Baking Powder

As a baker, some of these ingredients are very common to me in my kitchen. It seems second nature to pull certain bottles and tubs from the pantry when I am creating but until recently I had no idea what exactly was making up my food.

Baking powder and baking soda are so easily mistaken for each other. I remember Christmas baking with my mom and sister, year after year and without fail, we would always have to double and triple check the recipes to make sure we had read "soda" and not "powder" or vice versa.  It's easy to think that they'd be interchangeable seeing as they both are fine, white crystalline powders. Though they share some similarities, they are vastly different in application.

Also acting as a leavening agent, baking powder is most commonly made up of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), cream of tarter (potassium bitartrate) and corn starch. Occasionally, companies will use calcium acid phosphate or sodium aluminum sulfate instead of cream of tartar. Should you be trying to keep aluminum at bay in your diet, look for an aluminum free brand such as Rumford's,  Argo,  Bob's Red Mill, or Trader Joe's.

You may have noted in your grocery store browsing that baking powders are often classified as "double acting". This is referencing it's leavening abilities. Single acting reacts on contact with moisture while double acting reacts on contact with moisture and again during baking. There are two kinds of single acting baking powders, tartrate and phosphate, however they are not found in recipes written after the 1940s and often found only in gourmet food stores.

Chemistry plays a large role in baking and baking powder is no different, here is a breakdown of it's chemical equation:

Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate, has the chemical formula NaHCO3. Cream of tartar, also known as tartrate salt, has the formula KHC4H4O6. The reaction is:

NaHCO3 + KHC4H4O6 ----> KNaC4H4O6 + H2O + CO2

NaHCO3 + KHC4H4O6 ----> KNaC4H4O6 + H2O + CO2

Some baking powders contain sodium aluminum sulfate: NaAl(SO4)2. The reaction there is:

NaAl(SO4)2 + 3 NaHCO3 ----> Al(OH)3 + 2 Na2SO4 + 3 CO2

NaAl(SO4)2 + 3 NaHCO3 ----> Al(OH)3 + 2 Na2SO4 + 3 CO2

(copied from http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/baking-powder.htm)

It never ceases to amaze me how such small amounts of seemingly useless powders can make or break a recipe. With the holidays fast approaching, we all will be whipping out our ingredients to create happy tummies and joyful smiles. Oh the fun that can be had when you view cooking and baking as an experiment. 

Next up is cream of tartar, the shining star of sugar cookies, but why?

It's What?! Baking Soda

Baking soda, we all have seen it in action one way or another. For the creative hearts, you probably know it to be a role player in volcano models at the science fair. Those of you clean freaks, like me, have probably been elbow deep in a bathtub with good ole baking soda at least once before. However, the most common use of baking soda is in our food and medicine.

Sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), a mild alkaline with a distinctively bitter, salty, sour taste, is created synthetically by combining carbonic and sodium hydroxide. Ore trona is used commercially and nahcolite is naturally occurring.

Some history from madehow.com :

Imported from England, baking soda was first used in America during colonial times, but it was not produced in the United States until 1839. In 1846, Austin Church, a Connecticut physician, and John Dwight, a farmer from Massachusetts, established a factory in New York to manufacture baking soda. Dr. Church's son, John, owned a mill called the Vulcan Spice Mills. Vulcan, the Roman god of forge and fire, was represented by an arm and hammer, and the new baking soda company adopted the arm and hammer logo as its own. Today, the Arm & Hammer brand of baking soda is among the most widely recognized brand names.

Named after Nicolas Leblanc, the French chemist who invented it, the Leblanc process was the earliest means of manufacturing soda ash (Na ₂ CO ₃ ), from which sodium bicarbonate is made. Sodium chloride (table salt) was heated with sulfuric acid, producing sodium sulfate and hydrochloric acid. The sodium sulfate was then heated with coal and limestone to form sodium carbonate, or soda ash.

In the late 1800s, another method of producing soda ash was devised by Ernest Solvay, a Belgian chemical engineer. The Solvay method was soon adapted in the United States, where it replaced the Leblanc process. In the Solvay process, carbon dioxide and ammonia are passed into a concentrated solution of sodium chloride. Crude sodium bicarbonate precipitates out and is heated to form soda ash, which is then further treated and refined to form sodium bicarbonate of United States Pharnacopoeia (U.S.P.) purity.

Read more: http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Baking-Soda.html#ixzz39cNaFzAY

Baking soda's shining moment for me is in....you guessed it....baking! It reacts with acid ingredients (cream of tartar, vinegar, lemon, etc) to give off a gas, allowing the baked good to rise. In cooking, it has been used in the past to soften vegetables and tenderize meat. Since it is an alkaline, it tends to react to naturally occurring acids in foods such as Vitamin C and therefore can prevent it's absorption. 

All in all, this ingredient is small but mighty. 

Curious about all the tricks this little kitchen ingredient can do? Check out the links below for some ideas

51 fantastic uses for baking soda

31 Baking Soda Uses

Best beauty uses-baking soda

Next week: Baking powder (and the secrets it hides). As always, comment with your ingredient curiosities :)