Home › Recipes › Do Not Buy Baking Powder

Do Not Buy Baking Powder

When you have sour milk or buttermilk, which costs nothing. Baking Powder Manufacturers say: "do not use Cream Tartar and Soda," and then expatiate at length on the danger of adulteration, and the liability of housekeepers using these articles in the wrong proportion, even if obtained pure, thereby making cookery heavy or yellow, with an alkaline taste. Whereas, the fact is that the best Baking Powder is composed of a mixture of these two identical substances (Cream Tartar and Soda), with the addition of starch enough to repel moisture. Now, Soda, or Saleratus is an article which by the improved modern methods of manufacture, can be made so pure and cheap that it does not pay to adulterate it. With Cream Tartar it is different. This Acid, when pure commands so great a price that it becomes a strong temptation to the unscrupulous dealer to adulterate. The price of one pound of good Baking Powder will furnish a large family with soda enough for some months.

The farmer's wife has always an acid free to her hands in the form of sour milk or buttermilk, which can be used both as an acid to neutralize the Soda or Saleratus, also as a means of wetting and enriching the dough. Why, then, should she go to the expense of buying Baking Powder or Cream Tartar when she only needs Soda with the sour milk. Any good cook by a few experiments or trials with Sour Milk and Soda, can form recipes of her own, which will be more delicious and toothsome than when made by the use of Baking Powder, and have the additional satisfaction of knowing what materials there are in the cookery, and consequently a knowledge of its absolute healthfulness. The large increase in the use of Baking Powder of late years has induced unscrupulous persons to enter into the manufacture of cheap and inferior Baking Powders producing deleterious effects on the health of families using them. One eminent chemist, after analyzing nearly fifty different brands, determined that fifty per cent. were grossly adulterated. The sole value in Baking powder is the raising property, or carbonic acid gas, which is contained in the Soda alone. The safest and most economical plan is to use only THE GREAT ARM & HAM- MER BAKING SODA and SOUR MILK (or Buttermilk) or, if Baking Powders are preferred, housekeepers can make the best quality at home.