Buttermilk Substitutes

What my grandmother called buttermilk and what we can now buy at the grocery store are two very different things. In Gran's time it was the liquid left over from making butter - today it's a cultured product more closely related to yoghourt or sour cream. However what they both have in common is higher acidity, and recipes that call for buttermilk rely on this acid content to make the recipe work.

So to make a buttermilk substitute you need to raise the acidy of regular milk, and a by product of this is a thicker liquid. Any of the following methods will work:

For each 1 cup buttermilk called for in a recipe, use 1 cup plain yoghourt or sour cream.

OR

1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar plus enough milk to make 1 cup.

OR

1 cup milk plus 1 3/4 tablespoons cream of tartar.

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