5 comments

  1. I couldn’t get into Elinor’s comments so I will comment here. THere is a HUGE difference between soured milk (from pre-pasteurization no refrigeration days) and spoiled milk that we now get from leaving the pasteurized milk in the fridge for too long. soured milk was generally colonized with lactobacillus that is gut friendly and had an aroma and chemical property similar to buttermilk or yoghurt. Today’s spoiled milk is far different and I would hesitate to use it in cooking at all.
    It has been way too long since I did microbiology, but I vaguely remember that we cultured out all kinds of nasties from spoiled pastuerized milk.
    In using old recipes that call for soured milk, I either use buttermilk, plain yoghurt, or milk that has vinegar or lemon juice added (1 TB per cup).
    She also oversimplifies the composition of baking powder, but that is another story. Most commercial baking powders today are what is called double action. What she describes is single action baking powder – a combination of cream of tartar and baking soda. The double action powders have more ingredients which actually slow down the rising.
    Of course, Erik is the food chemist. I wonder what he would have to say about this.

  2. Isn’t the idea behind double-action baking powder to slow down the rise until the dough actually gets into the oven? (Or else provide extra rise to supplement what occurs before the dough gets in the oven.) I know Erik has suggested making baking powder at home by mixing cream of tartar and baking soda. I haven’t bothered to try it yet — too much math when I’m trying to get a recipe together in a hurry.
    I have found through unhappy experience that both baking powder and cream of tartar can lose their fizz if they’ve been sitting around too long.
    When I was nosing around this morning for more information, I found many sources that said that saleratus in old recipes was baking soda, not baking powder. I supposed the baking soda reacted with other acids added separately in the recipe. The first commercial baking powder, Calumet, was marketed in the 1880’s.
    It looks like commercial buttermilk is made by culturing sweet milk with Streptococcus lactans. This link has instructions for making your own buttermilk, either from a starter or from scratch. The author warns that pasteurized milk won’t work for the scratch recipe, though — it has to be raw milk.
    My mom has a recipe for sour cream and raisin pie. She’ll use commercial sour cream, but she thinks that it tastes the best when she has cream on hand that has soured.

  3. There is so much I don’t know about both food and — biology? Chemistry? “Streptococcus” is really not a word I expect to see in a discussion of making food, except in some dire warning.

  4. I actually do not use double action baking powder, so I do have to work fast (as Peony mentioned, I make my own: 2 parts cream of tartar to 1 each of baking soda and 1 of corn starch, which functions exactly as Elinor says). Double action has a secondary CO2 release that is triggered by heat. Cream of tartar and baking soda definitely do lose their fizz, it is a good idea to check them by putting a pinch in a cup of warm water. You will know immediately if your baking powder is flat.
    As for using spoiled milk, I am not sure. I do know the incerdible amount of bad stuff that can grow in their, and I know how foul spoiled mild smells. I generally use intentionally cultured products: buttermilk, creme fraiche, Greek yoghurt, etc.
    Commercial sour cream is not worth it, as it is now made with modified corn starch and kelp and thickeners of that ilk, all to save money and lengthen shelf life. I find it almost completely unusable, and use either creme fraiche (I make my own with cream and buttermilk) or a mix of Greek yoghurt and cream.

  5. Post-dates milk and a sleepy midwife

    This morning I got home from work a little tired but too wired to sleep (admitted a primip in early labor around 0400 and never went back to sleep). Looked in the fridge and noticed that the milk was at…

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