Hi,
Did our research here for many hours for our first trip to Paris! So here we are! Our first mistake was buying buttermilk when we thought we were buying milk at the Monoprix around the corner from where we are staying. No problem, we thought we'll make buttermilk pancakes for breakfast. We need baking powder and searched for the translation and came up with levain en poudre on a translator service online. We go back to the Monoprix where we are getting to be a couple of regulars and they sell us levure chimique which I think might be brewer's yeast? Though we can find baking soda, we've had no luck finding cream of tartar to go with it as a substitute. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Maybe go out for breakfast? ;o)

That might work, Gretchen, lol!

When I was a child, my mother went to the boulangerie to get the <i>levure</i>; but that was a long time ago.

Levure chimique will be fine. It usually contains sodium bicarbonate.

Levain is fermented flour paste used for making bread (yeast?)

Wow, Michael, what a place to live as a child!
Thank you for your response, Pvoyageuse, we'll give that a try!

Hi tc,

&gt;Though we can find baking soda, we've had no luck finding cream of tartar to go with it ...&lt;

COT provides acidity to make the soda fizz.
If you have buttermilk, you don't need cream of tartar.

Levure chimique is the French equivalent of baking powder. I use it for all my baking here.

Levure du boulanger is yeast for making bread.

I'm surprised that you got buttermilk in Monoprix. I don't find it here at all in the Perigord. Is it really lait fermente, sometimes known as babeurre?

Bon Courage

Babeurre is not lait ferment&eacute;, it is the white liquid (sometimes called lait de beurre) that remains after making butter. It is used to feed animals.
Monoprix sells lait ferment&eacute;, sometimes called kefir. It is usually sold with fresh milk.

Babeurre is buttermilk I thought?

Sorry, that was awful English, been speaking Dutch non stop for days and am having trouble switching back.

Hi het,

What most folks call &quot;buttermilk&quot; in English is actually cultured fermented milk.

In the olden days, folks spoke of &quot;sweet milk&quot; and &quot;buttermilk&quot; to differentiate the two.

PV is correct. True buttermilk is the liquid left over from churning butter.

Buttermilk makes a nice &quot;fresh&quot; cheese too. Warm it up, add vinegar, watch the curds form; drain it (cheesecloth is what cheesecloth &quot;is&quot. I'd bet a coffee filter would work too.
Check the consistancy if it pleases you after the whey stops dripping; taste it, add salt
Dress this mass with olive oil and black pepper, (any herbs you like from the street market OMG I wish I was there!) a fresh baguette and a good bottle of your favorite beverage!
...(some people would add heavy cream to the curds after they're drained = cottage cheese)

Buttermilk at Monoprix? Wow. Mine has fermented milk, goat's milk and laban but I have never seen buttermilk.

Levure chimique is also sometimes called levure alsacienne (and I believe that l'Alsacienne is the main brand for it).

Hi Ira-I've always learned a lot from your trip reports, thank you!
Bonjour Kerouac and Carlux-the product I bought was lait ribot. I found out what it was from Patricia Well's glossary pages that I learned about from the forums here.
The buttermilk pancakes were a hit!
Thanks again for all your helpful responses!
Merci beaucoup!

Actually, I buy buttermilk at Monoprix all the time. It's called &quot;lait ribot&quot; and is in the refrigerated milk section -- comes in small milk bottles, so perhaps this is why the OP made the mistake? It's delicious all by itself!

hi
You can buy butter milk in carrefour auchan the nama is ' lait fermenté "
baking soda bicarbonade de soduim you can buy it at auchan
baking powder: levure chimique

And so 4 years later, I will confirm that on the multilingual cartons of "lait fermenté" which every supermarket sells, the English translation reads "buttermilk."

Cake flour (farine de gateau) w

...works well if you can't find baking powder.

Wonder if buttermilk would make good French toast, pain perdu?