The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book_ A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking - Laurel Robertson [124]
Leavenings for Quick Breads
BAKING POWDER
Ordinary double-acting baking powders are effective, and of the several kinds of baking powder, they are the least bitter. If you prefer to avoid the aluminum salts that these products contain, the old-fashioned cream of tartar baking powders—either made at home or bought in natural foods stores—work perfectly well. To make your own, use ⅝ teaspoon cream of tartar plus ¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda per cup of flour; this is the equivalent of a teaspoon of single-acting baking powder. Make it fresh each time, or make extra and store it airtight, but only for short periods.
If quick breads appear often on your table, the sodium content of these products and their destruction of thiamine may be more significant considerations than whether or not they contain aluminum.
One teaspoon of baking soda contains 1360 mg of sodium; commercial soda-based baking powders vary, ranging from those made with cream of tartar, with 200 mg, to the double-acting kind, with 330 mg sodium per teaspoon. Those who need to limit their sodium intake carefully can look for potassium bicarbonate baking powder at the health food store, or even in some supermarkets. If your pharmacist will order potassium bicarbonate for you, you can use it in recipes that call for baking soda, and you can make your own sodium-free baking powder at home: 2 cups arrowroot, 2 cups cream of tartar, 1 cup potassium bicarbonate. Store airtight; use an amount equivalent to normal baking powder. Some people find potassium baking powders slightly more bitter than ordinary powders; if you do, probably you will have the best results using them in the more highly flavored or very sweet breads and muffins.
Sodium and aluminum aside, chemical leavenings always generate an alkaline pH and this destroys the B vitamin thiamine, which you would expect to be plentiful in a whole-grain product.
For good rising power with a minimum of baking powder, we suggest using 1 teaspoon per cup of flour.
SODA
In batters with a lot of acid ingredients, baking soda can be used by itself (or in combination with baking powder) to get a good rise without the addition of extra acid salts. The quantities are already worked out in the recipes, of course, but if you need to substitute or are making up your own recipe, here are some equivalents. The amounts are approximate because many of these ingredients vary in their acidity from one time to the next, and other ingredients in the batter act as buffers, too. Nevertheless, here is a rough guideline to use for balancing.
½ teaspoon soda PLUS
1 cup fully soured milk or buttermilk
¼ teaspoon soda PLUS
1 teaspoon vinegar or lemon juice
¼ teaspoon soda PLUS
¼ to ½ cup molasses or honey
(To sour milk: 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice or 1 ¾ teaspoons cream of tartar plus milk to make 1 cup. Let stand five minutes.)
NOTE There is close to ¼ teaspoon baking soda in each teaspoon of baking powder.
Don’t mix soda and acid liquids together. Sift the soda (and cream of tartar) along with the dry ingredients, and measure the liquids with the liquid measure.
Always sift dry leavenings with the flour because if there are even small lumps, the final product will have little dark brown places that are impressively bitter.
EGGS
Adding an egg or two to a quick bread makes it lighter, and its flavor subtler—one reason that breads with more eggs often have more sugar and flavorings, too. In addition, eggs act as binders, making the texture less crumbly; but if wheat flour is included, eggs are not necessary.
Egg can provide enough leavening in a simple recipe—one that is not heavily laden with fruit, for example—so that you need no baking powder or soda at all. Use one egg per cup of flour, beating the yolks separately into the combined fat and sweetener,