I love cooking with buttermilk, but it seems when I have a recipe that calls for buttermilk I never have it on hand. Oh sure, sometimes I use the trick of substituting buttermilk with a mixture of milk and lemon juice (or vinegar), but the results never seem to taste the same.
My favorite banana bread recipe calls for buttermilk, and now that I have a container of Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend powder in my pantry, this will never be a problem for me again.
Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend is made by Saco, and it comes in a 3.2 ounce box. I read about this in a magazine and had a hard time finding it, then a sales person pointed it out to me at my local Fred Meyer store, and I have been making it a staple in my home for the past few years now.
Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend is a powdered buttermilk. The front of the container reads that it can be used for both baking and cooking. Like real buttermilk, this powdered version is also low fat.
The box of Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend contains four packets, much like a packet of dry milk powder. Each packet makes one cup of buttermilk, so the 3.2 ounce box converts to a total of four cups. Saco claims that this product is “shelf stable”, and can be on hand for those occasions when you need buttermilk, it will not go bad like the liquid version will.
The ingredients are few, it contains a cultured blend of sweet cream churned buttermilk, sweet dairy whey, and lactic acid. The Saco brand has been around for over 50 years, but I am so glad that I have finally discovered it! Saco actually states that this is real buttermilk, and that some of the liquid versions we see are not true buttermilk but rather cultured skim milk. I don’t know about that, but I do know that the Saco version has made my cooking much more versatile, and we love the way this makes our food taste.
I like that this product comes in four packets, and that I don’t have to put them into the refrigerator! I can keep them in my pantry and use them as needed, without worry of them going bad.
There is a conversion table on the product, which I find helpful. Saco breaks down the amount of product you need to use when a liquid buttermilk is called for in a recipe. Also on the box are a few recipes, but I honestly have not tried them so I cannot comment on how good the are.
Nutritionally, there are 80 calories and less than 1 gram of fat per serving. Other facts are that it carries 4 mg of cholesterol, 166 mg of sodium, 13 grams of carbs, 12 grams of sugar and 5 grams of protein.
Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend costs about $2.50 for the box of four packets, and I feel it is a good value for the added benefit of not having to make a trip to the store just to pick up some buttermilk for my famous banana bread! I love this product.
