Buttermilk, How I Love and Hate You!
I first ventured into using buttermilk for cooking when I came across Martha Stewart's Best Buttermilk Pancakes. Ever since then, I won't hesistate to fork out S$3.60 for a 600ml carton of the sourish goodness whenever I crave for pancakes. Buttermilk pancakes are really light and fluffy (think: McDonald's Hot Cakes). Martha Stewart's recipe for the pancakes is wonderful, but I found that my trusty Joy of Cooking's version is even better.
However, the problem with buttermilk is that its shelf life is quite short. Or rather, the longest shelf life that I have observed was only about 15 days. So I had better have a concrete plan how to use the buttermilk before I buy it. As I mentioned earlier, I usually buy it for pancakes, but the problem is that the recipe calls for 1.5 cups of butter milk, or 355ml, and that leaves me with roughly 1 cup, or 245ml, left. Most of the time, I would just dump the remaining cup cos (i) by the time I make the pancakes, it would already be the day of expiry; or (ii) I just don't want to buy another carton of it to make a double batch and still have more buttermilk remaining! So that would be S$1.44 down the chute.
Tick, tock, tick, tock .... went my buttermilk. It had been sitting in the fridge for a week and yesterday was the last day. Buying buttermilk is like buying a time bomb. If anyone needs more stress in life, get yourself a carton of buttermilk!
So, I dragged out all my cookbooks and search for recipes that use buttermilk and, voila!, I found it. 1.5 cups for pancakes and 1 cup for muffins! Perfect! I enlisted my princess to help me make them instead of watching her evening tv. She is becoming more of a teletubby now! (^.^)
Here's the Double Chocolate Chip Muffins.
The cross section of it.
The use of buttermilk gives the muffins a very soft and cakey mouth-feel. Next time I will try making this recipe with chocolate chunks instead of chips. The little pockets of chocolate was just simply wonderful.
Even though it was well past bedtime, my little princess still insisted on trying her muffins before she called it a day. *rolling my eyes*
However, the problem with buttermilk is that its shelf life is quite short. Or rather, the longest shelf life that I have observed was only about 15 days. So I had better have a concrete plan how to use the buttermilk before I buy it. As I mentioned earlier, I usually buy it for pancakes, but the problem is that the recipe calls for 1.5 cups of butter milk, or 355ml, and that leaves me with roughly 1 cup, or 245ml, left. Most of the time, I would just dump the remaining cup cos (i) by the time I make the pancakes, it would already be the day of expiry; or (ii) I just don't want to buy another carton of it to make a double batch and still have more buttermilk remaining! So that would be S$1.44 down the chute.
Tick, tock, tick, tock .... went my buttermilk. It had been sitting in the fridge for a week and yesterday was the last day. Buying buttermilk is like buying a time bomb. If anyone needs more stress in life, get yourself a carton of buttermilk!
So, I dragged out all my cookbooks and search for recipes that use buttermilk and, voila!, I found it. 1.5 cups for pancakes and 1 cup for muffins! Perfect! I enlisted my princess to help me make them instead of watching her evening tv. She is becoming more of a teletubby now! (^.^)
Here's the Double Chocolate Chip Muffins.
The cross section of it.
The use of buttermilk gives the muffins a very soft and cakey mouth-feel. Next time I will try making this recipe with chocolate chunks instead of chips. The little pockets of chocolate was just simply wonderful.
Even though it was well past bedtime, my little princess still insisted on trying her muffins before she called it a day. *rolling my eyes*
Hello, I made some pancakes too two weeks ago. Simple ones though using those pancake mix & adding some milk & eggs.
ReplyDeleteThe first few looked ugly & too big coz after dropping the batter once, i dripped in a little more to make it thicker but it went out of shape haha.
After some tries, manage to get the round shape :)
no wonder the muffins were so soft!!! its the buttermilk!!!
ReplyDeletehaha I was the fortunate soul who had the privilege of having 3 of those chocolate muffins :-)
thanks for making some for me, Celestine!
see ya soon,
Auntie JO
I loved the muffins!!!!! :) *slurp
ReplyDeleteHi Jas, The secret to making nice pancakes is to use a soup laddle to pour the batter onto the hot pan. The first one is usually ugly and I call it prototype cos it is more to spread the oil evenly on the pan. I have been thinking of buying the Nissin Japanese pancake mix cos the pics look so nice!
ReplyDeleteHi Jo and Lyn, Glad that you like those muffins!
Hello =) You mentioned having to use up a lot of buttermilk whenever you buy it, and that it is $3.60 a small carton... If you keep regular milk in your fridge, it is actually very easy to make your own buttermilk! Just put a tsp of vinegar into a cup, fill up to one cup of milk, and wait 10/15 mins until the milk becomes buttermilk.
ReplyDelete