How to Make Baking Powder

[helwen]

Got this recipe from Frugal Living

How to Make Baking Powder

Prep Time: 2 minutes

Ingredients:

* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
* 1 teaspoon corn starch (optional)

Preparation:

Mix the baking soda and cream of tartar together until well combined. Use immediately.

Yield: One tablespoon of baking powder.

To store baking powder: Add a teaspoon of corn starch to the mixture, and stir. This will absorb any moisture from the air, and prevent the baking powder from reacting before you need it. Store in an air-tight container.

Did You Know? Most commercially-produced baking powder contains aluminum--sodium aluminum sulfate to be exact. Make your own baking powder, and keep your baked goods aluminum-free.


*** Seems like a bit of a bother to make the ingredients for your ingredients until you get to the "did you know" bit. A little aluminium once in a while is all right, but not good to have regularly -- I'm kind of glad I don't eat commercially-made baked goods all the time...

Frugal Living's a pretty cool site. I don't have a use for everything there of course, but some of it's quite useful and they have lots of ideas on ways to save money.

Comments

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

The baking powder I got at Agway was aluminum free. I also got 80 lbs of flake salt.
What I can't seem to get is info on flour; I can get ground flour very cheaply and want to store it in kegs with Co2. I don't know if that would work or not.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Good to know baking powder can be gotten aluminum free. I just checked the little can we have and it has aluminum in it. I don't use baking powder much at all, but it was interesting to note. We use straight baking soda more often -- recipe preferences I guess.

On the flour, I don't know why your idea wouldn't work. De-oxygenating is all you're doing, right? White flour or whole wheat? The latter doesn't store well at all.

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

I erred: I got baking soda, not powder. Still alum free.
Soda and powder leaven differently, this link explains it better than I:
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/foodchemistry/f/blbaking.htm

I intend to get white flour, our whole wheat comes from a local mill and lives in the freezer.
I have plenty of soda kegs and Co2.

[harpnfiddle.livejournal.com]

Who knew - I never knew what was in baking powder.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, scary huh? Of course if we took the time to read every label, we'd never get anything else done! Although home cooking does help cut down on having to do that... loosecanon was able to get commercial baking powder that doesn't have aluminum sulfate in it, but I guess you have to look around. The little container we have does have it in it. I'm of two minds on whether or not to keep it. Although we use it so rarely it probably doesn't make a huge difference -- I'm more concerned now about eating commercially-made cookies though :(

[oakmouse]

Nifty recipe, thanks!

Rumford's is aluminum free, should you want to keep commercially-made stuff around.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Welcome, and thanks!

[the1butterfly.livejournal.com]

I just bought baking powder today, and I noticed that the container said "aluminum free" so I checked the other brand, and, sure enough, there was aluminum! So yes, relevant.