| 3.5-year shelf-life
This product is something I have wanted for a long time. The powder in the little canister can be added to water to make buttermilk for cooking or baking. When I need buttermilk for baking, before now, I used milk with lemon juice or vinegar added.
Even though I love buttermilk, I just don't regularly buy it or keep it on hand. Do you?
Using this instead of milk and vinegar or lemon juice, using this powder cuts out one measuring cup. Mix the proper amount of dry cultured buttermilk powder into the other dry ingredients. Mix the proper amount of water into the dry ingredients. Easy peasy.
I just bought the Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend, a powder, and have not used it yet. So many good things have been reported about this with no negative comments or cons. That makes it easy to recommend it.
Cost?
Using the cultured buttermilk powder is $0.22 for 4 Tbsp it takes to make a cup of buttermilk.
A cup of milk is $0.23 + the cost of vinegar or lemon juice.
A cup of buttermilk is $0.37.
I predict I will be very happy with this product. What do you think?
After searching for this product, I found someone to ask, a store manager in the grocery department. She immediately said that Walmart did not carry the product. I assured her WM did, and she was positive WM had never carried it, and she had never heard of it. In the meantime, the grocery stocker walked away, saying they did carry it. He walked right to it on the other end of the aisle and picked it up. She rushed down and was exclaiming about it. She told me she bought a half pint or pint every two weeks in order the make cornbread for her husband.
When I told her how to make a buttermilk substitute using milk with either lemon or vinegar, she exclaimed again. Now, she is going to use something besides buttermilk. The saving is only about $0.15. At least she now knows two other ways to have buttermilk.
This product must be refrigerated after opening. I just could not resist a little taste. It is wonderfully milky-sweet and then suddenly very vinegar-like in a good way. I doubt the blend will be in danger if it is not in the refrigerator tonight. However, I will put it in a pint jar before putting it in the refrigerator. The canister is heavy cardboard, but I would worry about the plastic lid letting in air or moisture.
Ingredients: A cultured blend of sweet cream churned buttermilk, sweet dairy whey, and lactic acid. That sounds like a good blend that is not artificial. Or, is it?
Your turn
Have you ever used the Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend, a buttermilk substitute?
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Thursday, January 30, 2014
Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend (A Powder)
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I'm like you in that I have always intended to buy some. I do buy buttermilk but usually end up wasting more than I drink or use. I wish we could buy buttermilk i a 1/2 pint or a full pint. We only have it in a quart size. It often gets tucked to the back of the fridge and becomes out of sight out of mind.
ReplyDeleteJanet,
ReplyDeleteWe do have one of those sizes here. I think WM has both. I saw some today, but I forgot what size it was. Your food hides, too? lol
No, I haven't tried this, but might have to. The only times I deliberately buy buttermilk, regardless of price, is when I have a red velvet cake planned as a kid's birthday cake of choice. In other things, I use recipe amount of milk, remove a Tbsp., and replace that Tbsp.with vinegar. (I don't trust changing the chemistry in my red velvet...my recipe is precise!) If I see buttermilk on quick sale, I will purchase it, but do not keep it on hand otherwise. Can't wait to hear what you think. I likened this buttetmilk product to powdered milk, which we were raised with due to cost. I loathed the stuff, we all did so we rarely ate cold cereal, which I find is the main reason people use milk. ( Smart parents, ours, as cold cereal is astronomical per serving. I buy it rarely too.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I look forward to hearing how you like it.
Maybe if children and the rest of us could only have powdered milk with cereal, we would quit eating expensive and harmful cold cereal. I will try this in the next few days. meg, maybe you could bake red velvet cupcakes for treats and at a time that they would not be on display. This product might not suit your standards for a special occasion, but you never know.
DeleteEmail me your red velvet cake recipe and I will try it this weekend. pparsimony@yahoo.com
I will not share the recipe if you don't want me to, not that I am planning to share it.
The recipe I use is Aunt Mildred 's Red Velvet cake from southernfood.about.com. I use a butter roux (a.k.a ermine a.k.a boiled milk frosting. I guess it technically isn't MY recipe. Even if it was, I would be happy to share.
DeleteI wouldn't worry about putting it in the fridge if your house is a cold as you say it's been. I can keep butter on the cupboard for a few days this time of year, even though I can't in summer.
ReplyDeleteSue,
DeleteI put it in the refrigerator in a pint jar about 10 hours after I opened it. Normally, it is not freezing in here and I would have had to pop it right in during the summer.
Have never tried it - always used the vinegar/milk when I needed it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, our local health food store always sold lots of it so it must be good.
Bellen,
DeleteI hope it is good. Hmmm, sold in a health food store? Interesting. I will have to check and see if ours sells this. Milk and vinegar has served me well for many years.
Hello, all. My name is Tony Sanna, one of the developers of SACO Cultured Buttermilk Blend. I couldn’t help but comment on your post. Please try the Buttermilk powder in your recipes. I think you’ll be surprised at how well they turn out. The Buttermilk powder is definitely better than a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice, and much superior to the fluid buttermilk you find in the dairy case at your supermarket. Why? I’ll tell you…
ReplyDeleteSACO Buttermilk Blend is the ONLY real buttermilk you can buy today. Liquid buttermilk, although it is named “buttermilk” hasn’t a drop of real buttermilk in it. Check the label. It’s made from skim milk – quite different from real churned buttermilk. It is cultured, so that it has the texture and acidity of cultured buttermilk, and it is a great beverage, if you enjoy the tart taste of buttermilk. But for baking, there’s all the difference in the world between cultured skim milk and real cultured churned buttermilk. Let me explain.
You all know that oil and water don’t mix, and it would be the same thing in the cow with butterfat and milk if it wasn’t for this special emulsifier that bonds the two together. It has the special property to keep the fat liquid in cream or whole milk. When butter is made, however, it is the mechanical churning process that physically strips this emulsifier from the butterfat molecule, allowing the fat to turn to a solid as the butter we know and love. But if you looked in the churn now, you’d see masses of solid butter floating in a milk-like liquid, which is the buttermilk, the by-product of the butter-churning process. It looks like skim milk (which is why it wasn’t a big leap for dairies to culture skim milk instead of buttermilk), but it has the essential ingredient of the free emulsifier that once kept the butterfat and milk bonded together as liquid cream.
Buttermilk is an American ingredient. It has been used for centuries, prized for its ability to make baked goods better while adding a tangy flavor to the recipe. Some of this is due to the acidic nature of the cultured product (similar in both real buttermilk and cultured skim milk) as it reacts with the baking soda and leavening agents in the recipe, but the key to real buttermilk baking are the free emulsifiers from the churning process that it contains. As in the cow, they bond fat to water, in a recipe they bond the shortening to the water-based ingredients, evenly dispersing oil in very fine particles throughout the batter. This makes for a higher, lighter, more evenly textured baked good than could otherwise be achieved.
So SACO Cultured Buttermilk Blend is not only more convenient to have around (please refrigerate after opening), but it is the only real buttermilk you can buy today. Try it, I think you’ll be pleased, and you can always reach us at 1-800-373-7226 or askus@sacofoods.com with your comments and questions. Thank you.
I'm convinced! I am going to buy some!
DeleteWhen I was a girl the buttermilk that we bought was churned and had little specks of real butter in it. I loved to strain it through my teeth and see who (between my sister and I) could gather the largest blob. I buy KNUDSEN brand and it still does have little flakes of butter but they are added to the cultured product. How nice to hear from one of the developers. His interest and knowledge has influenced me to go buy some!
Anthony Sanna,
DeleteThanks for your comment and explanation of buttermilk and Saco.
I'll be honest. I love buttermilk pancakes, buttermilk ranch dressing buttermilk biscuits and all that. But give me raw buttermilk and I will gag. The smell itself is so putrid to me I can't understand how anyone can handle that stuff. But I am from a different generation, so I hope you'll forgive me. I'm popping over here after visiting Dana. I liked your little song about woman in purple wearing red hats. So I had to come visit :)
ReplyDeleteFurry,
DeleteI love buttermilk, but it is not like I drank as a child. It is funny how some things are received so differently by various people. I have a friend who was 17 years older than I am, and he hated buttermilk.
I make buttermilk on the counter. Add buttermilk to milk and let it sit out in a warm kitchen for at least twelve hours.
Sorry you gag. Happy you like the poem. Come back soon. Some people say they learn things hear...lol.
May I tell a buttermilk story? 40 years ago my brother in law was a milkman. This was back in the time of home delivery. His family was from Puerto Rico and New York so he had no experience with buttermilk unlike my family who came from Arkansas. Anyway he got to thinking about buttermilk and thought .....I like milk, I like butter. Hummmmm buttermilk must be rich and creamy and delicious. So he opened a carton and took a big swig.!!! YUCK! so he opened a second carton with the same results! Of course the rest of us thought his story was hysterical.
ReplyDeleteI have always found it interesting that people say that they don't like buttermilk when many of them have never actually tried it. World wide there are many versions of cultured or churned milk products. In my opinion It is not that different than cheese, yogurt or sour cream. Many times an aversion to food is a mind set. Me? I'm ordering the Mango lassi !!!
Janet,
DeleteThat is a funny story about buttemilk.
Janet,
ReplyDeleteI have to tell people that buttermilk is like yogurt, sp buttermilk will be okay in a smoothie. People thnk soured milk will kill a person, but buttermilk or yogurt did not kill anyone. Lots of people don't like buttermilk because a parent or sibling or friend did no. I pretty much don't care for lots of food because of allergy or have tried it before. Sometimes the smerll get to me.
You can give us a report on Mango lassi, iv you will.