[Sca-cooks] baking soda vs. baking powder (and other kitchen disasters)

[Carol Eskesen Smith]

Way back when, when my kid brother switched baking powder for baking soda in chocolate chip cookies, we had similar results; the cookies came out very salty. According to the King Arthur Flour Company 200th Anniversary Cookbook, Baking SODA acts only in the presence of acidic compounds.  Baking POWDER is acidic in itself, and will act even in the absence of other acid ingredients.  With acid ingredients, it probably neutralizes any bases present, forming more salts than one would otherwise expect.
PS if you hard-boil eggs to dryness, they'll explode.  I did it - several times in the same day, back when I was in college.

Regards,
Brekke
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Stefan li Rous 
  To: SCA-Cooks SCA-Cooks maillist 
  Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 10:50 PM
  Subject: [Sca-cooks] baking soda vs. baking powder


  Maire commented:
  > The very first time I ever did a recipe "all by myself" (okay, so I was
  > seven) was snickerdoodles.  I put the wrong leavening in (can't 
  > remember
  > if it was baking soda instead of baking powder or t'other way around).
  > They were perfectly shaped, perfectly baked, and perfectly inedible. 
  > <g>
  Okay you food chemists out there, *why* would one of these work in this 
  recipe but the other wouldn't and yet both seemed to give the same rise 
  to this food. Maybe this depends upon what "snickerdoodles" are?
  Stefan
  --------
  THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
      Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
  StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
  **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****

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