My great-uncle's 'whiskey cake' recipe turned into a brick last night

I was making it for a family thing today, following his handwritten card from 1962. The recipe calls for a cup of buttermilk, but I only had regular milk and figured it was close enough. The cake came out dense and didn't rise at all, just a solid brown block. I guess that old-time buttermilk was doing a real job. Has anyone else had a family recipe fail because you swapped one simple thing?

2 comments

2 Comments

mary6142d ago

Oh man, that's the worst. I read somewhere that buttermilk's acidity is a big deal in old recipes. It reacts with baking soda to make the cake rise. Regular milk just doesn't do that. I tried using yogurt instead of sour cream in my grandma's coffee cake once. Same deal, total doorstop. Those old ingredients were doing heavy lifting we didn't even know about.

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riley_ramirez812d agoMost Upvoted

Actually I've swapped them all the time and my stuff turns out fine. You just need to adjust the other liquids a bit.