Baking powder and baking soda are commonly used in bread and pastry recipes. These baking aids have been around for a long time. Even our grandmothers used them! What about their food safety and usage? Should one kind of baking powder and/or baking soda be prioritized over another? Cuisine l’Angélique can help you make the proper choices when shopping for these ingredients.
Usage
Unlike baker’s yeast which makes bread dough rise, baking powder and baking soda are used for pastries such as pancakes, waffles, cookies, cakes, muffins, etc. These leavening ingredients should not be confused with the yeast used for bread making.
Baking powder
Baking powder is mainly composed of alkaline and tart agents which react in the presence of one another. The alkaline agent is sodium bicarbonate. Cream of tartar is usually the tart component, which is a natural by-product of the wine making process. A buffering agent is added to inhibit the reaction triggered by the acid-basic mix. This ingredient is starch (corn or tapioca starch).
Should you be tempted to make your own homemade baking powder, without additives, here is the recipe:
- 65 ml (1/4 cup) tapioca starch or cornstarch
- 65 ml (1/4 cup) cream of tartar
- 45 ml (3 tbsp) sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)
Food safety of baking powder
Conventional baking powder commonly uses cornstarch as a buffer, which is usually derived from GMO corn. In case you need or prefer to exclude corn and GMOs from your diet, most commercial baking powders will not be suitable.
We recommend using organic baking powder, which meets strict food safety and purity standards.
Tapioca starch is often used as the buffering agent, instead of GMO cornstarch. No phosphate additives such as monocalcium phosphate and sodium-aluminum phosphate may be used. Sodium bicarbonate, the alkaline agent, must meet the mineral purity standards as described in the baking soda section below. Calcium sulphate is often used as the acidifying agent. It is derived from pure natural calcium dihydrate sulphate (gypsum). Processing is limited to fine grinding, turbo-separation and/or exposure to high temperatures, without the use of chemicals such as sulfuric acid. It is a pure mineral, never an animal-based ingredient.
Baking soda (Sodium bicarbonate)
Baking soda is also used in pastry recipes. It interacts with acidic ingredients to properly carry out its leavening action. If the recipe does not contain enough acidic ingredients, baking powder must be added. Sodium bicarbonate’s taste is more pronounced than that of baking powder. We suggest using it sparingly and combining it with baking powder.
Food safety of baking soda
Organic standards prohibit the use of synthetic sodium bicarbonate. It must be a pure mineral whose extraction and processing follow specific guidelines:
Natural sodium bicarbonate is extracted from deposits found below 2,000 feet in soda mines Sodium bicarbonate is dissolved in water, pumped to a processing plant, recrystallized, dried, graded and packed, excluding the use of chemicals from the process The resulting powder contains no ingredients other than minerals
Souhaitons enfin que ces quelques explications vous permettent de faire la lumière sur ces deux ingrédients et d’en faire dorénavant un achat éclairé. Cuisine l’Angélique vous souhaite Bonne cuisine à tous!