess what? There are way too many buttermilk recipes in the internet. While they’re mostly similar with a few differences it is these differences that can drastically impact a recipe – good or bad – since there are only two ingredients. Because I didn’t have time to experiment, I just took the average quantity of acidity, mixed it with milk, and hoped for the best.
Hope won and this has now become my go-to easy-peasy buttermilk recipe. Simply stir in 2 tsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice in 3/4 cup/170ml/170g milk. Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes before using. There is no need to stir again prior to pouring in the batter.
Use fresh lemon juice instead of the bottled version. If lemon juice is missing from the pantry, substitute with white vinegar. As much as possible, I opt for the fresh juice. It provides flavor as well as acidity while white vinegar is just sour. The mixture will not become as thick and creamy as store-bought buttermilk but it gets the job done and it’s a cinch to make. My chocolate muffins turned out beautifully.
Thank God for karma.
