What is Baking Powder?

Some recipes have staples that you never question and could never remove. They're integral to the food and even if you don't understand exactly what they are or what they do, you just know that they're needed.

One such ingredient might be baking powder. Its name is a dead giveaway as to its use, but what is baking powder? What does it actually contain, and can you get 'bad' baking powder?

What is baking powder?

Rather than a 'pure' ingredient or chemical, baking powder is a composite substance made up of a few different things. It's a leavening, or raising, agent. These are important in cake making as they produce carbon dioxide.

Baking powder contains both an alkali in the form of bicarbonate of soda, and a weak acid usually in the form of cream of tartar. This is what provides the reaction that produce the carbon dioxide, alongside a filler which is usually some form of flour like cornflour.

Baking powder is a readymade solution for bakers, and is convenient as it can simply be bought and added into a recipe.

What is baking powder used for?

Its name makes its usage obvious, but the specific purpose of baking powder is to 'lift' up a mixture. The acid and alkali components react when they come into contact with water, giving off carbon dioxide in the form of gas.

This fills the mixture with bubbles and lightens it, and the reaction continues as the mixture is heated during baking. Baking powder is used to provide the same benefits to a mixture as baking soda, but since baking powder reacts with itself thanks to its already-present acidic component, it is arguably more convenient for many recipes than baking soda.

Baking soda has its uses in recipes where an acidic ingredient such as vinegar has been used, but on its own it won't provide any useful benefit even when heated.

Leavening a mixture makes it softer and lighter, and leaves it with the cells that provide the air pockets that aid the texture and taste of baked goods.

What are the alternatives to baking powder?

The goal of baking powder is to introduce air to a mixture, but it isn't the only way of achieving this.

Mechanical leavening is the process of introducing air to a mixture by way of actions such as kneading, which traps air in the dough as it's worked. This won't work for all types of batters and doughs, but it's a commonplace requirement in bread baking.

Another commonplace requirement in bread baking is the use of yeast, which is a biological leavening agent. Rather than producing gas via chemical reaction—as is the case in baking powder and baking soda—it converts the sugar and starch of its host mixture into carbon dioxide. This has to occur in a warm and moist environment, which is why yeast needs to be left to work as opposed to the instant reaction of baking powder introduced to a liquid.

Some cakes rely on another type of mechanical leavening in the form of whisking, wherein an ingredient like egg whites is beaten until frothy and full of air bubbles. This can provide the same light structure than baking powder achieves in other mixtures, but one can't always necessarily be used as a replacement for the other, depending on what the recipe calls for.

Does baking powder have to be high quality?

Baking powder is somewhat limited in how much its quality can vary due to the simplicity of the mixture itself, but it can degrade over time if left unused. Old baking powder will lose its ability to react as it should, leading to flat mixtures that don't rise in the oven, impacting both the texture and the taste.

All baking powders when bought fresh should function the same in a mixture. So long as they contain the right balance of acid, alkali, and filler, one baking powder shouldn't differ much from another, if at all.

How can you test the quality of baking powder?

Baking powders can be tested before use by introducing a small amount to some warm water. If the mixture instantly reacts and fizzes, it's still of a good enough quality to use. If nothing happens, or very little seems to happen, then the powder should be replaced.

Either the acid or alkali aging to the point where they won't react with the other essentially renders the baking powder useless.

While testing before including it in any bakes is ideal, you can technically test the quality of baking powder by analysing the baked goods it has been used to make. Analysis with the right equipment can reveal the efficacy of baking powders by judging the size and frequency of cells, perhaps even revealing details of the baking powder's usefulness that weren't initially apparent.

And, of course, there's always the simple but effective taste test! If a product made with one baking powder tastes significantly worse than that baked with another, you can safely suspect there may be an issue with the powder's quality.

How can I test my bakes more accurately?

C-Cell is a baking quality analyser that produces the most in-depth and accurate results on your baked goods, giving you the closest analysis of your creations and letting you fine-tune them to perfection.

Bakeries and food manufacturers around the globe already rely on C-Cell for their own internal quality scoresheets, and it's not hard to see why.

To learn more about C-Cell and the benefits it can provide to your lab, contact us today.