The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Baking with sour milk?

chiaoapple's picture
chiaoapple

Baking with sour milk?

 I read in a baking blog that you could use sour milk in making bread – is this correct?

Note: what I mean by sour milk is milk that has gone a bit off, NOT soured milk (which was intentionally made sour by vinegar or lemon).

Does anyone bake with sour milk? If yes, is there a “cut-off” for how sour the milk can be?

Thanks!

Susan's picture
Susan

you can definitely use it to make biscuits!

Susan from San Diego

browndog's picture
browndog

the problem here is that modern pasteurized milk doesn't sour in the true 'old-fashioned' sense. The right souring 'bugs' are killed by the process and it just goes BAD. No, I would not be remotely inclined to do anything with it but pour it down the drain (with apologies to Susan. I'm sure milk that's just starting to turn isn't a real danger. I just let my nose be the judge. I don't know the science, but I bet somebody does.) That's why we sour milk by adding lemon juice or vinegar--we don't have access to the real thing like our grannies did. If you are lucky enough to have raw milk, that would be the ticket, you can certainly use true 'sour' milk in bread, its acidic nature will add flavor and soften the crumb. I used to get raw milk by the gallon from a local farmer, cream top and all, I always had too much milk and often had sour cream and it always ended up in the bread. If you aren't nervous about the 'bad' bug potential it's grand.

dcbakerman's picture
dcbakerman

A lot of irish soda breads are made with soured milk.  My friends mom is irish, lives there and just keeps one liter on the counter so she can always have "bread milk" as she calls it.

nicodvb's picture
nicodvb

Hi,

a friend of mine made a sourdough bread using ~200gr of soured milk (which was pasteurized) and she told me that both the bread and the soured milk had a buttery flavour. I searched a lot and found out that the butter flavor is given by diacetyl,  a substance that is released by certain bacteria in particular conditions (one of which is the presence of some form of citrate). My question is: did you have the same buttery flavor, too? Was it a lucky case that is not repeatable?

I'd like to have the same flavor in my bread, but how to I create the right conditions? I was thinking to let sour some raw milk that I can  get easily.

Heidela123's picture
Heidela123

Please do not feed raw dairy products to children under two, pregnant Women, immune compromised or frail elders...( I am a nurse, in my experience, food borne illness is way too real ) that said I raise chickens and ducks, eat raw eggs in sauces, drink raw goats milk every day, raw eat fresh cheeses, yogurt and kefir with reckless bandon, so do my kids and husband, but my frail father and little grandkids get cooked, coddled or pasteurized
Sour milk is wonderful for baking as an acidifing agent it helps lift and flavor. I freeze it before it goes beyond usable so I have it on hand for biscuits, scones, sopapillas ect
Kefir gives a real lift to baked goods! Pancakes are amazing I added a cup of Kefir to my sourdough spelt loaf on Saturday, it made it so light fluffy and flavorful!
I forget to bake with the kefir because we use it up so fast.
Yogurt is good as well if it is just milk and has no fillers

Whole fat fermented dairy is ideal for adding to baked goods

If you want really nice sour milk
Toss a couple of grapes into a quart of whole milk, let it sit loosely covered overnight

If you have never tried kefir, I can not speak highly enough of it.