When and Why Soda, Cream of Tartar, and Baking
Powders are Used.
Soda may be used in all kinds of bread, cake, pudding, and griddle cakes where an acid also is used. The acid may be cream of tartar, vinegar, lemon juice, sour milk or cream, molasses, or something else. If two teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar be used, there must be one teaspoonful of soda, save in cases where the cream of tartar is used only to give tone and firmness of texture to a pudding or cake in which only the whites of the eggs are employed,—such as many of the meringue puddings, and angel cake.
In puddings and cakes where molasses, lemon juice, or vinegar is used, soda should be used instead of baking powder, because the baking powder is a combination of an acid and alkali, and the proportions are so carefully adjusted that the two ingredients neutralize each other.
Sometimes a rule for cake or gingerbread calls for one teaspoonful of soda and one of cream of tartar. In such cases allowance is made for the acid in the molasses, or in the sour milk or cream that is used. Again, in making cake in which a good many eggs and wine or brandy are used, a small quantity of soda, but no cream of tartar, is called for. This is because there is enough acid in the wine and butter to neutralize the small quantity of soda and produce the required amount of carbonic acid gas.
It will be seen, by these statements, that the housekeeper who uses baking powder can do without cream of tartar, but she must be provided with soda when using molasses and sour milk and cream.
Soda should never be dissolved in hot water, because some of the gases would be liberated and wasted, and a greater amount of soda would be needed to make good this waste than if the soda were dissolved in cold water.
Housekeepers should remember, when making biscuit and dumplings with baking powder, that three teaspoonfuls of the powder will be required to make one quart of flour light. The manufacturers’ directions often call for only two, and the result is unsatisfactory.