Bicarbonate of Soda is NOT the same as Baking Powder

I'm fulfilling a little holiday tradition of mine; cooking different things. I don't think I realised that my desire to experiment in the kitchen coincided with school holidays until my self-awareness was heightened through blogging, facebooking, twittering, flickring, Project 365 and the like. Once you start reporting on your activities regularly, you start to notice the pattern. Anyway – that’s another topic altogether.

This week included pancake Tuesday and so pancakes were on the list. Credit for the recipe I use goes to Emma McCallan of course, whose quote recorded in my recipe book, How to Cook Tasty Things, never fails to amuse me. Regarding the correct amount of sugar to use, Emma said “Too much sugar is never bad for you.” Historian that I am I recorded the date when I first heard that inspirational maxim - seven years ago this Tuesday.

Now I have made pancakes many times in the past, but this being a holiday I thought I would have a go at making thicker pancakes, a bit more like the kind you can buy at the bakery. So I looked around for an alternative recipe. I wanted something with a raising agent in it, not just a thicker batter.

I found a suitable recipe in the cookbook bought for my birthday by a group of friends from work. It called for baking powder, in serious quantities. The recipe was actually for blueberry pancakes but I figured I could just leave out the blueberries and I’d be OK. That was true enough, because the fact that they were totally disgusting was nothing to do with the absence of blueberries. I only tasted a wee corner, and Erinne only tasted a wee corner, and we agreed that they tasted more like paracetemol pancakes than anything else. They were very salty and bitter. Blueberries would not have made any difference, unless they were consumed in such vast quantities that they totally obliterated the taste of anything else.

I have figured out the problem. The baking powder I used was actually bicarbonate of soda. Oops. When I first opened the tub the whole label came off, so I wrote what it was on the side. Unfortunately I didn’t pause to look at that side of the tub, I just assumed it was baking powder, which to be fair is what I would normally have in the cupboard. Now I know what some people might wonder – aren’t bicarbonate of soda and baking powder basically the same thing? That’s what I thought, but the Australian Woman’s Weekly can put us straight. I have underlined the particularly pertinent pieces…

Baking soda and bicarbonate of soda are different names for the same thing; in Australia, we mostly refer to it as bicarbonate of soda, but overseas, especially in America, it is referred to as baking soda. They aren’t interchangeable, but bicarbonate of soda and baking powder are both leavening agents. When included in a batter, the leavening agent causes air bubbles (produced by stirring, whipping or beating) to expand when cooked – causing it to ‘rise’.

Bicarbonate of soda is a pure leavening agent. It needs to be mixed with moisture and an acidic ingredient for the necessary chemical reaction to take place to make food rise. Because it needs an acid to create the rising quality, it is often used in recipes where there is already an acidic ingredient present, such as lemon juice, chocolate, buttermilk or honey.

Baking powder, which contains bicarbonate of soda, comes pre-mixed with the acidic ingredient for you – so all you need to add is the moisture. The acidic ingredient most often used in baking powder is cream of tartar. You can make your own baking powder: simply mix two parts cream of tartar with one part bicarbonate of soda. Baking powder has a neutral taste and is often used in recipes that have other neutral-tasting ingredients, such as milk.

In Australia, we usually just cook with self-raising flour when a leavening agent is required, unless the specific qualities of bicarbonate of soda are required. Bicarbonate of soda imparts a slightly different quality to that of baking powder when used in cooking. It can have a slightly “tangy” taste and it makes a lovely golden colour. It also makes a very specific texture not achievable with baking powder. It is very important to sift bicarbonate of soda well as it gets lumpy and to use very exact measures as the “tangy” taste can quite easily become bitter or soapy if too much is used.

http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/food/cookingtips/790073/baking-soda-bicarb-soda-baking-powder-whats-the-difference

I might write to the Australian Woman’s Weekly to let them know that if you totally overdose your recipe with bicarbonate of soda, it takes like paracetemol. They might want to add a health warning. I’ll give it another go later with the correct ingredients.

Last night dinner was more of a success. I tried the Potato Leek and Chicken Pie from the same recipe book. Interestingly, there are more mushrooms in there than potato, but yet they don’t get a mention in the name. Life’s not fair I guess. I was in fact a roaring success, even if I do say so myself. I can’t wait to eat the rest of it this evening. The only let down was the not-so-golden colouring of the pastry, but it was hard to brush it with butter without the aid of a pastry brush. That’s going on the shopping list.

Today’s experiment is Lemon Drizzle Cake – from the same recipe book again. I wish I could include the smell on this blog – it’s pretty good. I’ve just taken it out of the oven and done the drizzling bit. Can’t wait to try it later. Will let you know how it goes.