If it doesn't react, or reacts weakly, get rid of it: it's no good and your baking will come out flat. Baking powder is a leavening agent, made from sodium bicarbonate, corn starch, and a few weak acids. You can make your own baking powder at home: Sift 1/4 cup cream of tartar and 2 tablespoons baking soda through a fine strainer 3 times into a small bowl. Corn starch is a light powder made from corn used for thickening soups and sauces, and not for making baked goods rise. And remember that baking soda has 4 times the power of baking powder, so 1/4 teaspoon soda is equivalent to 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
If it fizzes and froths up energetically, it's fine. So, the are chemically entirely of different types. (By the way, here's a way to test whether your baking powder is still good: Boil half a cup of water and add half a teaspoon of the baking powder to it. Note that you could skip the cornstarch if you are going to use the baking powder right away, but since you are making a big batch of homemade baking powder, you will be storing, so it must stay dry This recipe makes about 45 teaspoons of baking powder so you will want to store it in a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid that has a good seal. Check the labels of your local brands to see what secondary raising agents they add. Please note that there are also aluminum-free commercial baking powders on the market: one of them (in North America) is Rumford. To make larger quantities, just increase the amounts in proportion.
To make one teaspoon of commercial baking powder, mix together:ġ/4 teaspoon cornstarch (cornflour, for UK bakers) When you make your own from scratch, in small batches, you know it's going to work right every time. (The "double action" comes from the addition of sodium aluminum sulfate, which causes the powder to react more slowly to heat, as in the oven.) With this in mind, why not try making your own baking powder at home, from scratch? This home-made single-acting baking powder won't behave much differently in your baking than the double-acting type does.Īdditionally, homemade baking powder gets around one of the main problems with the storebought stuff: it stops working over time. Many commercial double-acting baking powders in the US contain small amounts of aluminum. (Except maybe in the baking pan or tin on the outside: and again, that should be your call.) While nothing about the connection has been conclusively proven as yet, there seems to be no harm in eliminating aluminum from places where it doesn't really need to be. A lot of people are nervous about a possible connection between aluminum / aluminium and Alzheimer's disease.
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