Baking with Sour Cream: The creamy texture of sour cream makes baked goods more moist than if you used milk. This makes sour cream an excellent choice for recipes that are known to have drier results, like sponge cakes.
Sour cream adds moisture without thinning your batter the same way that a liquid would. That fact that sour cream delivers moisture without further thinning out a batter results in a cake with a very tender, very fine crumb.
Milk. In a pinch, regular milk can work sour cream in a baking. Depending on the fat content of your milk it may impact the overall texture of the final product, specifically if it is low-fat milk. It will also not provide the tanginess of sour cream.
The lesser fat content of sour cream makes it less versatile for cooking—while crème fraîche can be boiled, sour cream will curdle if heated too high or too quickly. It is best to add sour cream to a dish just before serving.
Sour cream or full fat yogurt can be substituted 1:1 for whole milk. Use this substitute in baking quick breads or for adding creaminess to pan sauces. Sour cream works especially well in recipes calling for buttermilk, too and vanilla-flavored yogurt can be used for sweet quick breads and cakes.
Sour cream is one of the fattiest dairy products; the extra fat content (for example, adding sour cream to a cake instead of milk) will make the cake moister and richer, says Wilk. “Fat, in any form (butter, lard, cream, etc.) shortens gluten strands, which essentially leads to the most tender baked goods,” she adds.
Whole milk, evaporated milk and milk powder are all quick and easy substitutes for sour milk in baking since they can save your recipe in a pinch. You can also use sour cream to replace milk in baking.
If you aren't usually a fan of sour cream, you may be wondering can you taste sour cream in baking? Have no fear; when baked, the flavor *might* be very mildly tangy, but definitely not sour. What is this? Most likely, you won't even taste the sour cream–but you will taste a sweet and delicious cake.
"It adds a subtle tang to the flavor or baked goods. The fat contributes to moistness and richness that makes tender cakes," says Samantha Seneviratne, author of The Joys of Baking: Recipes and Stories for a Sweet Life. What's the Difference Between Créme Fraîche and Sour Cream?
Similar to milk, adding ½ cup of sour cream packs flavor into your box cake mix. It may sound a little crazy, but for the best results, use a full-fat sour cream... because calories don't count when you're enjoying homemade dessert, right?
Milk or Milk Powder
Mix one cup of whole milk and a tablespoon juice of lemon to make sour cream replacement. Evaporated milk can be substituted for milk if you don't have any milk. Mix 2/3 cup powder milk with 3/4 cup water and a teaspoon of lemon juice/vinegar to make sour cream.
Because heavy cream boasts a fat content of 36% to 40%, using a half cup of heavy cream mixed with a half cup of water will be your best bet for replacing one cup of milk. It will add a luscious creaminess to your recipe, without altering the final texture too much. Don't have heavy cream on hand?
The buttermilk cake did have the advantage for flavor though. It provided a mild complexity that was not too tangy. The sour cream cake had a very fine, tender crumb. The sour cream contains acidity as well as sizable amounts of fat.
Yogurt is your best substitute for sour cream. Whether you're baking or making a dip or sauce, yogurt is a 1:1 sub. That means if your recipe calls for 1 cup of sour cream, you can replace it with 1 cup of yogurt. Full-fat Greek or natural yogurts work best, but low-fat or even nonfat can be used, too.
Use full-fat sour cream for: baked goods (quick breads, cakes, muffins), creamy sauces, mashed potatoes, vegetable purées, cheesecakes, salad dressings, pasta salads, cold summer soups or dips.
Shelf Life
This rule of thumb is backed up by the Food Marketing Institute in their consumer guide to food quality and safe handling, "The Food Keeper." They give a seven to 21-day window for using sour cream, assuming it's been refrigerated at 40 F.
The more fat you have in milk, the more the texture of the bake will change. You want bakes to be moist, so this means you should choose milk with a higher fat content to achieve this. Therefore the best milk to use during baking is in most cases whole milk.
Use of baking soda while baking or making cake, makes the cake taste bitter due to the formation of Sodium carbonate during heating. Hence, to neutralize the formed sodium carbonate and its bitter taste, we use tartaric acid.
The consistency of sour cream is very similar to the consistency of cake batter, so it will not change the cake batter too much. This will add moisture to your batter.
Curdling occurs when excessive heat causes the whey proteins in dairy to denature (unfold) and bind with casein proteins, forming clumps of larger proteins.
Sour cream is commonly used as a condiment on foods, or combined with other ingredients to form a dipping sauce. It can be added to soups and sauces to help thicken and make them creamy, or in baking to help increase the moisture level over and above using milk.
Sour cream has a tangy, tart taste backed by a rich, thick creaminess.
Add 1 tablespoon of flour to 1/2 cup of sour cream used as a thickener to discourage curdling.
Make a straight substitution — If you want to create healthier baked goods or just want a simple substitution, use an equal amount of yogurt in place of the sour cream. Whole milk yogurt works best and brings a big reduction in fat, plus more protein and calcium.
Using sour cream in a recipe may seem kind of gross, but it's actually just like using Greek yogurt. You can use it to replace half of the butter in your recipe and it's a great way to use up your sour cream before it goes bad.