Best Baking Powder
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Ensure all ingredients are dry.
Pulverize tartaric acid and bicarbonate of soda separately in a clean mortar until fine.
Mix and store
Sift all ingredients together repeatedly until well mixed.
Store in well-corked bottles.
Use 2 teaspoons of this baking powder for each pint of flour.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Tartaric acid
- Reacts with bicarbonate of soda to release carbon dioxide, which lifts the dough or batter.
- Bicarbonate of soda
- Supplies the alkaline base that reacts with the acid to produce gas for rising.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the bulk structure that the leavening gas expands within and dilutes the mix.
The step that matters
Pulverize the acid and bicarbonate separately until fine. If the powders are coarse, they dissolve and react unevenly, so some pockets gain too much gas while others gain little. Fine, dry, separately ground powders also keep the mixture from reacting early in storage, and thorough sifting spreads the two evenly through the flour.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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