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Baking Powder
Sixteen ounces corn starch, eight of bicarbonate of soda, five of tartaric acid; mix thoroughly. - Mrs. Dr. Allen, Oberlin, Ohio. Eight ounces flour, eight of English bicarbonate of soda, seven of tartaric acid; mix thoroughly by passing several times through a sieve.-Mrs. Trimble, Mt. Gilead, Ohio.
Two household formulas for chemical leavening from an era when commercial baking powder was expensive, adulterated, or simply not trusted. Both work, but they behave differently from the tin on the shelf today.
- The ratio is the hingeTartaric acid is diprotic: neutralizing it takes roughly 1.12 parts bicarbonate of soda by weight to 1 part acid. Mrs. Trimble's 8:7 is very close to that balance; Mrs. Allen's 8:5 leaves a substantial excess of soda, which tastes soapy and yellows the crumb. Of the two, the second is the sounder formula.
- Ounces are weightAll quantities here are avoirdupois ounces on a scale, not fluid ounces. Weigh them; volume measures of powders vary too much for a leavener.
- These are single-actingTartaric acid dissolves and reacts the instant it meets moisture, so all the gas is released in the bowl rather than in the oven. Batter made with this must go straight into a hot pan or tin. Modern double-acting powders hold a second release for the heat, which is why old batters were mixed fast and baked at once.
- Cream of tartar is not the same thingTartaric acid is the pure acid and is roughly two and a half times as strong as potassium bitartrate (cream of tartar), which was the usual acid in the tartrate powders of the period. Do not substitute one for the other by weight.
- "English bicarbonate of soda"Most likely a designation for imported soda rather than a distinct chemical; imported product was generally reckoned purer than much of what was sold domestically. Any modern food-grade baking soda is more refined than either.
- The starch is not fillerCornstarch in the first formula absorbs stray moisture and helps keep the acid and the soda from reacting in the jar. The all-flour version will likely go flat sooner, since flour carries more moisture.
- Scale it downAs written these make roughly 29 oz and 23 oz respectively — a lot of powder for a household that baked daily. Homemade powder loses strength in storage. Mix a few ounces at a time and store airtight.
- Sift, then sift againMrs. Trimble's instruction to pass the mixture through a sieve several times is the whole of the technique. Uneven distribution means one biscuit rises and the next does not.
- Test before you trust itA teaspoon stirred into hot water should foam vigorously and immediately. If it fizzes weakly, the batch has absorbed moisture and is spent.
Buckeye Cookery was compiled in Ohio in the late 1870s, squarely in the decades when chemical leavening moved from a curiosity to a kitchen staple. Commercial baking powders had been on the market since mid-century, but they were notorious for adulteration — ground rock, alum, and short weight were all common complaints, and cookbooks of the period regularly urged housekeepers to mix their own from ingredients bought at the druggist. That is what these two contributions are: druggist chemistry done at the kitchen table, with the correspondent's name and town attached as a guarantee of good faith. That the book prints two competing versions with different ratios, and lets the reader choose, is characteristic of the compiled community cookbook — a record of what women in Oberlin and Mount Gilead actually did, rather than a single authoritative rule.