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Flour Mixtures: Quick Breads: Baking

PROPORTIONS OF SODA AND CREAM OF TARTAR. Half a level teaspoonful of soda and a level teaspoonful and one-fourth of cream of tartar furnish, in the effect produced, a very close equivalent to two level teaspoonfuls of baking powder. LIQUID USED WITH BAKING POWDER, SODA AND CREAM OF TARTAR MIXTURES. When bicarbonate of soda (an alkali) and cream of tartar (an acid) are used in making baking powder (and the same should be true when we measure these ingredients ourselves), they are so carefully weighed that one exactly neutralizes the other, leaving in the dough in which they are used no excess of either acid or alkali; thus no free acid, such as would exist in sour milk, lemon juice or molasses, can be added to the mixture, unless enough alkali to neutralize the acidity be, also, added.

GENERAL RULE FOR BAKING POWDER, SODA AND CREAM OF TARTAR MIXTURES. Avoid the use of acids, as sour milk, molasses or lemon juice, in mixtures lightened with baking powder or bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar. OCCASIONAL USE OF BAKING POWDER WITH SOUR MILK OR MOLASSES. Sometimes sour milk or cream is more readily available than sweet milk; soda may be added to this to correct the acidity, and the milk then can be used with baking powder as in case it were sweet milk, if allowance be made for the carbon dioxide resultant from the combination of the soda and sour milk. In using molasses the acidity must be neutralized with soda; then baking powder may be used to lighten the mixture.

PROPORTIONS OF SODA AND BAKING POWDER TO BE USED WITH SOUR MILK AND MOLASSES. Use half a level teaspoonful of soda for each cup of molasses or thick sour milk or cream. Cut down the quantity of baking powder to one level teaspoonful to each cup of flour, or if eggs are used the quantity of baking powder may be cut down still more.

METHOD OF COMBINING FLOUR MIXTURES. An article over-porous on one side and heavy on the other, or with streaks of heaviness here and there, is neither wholesome nor attractive in appearance. Again, when soda or baking powder is stirred into a liquid, especially if it be a hot or an acid liquid, bubbles of gas begin to appear at once and are lost before the mixture can be stirred into the dough; accordingly, then, to secure a mixture of even lightness throughout, it is necessary that the dry leavening agents be sifted with the flour two or three times. and salt, and sometimes sugar, is sifted with these. Now stir the liquid into the dry ingredients and bake as soon as possible. HOW TO ADD SHORTENING. When a small quantity of shortening, as one, two or three tablespoonfuls, is to be added to a mixture, it may be melted and beaten in at the last. When a larger quantity is to be used, it may be beaten until creamy, and the sugar beaten into it, as in cake making; or it may be cut into the flour with a knife or the fingers, as in making biscuits, or partly cut in and partly folded in, as in making pastry.

HOW TO ADD EGGS. If a hollow cake, like popovers, is to be produced, add the egg, beaten without separating the white from the yolk, to the milk and beat the two together into the dry mixture. When a spongy texture is desired, beat the whites and yolks separately, then add the yolks with the milk and, at the last, beat in the whites.

HOW TO BAKE QUICK BREADS. Quick breads are steamed, baked in the oven, in individual portions, also in loaves or sheets, and on a griddle on the top of the stove. Breads containing sugar and butter, one or both, burn more easily than do those without such ingredients. Eggs are cooked at a low temperature, and thus mixtures containing many eggs should be cooked more slowly than those with no eggs.

POP OVERS 1 egg, beaten light 1/4 teaspoonful of salt 1 cup of milk 6 teaspoonfuls of butter 1 cup of sifted pastry flour Do not separate the white from the yolk of the egg; beat light, add the milk and continue to use the beater while the flour and salt are gradually beaten into the liquid. Butter six cups of an iron gem pan; half fill the other six with boiling water, put a teaspoonful of butter into each of the buttered cups and pour the mixture into them. Bake on the floor of a moderate oven about thirty-five minutes. Muffin or pop over pans with only six compartments are not often found, but the pan with a dozen cups can be used successfully by half filling the unused cups with water.