Before there baking powder was invented, there were no
fluffy cakes, no cookies, no muffins, no biscuits, and no quick breads.
Everything had to be leavened with yeast, and since there was no dried yeast
available at the grocery store, the baker had to capture and store their own
live yeast, as one does sour dough starter these days. It was a lot of work-
building up a starter, kneading, and allowing bread two or three rises took a
day and a half. There were yeast raised pancakes and biscuits, just like there
are sour dough versions of those today, but they weren’t fast and no one baked
something on the spur of the moment. Baking powder- even those made at home-
changed all that. Now you could bake something in an hour- and the texture was
totally different.
This book- which actually reads like a thesis and I do
wonder if that was its first incarnation- shows the history of the various
mixtures used as baking powder. It also shows us the war between the various
large sellers of baking powder- it was surprisingly nasty. Today, with all the
mixes on the shelves and all the pre-made baked goods available, one wouldn’t
think there would be big money in simple baking powder, but there was.
The first baking powders were homemade, where the home baker
combined various ingredients to create a leavener. Some formulations had to be
done immediately before baking because moisture caused them to go off right
away. Some formulations were double acting- they started giving off gas when
mixed with moisture, and were triggered again by the heat of the oven (or the
griddle, if making pancakes). Some had aluminum- something many of us cringe at
today. Because there were several formulations, cookbooks had to include tables
showing what changes had to be made for the different types and brands. All of
this experimentation was made in people’s homes, not in labs.
This is a great social history book. Baking powder really
did change the way we eat. It didn’t change bread, but it did make a whole new world
of baked goods available. And one could make quick breads with it, even though
those don’t make great sandwiches- the crumbly texture of baking powder breads
makes them fall apart easily whereas yeast breads stay together because of the
springy texture of gluten.
There was a lot about the wars between the companies
manufacturing the various baking powders that I found myself skipping. The book
is incredibly detailed; the author did a lot of research in original records,
in both the economic field and the social. If you’re interested in how life was
lived in the past, it’s a great book, albeit over long at times. Four stars out
of five.
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I received this book free from Net Galley in return for an honest review.
Neither of these things influenced my review.
