Baking powder
Baking powder is a dry chemical leavening agent, a mixture of a carbonate or bicarbonate and a weak acid.
The first single-acting baking powder (meaning that it releases all of its carbon dioxide as soon as it is dampened) was developed by food manufacturer Alfred Bird in England in 1843.
Primarily it is used to absorb moisture, and so prolong shelf life of the compound by keeping the powder's alkaline and acidic components dry so as not to react with each other prematurely.
Bakers obtained yeasts from brewers or distillers or made their own by exposing mixtures of flour and water to the open air.
Combining it with an acidic ingredient like sour milk or lemon juice resulted in a chemical reaction that produced carbon dioxide.
[3][4][22][23] Between the publication of American Cookery in 1796, and the mid-1800s, cooks experimented with a variety of acids, alkalis, and mineral salts as possible chemical leaveners.
Several recipes in the compilation cookbook Practical American Cookery (1855) used baking soda and cream of tartar to form new types of dough.
[3]: 24–25 When the third edition of Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book appeared in 1858, it included 8 types of leaveners, only two of which could be made at home.
[3]: 26–32 The chemical leavening effects were accomplished by the activating of a base such as baking soda in the presence of liquid(s) and an acid such as sour milk, vinegar, lemon juice, or cream of tartar.
[25] The creation of shelf-stable chemical combinations of sodium bicarbonate and cream of tartar is seen as marking the true introduction of baking powder.
[26] Although cooks had used both sodium bicarbonate and cream of tartar in recipes, they had to purchase the ingredients individually and store them separately to prevent them from spoiling or reacting prematurely.
His formulation included bicarbonate of soda and tartaric acid, mixed with starch to absorb moisture and prevent the other ingredients from reacting.
[27] Bird focused on selling his baking powder to the British Army during the Crimean War, and to explorers like Captain Sir Francis Leopold McClintock, rather than the domestic market.
[28] Nonetheless, Bird's creation of baking powder enabled cooks to take recipes for cakes such as the patriotically named Victoria sponge and make them rise higher.
[32] In America, Eben Norton Horsford, a student of Justus von Liebig, set out to create a flour fortifier and leavening agent.
In 1864, he obtained a patent for a self-rising flour or "Bread preparation" in which calcium acid phosphate and sodium bicarbonate acted as a leavener.
Much of German baking occurred in guild-based bakeries, rather than in private homes, and the guilds were not interested in replacing centuries-old craft skills with a new technology.
[3]: 33–44 [33] Nonetheless, Liebig clearly saw the importance of Horsford's work, stating: The preparation of baking powder by Professor Horsford in Cambridge in North America, I consider one of the most important and beneficial discoveries that has been made in the last decade.In the 1890s, the German pharmacist August Oetker began to market a baking powder directly to housewives.
Finally, on March 2, 1899, Ziegler established the New Jersey–based Royal Baking Powder Corporation which combined the three major cream of tartar baking powder companies then in existence in the United States: Dr. Price (Ziegler), Royal (Joseph Hoagland) and Cleveland (Cornelius Nevius Hoagland).
In the 1880s, several companies developed double-action baking powders containing cheaper alternative acids known as alums, a class of compounds involving double sulfates of aluminium.
[38] In 1888, William Monroe Wright (a former salesman for Dr. Price) and George Campbell Rew in Chicago introduced a new form of baking powder, which they called Calumet.
[3]: 83–85 In 1899, after years of experimentation with various possible formulae beginning in the 1870s, Herman Hulman of Terre Haute also introduced a baking powder made with sodium aluminium sulfate.
Eventually, after a number of legal and commercial battles that included bribery charges against Ziegler and a grand jury hearing, Royal lost the baking powder wars.
[5][3]: 97–113 [39] The idea that aluminium in baking powder is dangerous can be traced to Ziegler's attack advertising, and has little if any scientific support.
[3]: 175 Instead of cream of tartar, modern Royal baking powder contains a mixture of Hulman's sodium aluminium sulfate and Horsford's monocalcium phosphate.
Faced with wartime shortages of cream of tartar and baking powder, Byron H. Smith, a U.S. inventor in Bangor, Maine, created substitute products for American housewives.
[42][43] Smith also sold a baking powder replacement, in which sodium acid pyrophosphate was already mixed with bicarbonate of soda and cornstarch.
[citation needed] Moisture and heat can cause baking powder to lose its effectiveness over time, and commercial varieties have a somewhat arbitrary expiration date printed on the container.
Regardless of the expiration date, the effectiveness can be tested by placing a teaspoon of the powder into a small container of hot water.
Alternatively, lemon juice can be substituted for some of the liquid in the recipe, to provide the required acidity to activate the baking soda.
