Buttermilk bonanza: maple-buttermilk pie

The last recipe of the buttermilk bonanza was a maple-buttermilk pie from 101 cookbooks, and I think we definitely saved the best for last. This pie received a lot of praise from mathematicians in two cities because I made it right before going to UIUC to visit one of Jon's collaborators. I've never made a buttermilk pie before, and it worked perfectly. It's a little tangy, but mostly sweet, rich from the buttermilk and egg yolks, slightly mapley and slightly lemony, and the part-rye flour crust added a little something too. I didn't use either of Heidi's recommended crust methods, just my usual: use pastry cutter to incoroporate fat into flour, add liquid (in this case beer) a little bit at a time until dough comes together, roll our, and transfer to pie dish. Her suggestions are probably puffier and better, but mine is easy and more than acceptable.

I really enjoyed the buttermilk bonanza. It gave me the impetus to try some nice new recipes and get a little more familiar with buttermilk. Plus, I pinned a bunch more buttermilk recipes that I can try the next time I find myself with 8 cups of buttermilk and no plan.

Buttermilk use: 2 cups

Buttermilk bonanza total: 8 cups, and we're out of buttermilk.

Buttermilk bonanza: baby, it's cold outside edition

Of course, it was a requirement to try buttermilk biscuits during our buttermilk bonanza. There are a ton of biscuit recipes out there, but we settled on Alton Brown's because we like him. We split the work on this one: Jon did the measuring and mixing, I did the shaping and baking. They were really good fresh from the oven, but they didn't age well. We probably should have halved the recipe. I included a picture of the spread on our table that night because it makes us look sophisticated: biscuits, lentil-kale soup, grapefruit-avocado salad, and grapefruit-gin spritzers with rosemary.

The day after we made the biscuits, we took a day trip to the Indiana dunes. I am filled with trepidation about my first winter in the midwest, and I am trying to take opportunities to enjoy the outdoors in the cold so I will not become a lump on my Ikea chair during the winter. We packed a nice picnic, including a thermos full of buttermilk potato soup. I based it on this recipe from Homesick Texan, but I basically made it less interesting by omitting the jalapeno, bacon, and cilantro. I did add a bit of smoked paprika to get some of the bacon smokiness, but I wasn't sad that the soup wasn't popping with flavors. It was a nice, warm, thick, creamy potato soup that made a picnic on a snow-covered picnic table much more delightful. For those keeping score, the soup called for 1/2 cup of buttermilk. By the way, we had a fantastic day at the dunes. If you like looking at goofy pictures of us, you can look at our facebook album of the trip here.

Buttermilk in today's recipes: 1 1/2 cups

Buttermilk bonanza total: 6 cups

Buttermilk bonanza: salad dressing

I didn't photograph it, but one of the things I wanted to try during the buttermilk bonanza was a salad dressing. I'm not really into creamy dressings, but this one was pretty nice. I based it on this recipe from smitten kitchen, but I adapted it to the ingredients in my fridge and my dislike of raw aliums.

This was pretty good. It won't become a staple because both of us prefer oil-and-vinegar or my lemon-sesame dressing, but it might appear again as a change of pace. It was pretty runny, probably in part because I subbed yogurt for mayo, and my yogurt batch was on the runny side, but I didn't mind the runniness.

Evelyn's buttermilk-dill dressing

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 tbsp yogurt

2 tbsp cider vinegar

1 tsp sugar (reduced from 1 tbsp in original recipe, but I would probably omit altogether in the future)

1 1/2 tsp dried dill, or more or less to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Shake. Taste. Adjust.

Buttermilk used: 1/2 cup

Buttermilk bonanza total: 4 1/2 cups

Buttermilk bonanza: the pancake edition

I made a total of three kinds of pancakes in our recent buttermilk bonanza. The first, which I did not photograph, was this buckwheat-buttermilk recipe, and it was probably my favorite. Jon and I really like buckwheat crepes, and this recipe is half buckwheat flour, so it really has a ton of buckwheat flavor. We put blueberries into a few of them, and that was nice, but not essential. This recipe used a total of 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk.

The second batch was a very classic buttermilk pancake recipe, sent to me by a facebook friend:

1 cup flour

1 cup buttermilk

1 tbsp sugar

1 egg

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

These were just what you want in a pancake: fluffy and pancakey. I pressed raspberries into a few of them and was surprised that I didn't find them that great, considering how good blueberry pancakes are and the fact that I like raspberries better than blueberries.

The last pancake recipe I tried was this chocolate chip-buttermilk pancake. Once again, very nice, especially with banana and maple syrup. This recipe used 1 cup of buttermilk because I halved it.

I make pancakes very rarely because Jon claims not to like them much. In point of fact, he said he enjoyed all of the ones I made here, and the coconut ones I shared way back here. But he never requests them, my homemade granola and yogurt are our go-to breakfasts, and neither of us usually wants something sweet for lunch or dinner, so pancakes rarely make an appearance. But hey, they're fast, cheap, and easy, and I enjoyed trying a few new recipes for the buttermilk bonanza.

Buttermilk total for the pancakes: 3 1/2 cups

Buttermilk bonanza total: 4 cups

Buttermilk bonanaza and a cranberry cake recipe

A couple weeks ago, the grocery store had buttermilk on a "manager's special" price of just $.99 for a half gallon. It was expiring the next day, but I figured buttermilk is basically bad milk, so just like yogurt, it lasts way after the expiration date. I have never used much buttermilk, but I decided that this was a personal challenge.

I knew my first recipe: my mom's cranberry upside-down cake. She has made this a few times when Jon and I have been visiting, and typically she makes them two days in a row because after we all have a small piece as dessert, my dad and Jon manage to eat the rest of the cake over the course of the evening. The cranberry cake only used 1/2 cup of the buttermilk, so I had a long way to go to make the half gallon disappear. It was really fun to browse recipes, get suggestions from my facebook friends, and try new things, and yesterday I successfully finished off the buttermilk with this delightful maple buttermilk pie. It turns out there aren't a lot of healthy buttermilk recipes. Most of them are pancakes, biscuits, scones, and cakes. The buttermilk mission was a nice excuse to indulge, which is very welcome in a snowy winter.

Today I'm including the cranberry cake recipe, which I foolishly didn't photograph. What was I thinking? It's beautiful. The cranberries collapse during cooking and make a beautiful topping on the cake. In the next few days, I'll be posting some of the other recipes I used to get through the buttermilk.

Cranberry upside-down cake

This is great topped with whipped cream.

3/4 cup butter, divided (1/4 cup and 1/2 cup) and softened

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 bag (12-16 oz) cranberries

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs, separated

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk or buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter a 9x9 baking dish. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt 1/4 cup butter and brown sugar. Pour the mixture into the baking dish and pour cranberries on top.

Mix together the flour and baking powder. In a large bowl, cream remaining 1/2 cup butter with granulated sugar. Add egg yolks one at a time, beating after each addition. Add vanilla extract. Add the milk or buttermilk and dry ingredients, just mixing.

In a small bowl, beat egg whites until they hold stiff peaks. Fold egg whites into batter. I was worried that the batter wasn't combining well enough with the egg whites, but it tasted fine in the end, so don't worry if it seems too doughy and stubborn.

Spread batter evenly over cranberries in the baking dish. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 55-60 minutes. Remove cake from oven. Run a knife around the sides of the pan. Let sit 15 minutes, then invert onto a plate. Let it sit a few minutes before removing pan.

Buttermilk count: 1/2 cup

Buttermilk bonanza total: 1/2 cup