[Sca-cooks] Baker's borax from the other side.
Laura C. Minnick
lcm at jeffnet.org
Wed Sep 25 03:40:56 PDT 2013
On 9/25/2013 12:24 AM, David Friedman wrote:
>
> 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.
>
Pretzels and bagels are shiny. What are they brushed with?
Liutgard
--
"It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our
abilities." -Albus Dumbledore ~~~Follow my Queenly perambulations at:
http://slugcrossings.blogspot.com/
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