KTT and WFMW: Using Sour Milk

As indicated in my last post, I recently had a little kitchen excitement learning to use sour milk. I'm trying really hard not to waste anything edible these days, and sour milk (contrary to popular opinion) falls into that category. So, when I found that half a gallon of milk had not only soured, but curdled (!), I dragged out one of my go-to antique cookbooks, and went to the page dedicated to sour milk recipes.

Here's my first kitchen tip: When working with sour milk, don't think of it as spoiled--think of it as fermented. And don't worry, the smell goes away as soon as the batter is mixed. The flavor of spoiled milk goes away, too.

I started my baking marathon with two batches of sour milk biscuits and a double batch of sour milk spice cake. Both recipes turned out excellently. However, the introduction to the page included this advice:

Thick sour milk, sour cream and buttermilk...can each be used in place of sweet milk if these instructions are carefully followed. Use one-third teaspoon soda to each cup of thick sour milk and add [baking powder] as directed in the recipe for sweet milk.

Because sour cream contains so much fat, the butter or other shortening in the recipe will have to be reduced when sour cream is used.

Soda can be sifted with the dry ingredients or added to the sour milk. Either method is satisfactory with perhaps a little advantage in the former.

Where other acid-reacting materials such as molasses, raisins, bran and brown sugar are also included in a sour milk recipe, the amount of soda will, of course, have to be increased slightly.

Interesting! Well, I was out of sandwich bread, so the next day, I made a batch of my favorite bread using sour milk in place of buttermilk. I also made a batch of buttermilk biscuits also using sour milk in place of buttermilk.

Since the cookbook said sour milk and buttermilk could be used interchangeably, I planned to make no other alteration to the recipe. However, because the milk was so curdled (a better word might be separated!), the batter for the bread came out more like soft yeast bread dough, and the dough for the biscuits was too dry to absorb all the flour. The bread dough I simply put in a loaf pan and in the oven. However, I added a little extra milk to the biscuits.

Once baked, the biscuits were light, fluffy, and about a third taller than my regular buttermilk or baking powder biscuits. They were also taller and fluffier than the sour milk biscuits made following the recipe in my cookbook.

The bread also rose more than usual. More intriguing, though, is that its crust, smell, and taste are all very reminiscent of yeast bread.

As for the spice bread from the previous day, it is sweet, moist, soft, and rose beautifully. Here's what I did:

• 1/4c oil
• 1c sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2c flour
• 1.5 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp each allspice and cloves
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1c sour milk
• 1 small apple, cored and chopped small

Combine first four ingredients thoroughly, and set aside. In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients. Fold in sugar mixture and sour milk in stages. Finally, stir in the apple pieces. Pour into a greased loaf pan, and bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.


We've been enjoying this bread for breakfast since.

Next, I'm going to try a sour cream recipe, since I have some of that lying around too.

The moral of the story is NOT to throw out that sour milk. Embrace it! Enjoy it! Just don't drink it...

This post has been linked to Kitchen Tip Tuesday at Tammy's Recipes and Works for Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.