I think that's pretty much it Michele, Want some buttermilk?
Welcome to Steve's
kitchen, today show is all about buttermilk. I love buttermilk in pancakes and it's
really good for baking all sorts of things from cupcakes to regular cake but
when you start to get a little bit low you've either got to go out and buy some
new or you can just make your own. It isn't difficult to make, just keep a
little bit ,this one's empty, this one's got probably about an inch or so of
buttermilk left in it. That's quite enough to reculture this cultured
buttermilk and make your own buttermilk at home.
Simple, simple ingredients. You want a good quality milk, not something with
sort of low percentage of fat but something that's full cream. This one's
an unhomogenized so it's a really nice milk and I've got about a litre left in
here, about two pints and that's how much buttermilk I'm going to make in this
recipe. So we just want to pour our full cream milk into any sort of open top
container and now we're going to take the cultures from this and add it to our
milk. Now we could have added the milk straight into these containers but they
really need to be sort of cleaned each time you use them, that's why I'm doing
it into a clean jug. In order to grow these cultures, you really just need
a small amount of buttermilk, maybe about a quarter of a cup or so into a litre or
two points, would do just fine. I've got probably about an inch or so
left, I'm going to use most of this and I'm just going to add it in to the top
of my full cream milk. Now traditionally you may know that buttermilk is a
byproduct of making butter. So it's the whey that's left over when you make
butter. When you buy it in the stores they often add a little extra cream back
into it, so it's a little thicker but it's got a lovely cultured flavor. So
basically when you make butter you take all the butter fats out of the milk or
cream and when you decide to make buttermilk again you want to add some
creams or fat back into it and that's why I'm using a full cream milk. If that
makes any sense. Buttermilk also is a great mesophilic
starter culture for making cheeses as well and that's what I'm going to be
actually using some of this to do in an upcoming episode, so check that one out.
What exactly do I mean by mesophilic? Well there are two types of cultures you
tend to use in cheese-making, one is a thermophilic, one is a mesophilic. One
likes a hotter environment, one likes a cooler environment. When I say hot, the
temperatures are actually quite low. Anyway we'll be doing more about that on
the channel at a later date. Now I'm just going to take a clean whisk,
give this a little stir through just to get the cultures evenly distributed. It's
not so important, just a little stir will do and we're just going to cover the jug
over. You could put an elastic band or a little bit of string around if you want
to but all we're trying to do is keep the bugs and critters out. Now in order
for the cultures to grow in the milk, we need to leave this out on the side at
room temperature, probably for about 24 hours maybe a day, day and a half at the
maximum and you will see that the milk will start to thicken and you'll have
something that smells and tastes just like the original buttermilk. So this
morning I had a little look at the buttermilk, there were little bubbles
forming on the top, so the cultures are starting to work. I had a little taste,
got a clean teaspoon, had a little taste. It's getting that buttermilk flavor but
it wasn't as thick as I wanted so I've left it till this evening. So it's been
another sort of several hours but if you take a look at this now. So I'll just
take the elastic band off and take the cheesecloth off. You can see those
beautiful bubbles that started to form, little bubbles here, that's the culture
starting to grow and if I get a spoon. Just look at this, look how beautiful and
thick the cultures have become. It doesn't smell bad, it doesn't smell like
off milk. There's a beautiful rich buttermilk smell to this and if you give
it a taste at the moment, it's almost like a yoghurt with a slight tartness to
it. That's really delicious, fresh made, homemade, beautiful buttermilk and what I
would do with this because I've got a whole litre of buttermilk now, I'm going
to either use it in upcoming baking videos which you'll see on Steve's
kitchen but you can also put this into ice cube trays, freeze it up. It stores
for months and months if you decide to freeze it. Also I can just take that
original buttermilk container, which I've cleaned and sterilized
and I can pour some of it, lets say...... oh! so, so thick. Now expect to get
those little clumps and lumps in it. It's normal for buttermilk but trust me this
is rich, it's fresh tasting. Now if you want to you can store this, put the lid
on, store it in the fridge, it's probably normal buttermilk storage maybe three to
five days now it's been opened but I'm going to freeze most of this and use it in
upcoming recipes that I have planned for Steve's kitchen. Super delicious, homemade
buttermilk, ever so simple. Keep that culture by the way, when you get to the
end of this, keep a little bit in there, if it still smells fresh and clean and
sometimes the actual bottle can smell a little bit off but if you pour it out
into a container and it still smells fresh and clean use that as a starter
for new and fresh buttermilk and you'll never ever run out. Now before you leave
today I want to have a little chat about some of the benefits and why you might
decide to make your own buttermilk at home. It's actually the next morning, I've
been thinking about this all night and you know if you just go and Google
what are the benefits of buttermilk? and you'll see cultures around the world
that use buttermilk for all sorts of health reasons.
It's a probiotic, really good for the gut, one of the big pluses of making your own
buttermilk is, a bottle of buttermilk like this, a good quality buttermilk, will
set you back maybe three to five dollars here in Australia and I've made a whole
litre of buttermilk for probably about a dollar fifty. So you can basically use
this at home, still smells beautiful and fresh this
morning and you know, think about those yakults and all those probiotic drinks
that you can buy in the shops and just how much they cost. Now this is lumpy,
it's a little bit sort of gloopy looking but it smells fresh and it tastes a
little bit sweet, you don't need to add sugar or fruit into this. Don't forget
that lactose, just like glucose and fructose is a sugar in itself, so it's
going to have its own sweetness. Now I'm going to have a glass of this this
morning, just see how beautiful and fresh it still tastes.
That is so, so good and because I've made it myself, I don't have to worry, whether I
have a big glass, a small glass. It'll certainly, as I say last three or four
days, five days perhaps. in the fridge like this and just save a little bit and
start all over again. Get some comments going down, let's have
a little chat about this in the comments, share your thoughts with everybody and
share this video also if you'd like to inform people about the great qualities
of homemade buttermilk. I'll see you in another video very shortly,
Take care. Ah one more important thought that I had. Now there's a trend out there
at the moment to be using raw milk. Please don't use raw milk to make
buttermilk. One of the things that's important to know is that we're setting
this in a room temperature where it's perfect for the growth of the buttermilk
cultures. Now raw milk is not pasteurized, there is
a chance, there is always a little chance, that there could be some bacteria in raw
milk and you are setting it in a perfect temperature for that bacteria to grow. So
go with pasteurized milk that you know is already bacteria free and then you've
just got the perfect environment for the butter cultures to grow and nothing else
and go with a really good quality milk if you can. An unhomogenized milk is
really nice, that's what I tend to use but a full fat, full cream milk is always going
to produce you a really much better quality buttermilk. Another little
thought. I think that's pretty much it Michele. Want some buttermilk?
In the same glass?
yes.