Do you need to know how to make baking powder? If you need baking powder for a recipe, and you're all out, this page can help. Read on to learn both how to make baking powder and baking powder substitutes you can use to leaven your baked goods.
How Make Gluten-Free Baking Powder
This video points out that many commercial baking powders contain wheat products, which can cause problems for people who suffer from celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or wheat allergies. Some commercial baking powders also contain aluminum, which some people want to eliminate from their diet. This video demonstrates how to make homemade baking powder.
Introduction
Baking powder is a leavening agent that is commonly used to help biscuits and cakes to rise. It was developed in the nineteenth century.http://acswebcontent.acs.org/landmarks/bakingpowder/development.html There are two types of baking powder, single acting, and double acting. Single acting reacts with liquid to cause leavening immediately. Double acting has an additional ingredient that reacts with heat to give additional leavening power. There is no available substitute for the calcium phosphate added to double acting baking powder, so when substituting single acting baking powder, use twice as much and add it immediately before baking.
Step 1: What You Need to Make Baking Powder
This recipe makes one teaspoon of single acting baking powder. If the recipe calls for double acting baking powder, use twice as much:
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch
Step 2: How to Make Baking Powder
Whereas commercial baking powder can be stored for up to six months without losing its leavening ability, homemade baking powder should be used immediately. If you are adding the ingredients directly to the recipe, you can omit the cornstarch. If you are mixing the baking powder separately, before adding it to the recipe, the cornstarch will absorb the moisture in the air which would cause the homemade baking powder to lose some potency before it's added to the cake or biscuit batter.
Step 3: Alternative Leavening Agents
- If you don't have cream of tartar, replace 1/2 cup of liquid in the recipe with 1/2 cup of buttermilk, sour milk, yogurt, or other acidic liquid, and use 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda to replace 1 teaspoon of single acting baking powder.
- Use 1/4 teaspoon potassium bicarbonate and 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar for 1 teaspoon of single acting baking powder.
- Cakes can be leavened using beaten egg whites folded into the batter immediately before baking.
