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Ginger-beer Powders

A powdered mixture of bicarbonate of soda, powdered ginger, sugar, and tartaric acid used to flavor ginger beer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Ginger-beer Powders

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the bicarbonate of soda, powdered ginger, and sugar for the blue paper.

  2. For the white paper, use the tartaric acid.

  3. Store each mixture in separate papers.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts with the tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide, which makes the powder fizz.
Tartaric acid
Acid that reacts with the bicarbonate of soda to produce the fizz when dissolved in water.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and bulk to the powder.
Powdered ginger
Provides the characteristic ginger aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Store each mixture in separate papers. Bicarbonate of soda and tartaric acid react as soon as they meet in the presence of moisture, releasing carbon dioxide. Keeping them apart prevents the powder from fizzing and losing its effect before use.

“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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