How to Make Homemade Buttermilk

Buttermilk is used in loads of recipes, from muffins to scones to pancakes. It adds a light, fluffy texture to baked goods. It’s great to be able to buy ready made buttermilk from the supermarket, but if you’re midway through a recipe and realise you need buttermilk, it’s great to know how to make your own buttermilk using ingredients you have in the house already (most likely).

If you’re anything like me, you’ll start baking without realising you’re missing an ingredient. I’ve been known to nip to our local shop 3 times in a day because I’m so forgetful, so it’s great to having baking alternatives to hand.

Buttermilk can also be used in place of natural yoghurt in a recipe, but it’s best to reduce the quantity of buttermilk to yoghurt. If your recipe needs 100ml of yoghurt, you’ll only need to use 75ml of buttermilk.

Make Your Own Buttermilk

You can make your own buttermilk alternative using two simple ingredients – milk and lemon juice! It’s really easy to make a homemade buttermilk that saves you having to run out to the shop again.

To make your own buttermilk, you’ll need:

• 240ml Milk – use any kind of milk you have to hand (skimmed, semi skimmed or whole milk).
• 1 tablespoon of Lemon Juice – the lemon juice must be freshly squeezed.

You can double or triple the quantities, depending on what your recipe demands, but just keep these ratios the same (240ml milk to 1 tablespoon of lemon juice).

Add the lemon juice to the milk and allow to sit on the side at room temperature for 15 minutes, and it’s ready! It will look a bit curdled on the top, which is a good thing. This is meant to happen!

Your buttermilk is then ready to use in your recipe. It’s a lot quicker than having to run out to the shops! You can also store your homemade buttermilk in the fridge for up to 3 days or you can pop it in a tupperware tub and freeze it for up to 3 months.