Baking soda

“ After baking soda has lost its carbon dioxide gas, it is no longer baking soda, but is transformed into its relative, washing soda, which has a disagreeable taste and is by no means desirable for the stomach.
Man's knowledge of chemicals and their effect on each other has enabled him to overcome this difficulty and, at the same time, to retain the leavening effect of the baking soda. ”

“ Sodium bicarbonate, commonly called baking soda, is used to spread and lighten the cakes, as well as for its neutralizing power, as in contact with acids it develops carbonic acid gas, thus leavening the cakes.
Ammonia carbonate is the strongest of this class of leavenings known in the manufacture of cakes, but leaves a displeasing flavor and coarse grain if used in too large quantities; employed in part with soda bicarbonate it usually gives very satisfactory results. ”

“ Cold water removes milk more quickly than hot, as hot water causes a coating of milk to adhere to the glass. Bicarbonate of soda not only hastens the cleansing process, but sweetens the bottle. Milk cans, pails and all milk containers are cleansed in the same manner, using more baking soda in greater quantities of water.
FIRE EXTINGUISHER. Arm & Hammer or Cow Brand Baking Soda is unsurpassed as a fire extinguisher. It not only smothers the fire, but generates carbonic acid gas which temporarily envelopes the flames, shuts off the air supply or oxygen, and so extinguishes the fire. ”

“ Pure baking powders are very simple in composition, care being used in preparing them and procuring pure ingredients. According to the advertised statements of the various leading manufacturers we are forced to make our own if we desire a pure and wholesome article. As the essential ingredients of the best baking powder are baking soda and cream of tartar we need only be careful in buying of honest grocers or druggists who will guarantee their purity. It is not difficult to procure pure soda, but the cream of tartar is frequently adulterated, and care must be used in its purchase. ”

“ Hives or Nettle Rash, Baking Soda Wash for.—"Make a strong solution of common baking soda, about three teaspoonfuls to pint of water. Sponge or bathe body thoroughly." Any mother who has a child in the house knows how valuable baking soda is in case of burns, on account of its cooling properties. For this same reason it will be found excellent for above disease, as it will relieve the itching and is very soothing. Good for children if used not quite as strong. ”

“ Dry beans will cook more quickly if you add baking soda to the water before soaking. If tap water is of medium hardness, adding 1⁄8 teaspoon soda to the water for each cup of dry beans reduces cooking time about one-fourth. Measure soda exactly; too much soda affects flavor and nutritive value of beans.
To reduce foaming when cooking dry beans, add 1 tablespoon meat drippings or other fat to the cooking water for each cup of beans. ”

“ In many of these recipes, designed in our Research Test Kitchen, one or more acid ingredient is used to create perfect leavening with baking soda.
Follow these recipes accurately and carefully, then enjoy the finer flavor and even texture produced when baking with baking soda. ”

“ Baking Powder—Get the best available powder, put up in air and damp-eight tins, so that your material will be in good condition when you come to use it in camp. Baking soda will not be needed on short trips, but is required for longer ones, in making sour-dough, as a steady diet of baking-powder bread or biscuit will ruin the stomach if persisted in for a considerable time. Soda also is useful medicinally. ”

“ When this occurs, the mixture in the pan is no longer acid in reaction. Neither sour milk nor baking soda exists in the pan. A chemical change has taken place. From the union of sour milk and soda, entirely different materials are formed; one is the neutral substance in the pan; another is the carbon dioxide gas which has escaped, and the third is water. When an acid and an alkaline material are mixed, a chemical change always occurs. Chemical changes are constantly taking place when certain food mixtures are cooked and digested. ”

“ If carron oil is not at hand, use any dressing [E] to cover surface to keep out the air—as lard, butter, olive oil—or sprinkle with baking soda, or cover with white of egg, or with a paste made of starch or flour and water. Also spread on compress [E] some of the same remedy that has been applied to the burn. Hold compress in place with a loose bandage.
Solution of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) made by dissolving as much soda as possible in hot water (about one teaspoonful to a cup) is particularly relieving to scalds. ”

“ It should be strongly emphasized that the old-fashioned way of combining baking soda with sour milk in the preparation of bread is an entirely harmless procedure, provided that sufficient sour milk is added to perfectly neutralize the alkalinity of the soda. ”

“ Whether the refrigerator is electric, gas, oil or ice, keep the inside sweet and clean by wiping all surfaces with a soft cloth wrung from cool or lukewarm water containing a handful of baking soda to each quart of water, or by generously sprinkling baking soda on a damp cloth and briskly rubbing the surface to be cleaned. ”

“ Among those ingredients are chocolate, cocoa, brown sugar, tomato juice, sour milk, buttermilk, apple sauce, spices, cottage cheese, molasses, vinegar, citrus fruit juices and many more. These acid ingredients are familiar to everyone. One or more of them, you will notice, is used almost every time you bake.
The baking soda gently but surely reacts with these natural acids, freeing millions of tiny carbon dioxide bubbles which are held enmeshed in the batters and doughs. ”

“ Householders, and especially suburban ones, should indulge in the luxury of a block or stone or marble slab—and live happy ever after, if they can but get cooks able and willing to make proper use of it.
Soda Biscuit: (Old Style.) Sift a quart of flour with a heaping teaspoonful of baking soda. Add a good pinch of salt, rub well through lard or butter the size of the fist, then wet with sour milk to a moderately soft dough, roll out, working quickly, cut with small round cutter, set in hot pans, leaving room to swell, and bake in a quick oven just below scorching heat. ”

“ A commoner objection to baking-powder is that it leaves a soapy taste, resulting from an excess of soda. Excess of acid is far less objectionable and less common. Other acids may be used, as, for instance, sour milk, or butter-milk, which makes excellent bread with bicarbonate of soda. Liebig recommended acid phosphates of lime, chloride of sodium, and bicarbonate of soda, which very gently and slowly evolves the gas, and, therefore, makes better bread than substances that effervesce quickly and are soon still. ”

“ Housekeepers are urged to avoid substitutes for Royal Baking Powder. Failures in baking often result from the use of sour milk and soda, or even home made mixtures of cream of tartar and soda, because of inability to determine the uncertain strength of such materials and hence the proper proportions to use. ”

“ Sift again with the baking soda and salt.
2. Using the finger tips or a pastry blender, rub or cut shortening into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse corn meal.
3. To sour 3⁄4 cup sweet milk artificially and quickly, place 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar (preferably white vinegar as it makes a whiter biscuit) in a measuring cup, fill 3⁄4 full with sweet milk and mix well.
4. Make a well in the center of the mixture and turn in the sour milk or buttermilk all at once, reserving about 1 tablespoon of the liquid as it may not be required. ”

“ If you substitute cake or pastry flour for all-purpose flour, use 2 additional tablespoonfuls of flour for each cup required; to substitute all-purpose flour for cake or pastry flour, remove 2 tablespoonfuls of flour from each cup.
FATS. Solid fats can be used interchangeably. Melted fats or oils should not be used in recipes specifying creaming of the shortening.
LIQUID. The use of citrus fruit juices, lemon and orange, is the most recent accompaniment with sweet milk and baking soda for leavening. With the health-giving qualities, this new use for fruit juices in baking is widely accepted. ”

“ Baking powder, which is also an important leavening in cakes, should be of an approved brand that can be relied on to do the work expected of it. Soda and cream of tartar are sometimes used together, and, again, soda is used alone with molasses or sour milk. For every 3 eggs in a cake mixture, 1 teaspoonful of the baking powder called for in the recipe may be omitted. Altitude affects the amount of baking powder required in cakes. ”

“ The gas expands with the heat of the oven, raising the dough still more. Meanwhile, the dough itself is influenced by the heat and is stiffened to such an extent that it retains its inflated shape and spongy nature.
Many housewives look askance at ready-made baking powders and prefer to bake with soda and sour milk, soda and buttermilk, or soda and cream of tartar. Sour milk and buttermilk are quite as good as cream of tartar, because the lactic acid which they contain combines with the soda and liberates carbon dioxide, and forms a harmless residue in the dough. ”

“ Always use winter wheat flour for cake baking. One pound of pure baking powder is composed of one-half pound cream of tartar, one-fourth pound of soda, and one-fourth pound of rice flour. In all recipes that call for baking powder, use just one-half as much cream of tartar as it calls for baking powder, and one-half as much soda as you use of cream of tartar; that is, if a recipe calls for two teaspoonfuls baking powder, you simply use one teaspoonful of cream of tartar and a scant half teaspoonful soda. ”

“ DRIED BEANS AND PEAS. When parboiling dried beans for baking, the addition of 1⁄2 teaspoon of baking soda to each 2 cups soaked beans makes the beans tender in a shorter time. When baked, the beans have a much sweeter flavor than those parboiled in plain water. All dried legumes such as lima, soy, kidney or navy beans, and peas, have a better flavor if treated in this manner. ”

“ In Arm & Hammer or Cow Brand Baking Soda recipes, certain types of flour are used or specified simply to indicate that such a flour gives the most desirable characteristics to that particular baked product, but it does not mean that another type of flour cannot be substituted, nor that an inferior product will result if a correct substitution is made. ”

“ The more rapidly such cakes are made the better they will be. Two cooks working from the same recipe will often produce entirely different results, if one kneads her mixture as if it were household bread, while the other handles it with due lightness of touch. As soon as the baking powder or other rising medium is added to the mixture, the cake should be put into the oven as quickly as possible. Soda alone is never good in a cake where there is shortening, unless some substance containing acid is used along with it. Molasses is one of the substances containing acid. ”

“ Just the same effervescence takes place in the cake or damper as in the tumbler, and it is the air bubbles, caused by it, that make the cake, pudding, &c., rise or swell, and become light. Many of the baking powders sold are excellent, but as all are merely composed of the two ingredients mentioned, viz., soda and acid, and, in some instances, a small quantity of ground rice, or some other equally harmless powder, just to add to the quantity, they can as well be made at home, by pounding together soda and tartaric acid. ”

“ Royal Baking Powder is most economical. Its well-known dependability makes baking success simpler and surer, thus preventing loss of eggs, flour, butter and other ingredients. Only the best materials are used in its production—pure cream of tartar and tartaric acid, derived from grapes, bicarbonate of soda and corn starch, all scientifically blended and perfectly balanced. The best is always the most economical. ”

“ The chief objection to soda or baking-powder bread is that, being often made in a hurry, the acid and the alkali do not get thoroughly mixed all through the flour, and consequently do not raise or lighten the dough properly, and the loaf or biscuit is likely to be heavy and soggy in the centre. ”

“ Add the sugar, then the peel cut into small pieces, and well-floured fruit. Beat the eggs till light and creamy. Add [Pg 128] them to the mixture. Dissolve the soda in the milk. Work all together thoroughly with the hands. Bake at once for an hour to an hour and a half.
OR,
Substitute one tea-spoon baking powder for the carbonate of soda. Beat the butter to a cream. Add the sugar, eggs, and fruit, beating all the time. Mix the baking powder with the flour. Add the flour to the mixture with the milk and beat well. Bake about one and a half hours in a moderate oven. ”

“ To make Stick-fast Paste.—Dissolve a quarter of a pound of gum arabic in half a pint of water, and carefully mix therewith an ounce of sugar and three ounces of starch. Heat in a water-bath till it becomes clear. Add half a dram of oil of cloves and allow to cool.
To make Baking-powder.—Mix together ten ounces of bicarbonate of soda, eight ounces of tartaric acid, and a pound of corn-flour, ground-rice, or wheat-flour. Thoroughly mix the powders, pass through a sieve, and store. ”