[Sca-cooks] Baker's borax from the other side.

David Friedman ddfr at daviddfriedman.com
Wed Sep 25 00:24:54 PDT 2013


One of my al-Warraq puzzles is baker's borax. It's chief use seems to 
have been to make bread loaves shiny. So instead of asking "does baking 
soda make bread shiny," baking soda being one possible guess for baker's 
borax, we could look at the question from the other side:

What chemical that could have been available to al-Warraq would make 
bread shiny? Is there any such chemical that would also work as a 
chemical leavening? Alternatively, are there two chemicals, one of which 
makes bread shiny and one of which works as a leavening, that might have 
been found together in nature?

I should add that my first experiment with painting a solution of baking 
soda on bread was a failure--the half of the loaf I put it on came out 
browner, not shinier. But I will try again with a lighter touch.

Also that, on current evidence, possible candidates for samidh flour 
include fine semolina, 00 flour, and ordinary white flour, with the fine 
semolina perhaps a little ahead of the others.

-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/




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