What Is Spoilt Milk In The Old-Fashioned Sandwich Loaf?

Our answer

Nigella's Old-Fashioned Sandwich Loaf (from COOK, EAT, REPEAT) is a white loaf with a soft and fine crumb. The bread dough is not kneaded in the traditional way but with a series of extremely short kneads, with 10 minutes rest in between each. The combination of kneading method and ingredients, such as butter and milk, help to give the bread its soft texture.

Nigella suggests using spoilt (or spoiled) milk. This is milk that has turned sour (or "spoilt") and is not good for drinking or adding to hot drinks. Using acid dairy ingredients in bread can help with both flavour and texture. And it is a good way to use up milk that isn't good for anything else. Spoilt milk is slightly different to buttermilk as sour milk usually has a higher fat content than buttermilk. You could just leave some milk in your fridge until it turns sour. However, you can also use other sour dairy ingredients for the bread. NIgella suggests sour cream and we note that some people have used plain yogurt. If you use a higher fat ingredient such as sour cream then you will need to reduce the amount of butter used and if you use a lower fat ingredients such as buttermilk, then you may need to increase the amount of butter slightly.