bicarb or baking powder?

mirakl · 25 April 2006 at 10:03PM

I just knew this was the place to ask this question. Ive reasonably recently gotten into baking and I've got most sponge/cookie and muffin recipies down pat. My biggest problem is how fast I go through baking powder. Can it be substituted for Bicarbonate of Soda? Are they the same thing? Are they completely different? Did I completely dream up that they're even similar on drunken evening?

Thank you in advance because you're all annoyinglly brilliant at questions like this.

arkonite_babe · 25 April 2006 at 10:17PM

Hi mirakl

Bicarb and baking powder are two different agents so, no you can't swap one for the other.

Have you tried an ethnic/asian grocery? If there's one near you, they tend to have bullk packs for low cost. You could also try costco if there's one near you.

HTH

mirakl · 25 April 2006 at 10:19PM

Oh dear! so I did dream it up one random drunken evening

Heth_2 · 25 April 2006 at 10:49PM

Baking powder is made of bicarbonate of soda and creame of tarter I believe, so you didn't make it up completely.
I always use plain flour in baking, and add relevant amounts of baking powder. Don't do loads though, so don't get through it that quick.

kittiwoz · 26 April 2006 at 1:45AM

Baking powder is two parts cream of tartar to one parts bicarbonate of soda. The cream of tartar is acidic and so reacts with the bicarbonate of soda on the addition of liquid to release bubbles of carbon dioxide.

You can buy bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar seperately and mix them yourself to make baking powder. Otherwise to substitute 1tsp baking soda for baking powder you have to use 1/4tsp bicarb and add an acidic ingredient to replace the cream of tartar. The only info I've found on the net suggests 120ml of an acidic ingredient such as soured milk or cream, buttermilk or yoghurt. Other acidic ingredients typical in recipies using baking soda are lemon juice, honey, syrup, and cocoa but how much of these would be required I don't know. I also read a recipie on this board a while ago for a cake which used vinegar to activate the bicarbonate of soda and which contained no eggs.

thriftlady_2 · 26 April 2006 at 8:29AM

Self raising flour is plain flour with baking powder added I believe.Tesco's value plain flour and self raising is the same price,so you could just stock self raising as well/instead of plain.For muffins you will still need to add some baking powder but not as much.

My muffin book says that baking powder contains an acid and an alkaline ingredient.These react with each other in the prescence of moisture to produce gas which rises the batter.Bicarb is only alkaline so it can only help rise things if there is an acid ingredient like buttermilk.Some muffin recipes contain acidic ingredients like cocoa or honey or yogurt which aren't acidic enough to react with the bicarb on their own so some baking powder is added as well.

Does that help? I can recommend 'Muffins Fast and Fantastic' by Susan Reimer

ti1980 · 26 April 2006 at 5:44PM

This has always confused me when looking at recipes.
If sometimes when you use bicarb, the acidic ingredients that are to go in the recipe aren't present in vast quantities, can't you just not use bicarb at all and add more bakling powder instead?

thriftlady_2 · 26 April 2006 at 5:51PM

Well you could experiment and see what happens:)

My understanding is that the bicarb neutralizes the acid in the ingredients.This is so that the acid in the baking powder can react with the alkaline in the powder and produce the 'rise'.If the acid in the yogurt/cocoa etc wasn't neutralized by the bicarb there would be too much acid present in the mixture to produce the required 'rise'.

Please bear in mind that I was rubbish at chemistry at school so I may be talking out of my you know what

ti1980 · 26 April 2006 at 5:59PM

So does that mean that baking powder is already neutral then?
As some recipes just ask for baking powder and there is no mention of bicarb.

thriftlady_2 · 26 April 2006 at 6:09PM

Blimey,I'm out of my depth now :rotfl: Any chemists out there?
Sorry my knowledge of kitchen chemistry has just run out

kittiwoz · 26 April 2006 at 6:58PM

I don't think it makes sense to describe baking powder as neutral since it contains two seperate substances mixed together. Once you add water they will react together and I think the product may be neutral.

I don't think bicarb is required to neutralise acid in order to allow backing powder to react properly to cause a rise. Bicarb itself is the raising agent in baking powder and since baking powder is not "neat" bicarb it is not as powerful a raising agent. I think recipies that call for bicarb and baking powder do so because there is only a small amount of acid in them and it without the addition of cream of tartar it will not be sufficient to cause a good raise. If a recipie contained more acid than required to react with the baking powder it would simply mean that the surplus acid would be left in the finished product. So if you had no baking soda but only baking powder you would have to use three or four times the amount specified and the finished product would be slightly more acidic. I don't think it would affect the taste too much though since the acidic ingredients in cake making are generally quite palateable on their own.

PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

bicarb or baking powder?

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free