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Best Baking Powder
Mrs. Oliphant.
Tartaric acid, four parts, by weight; bicarbonate soda, five parts, by weight; baked flour, nine parts, by weight. The flour should be absolutely dry. The tartaric acid and the soda must also be dry, and pulverized as fine as possible separately in a clean porcelain mortar. When thus prepared sift all together repeatedly till perfectly mixed; then put into well-corked bottles, and use two teaspoonsful to each pint of flour.
A single-acting baking powder made from scratch, at a time when commercial tins were expensive and often adulterated. The proportions are by weight, not volume, and that matters more here than in almost anything else in the book.
- Weigh, don't scoopFour parts tartaric acid, five parts bicarbonate of soda, nine parts flour, all by weight. These three powders have very different densities, so measuring them by spoon will throw the acid-base balance off badly.
- Tartaric acid is not cream of tartarThey are different compounds; tartaric acid is roughly two to two and a half times as strong, acid for acid. Substituting cream of tartar one for one gives a weak, soda-heavy powder. Tartaric acid is sold for winemaking and confectionery.
- The ratio runs slightly soda-heavyNeutralising tartaric acid takes about 1.12 parts bicarbonate by weight; this formula uses 1.25. The small excess of soda can leave a faint soapy or metallic note in a plain biscuit, less noticeable in anything with buttermilk, molasses or fruit.
- Baked flour is the fillerIt is there to absorb moisture and keep the acid and soda from reacting in the jar. Modern powders use cornstarch instead. The recipe gives no temperature for the baking; use a low oven, spread thin, until the flour is bone dry, and let it cool before mixing.
- Grind separately, alwaysGrind separately -- The recipe has each powder pulverized on its own in a clean porcelain mortar. If any moisture is present, grinding the acid and soda together can start the reaction and weaken the powder; note that the recipe does then have them sifted together repeatedly before bottling.
- This is single-actingAll the gas comes as soon as liquid hits the batter. Have the pan greased and the oven at temperature before you mix, and get the batter in without delay; there is no second lift in the oven as with modern double-acting powders.
- DosageTwo teaspoons per pint of flour works out to about one teaspoon per cup, close to modern practice. A pint of flour here is a volume measure, roughly two cups, not a pound.
- Storage and testingWell-corked bottles in the original, an airtight jar today, kept away from steam. Test a half teaspoon in hot water before baking with it; a vigorous fizz means it is still good, a lazy one means start again.
Chemical leavening was still relatively new when this book was compiled, and the household contributors who supplied its recipes appear not to have been convinced by what came in tins. Commercial baking powders of the period were widely suspected of being cut with alum, chalk or plain starch, and publishing a formula so a cook could make her own answered that anxiety. Tartaric acid and bicarbonate of soda were more likely to come from the druggist than the grocer, which may be why the recipe assumes a porcelain mortar and speaks the language of parts by weight. The habit of naming the contributor, here Mrs. Oliphant, is characteristic of the subscription cookbooks of the period, where the authority of a recipe rested on the reputation of the woman who vouched for it.