What is Buttermilk?

This past week, I found myself with 3 just-too-old-to-eat bananas in my fruit bowl. I was getting ready to toss them in the trash, when I heard the voice of The Muffin Man in the back of my mind. I realized that I shouldn't' toss the bananas! Instead, I should channel my inner Betty Crocker, and make banana bread!

I had almost all the ingredients: mushy bananas, flour, baking powder, eggs, vanilla. The only thing missing was Buttermilk.

Since I've been cooped inside my house most of the week, this was a good reason to get out: I happily strolled along to my neighborhood grocery store and bought buttermilk.

The banana bread was a great success! Christopher came over that evening. He made a delicious comfort-food dinner: meatloaf and mashed-potatoes. We followed dinner with my fresh-baked banana bread for dessert.

That's when Dick asked the question: "What IS Buttermilk?"

As if on cue, Christopher and I both answered at the same time, "Milk. Made with butter...."

(of course, we didn't know at all, and were totally making this up)

This morning, I realized I still had buttermilk in the fridge, and decided to shake up our weekly routine, and made Buttermilk Pancakes! (Yum!)

Again, Dick asked the question, "What IS Buttermilk?"

So, I brought in the laptop, and found the answer:

In the old days, buttermilk was a byproduct of making butter. People would churn and churn and churn. The result of churning milk was butter and liquid. This liquid byproduct was buttermilk.

These days the buttermilk we buy at the grocery store is made by adding a lactic acid bacteria culture to skim or non-fat milk. The milk is then fermented to make modern buttermilk.

Buttermilk has considerably less fat than you would think. Keep in mind that buttermilk is milk with the butter removed. It would be better named "butter-less milk". The buttermilk we have here is 90% water, 5% lactose sugar, a little live bacteria culture and just a hint of butter fat - just enough butter fat to give it that rich, tangy flavor that makes it so great to bake with.

Mmmmm... lactic acid bacteria culture added to fermented milk...

Hmmm... maybe, sometimes, it's better not to ask.

That's okay. The banana bread and the Buttermilk Pancakes sure were yummy!