I received an email from Kutztown Patriot reader Laurel Powell, Lenhartsville, about the cupcakes I’d made for my daughter’s 4th birthday. (Note that Through My Kitchen Window is a weekly column that publishes in several Berks-Mont Newspapers including this one.) This recipe had called for baking soda and vinegar. Not knowing the reason for the vinegar, I omitted it, but then couldn’t figure out why the cupcakes tasted like baking soda.
Laurel shed some light on what happened and offered a lesson in cooking chemistry. I am ever so grateful for the advice. I’m excited to test out my new found knowledge. I had no idea vinegar would be my new best ingredient in baking!
Here’s Laurel’s cooking lesson that I think is a good read.
Dear Ms. Mitchell:I’m reading your story about cupcakes in the June 4th Patriot (p. 5).
Looks like a good, simple recipe. The adventures you recount in altering the ingredients bring to mind thoughts of some basic cooking chemistry which I guess may not be common knowledge any more.
The reason you tasted the baking soda was because you left out the vinegar. It is true that fruit, like applesauce, is also acid, but not equally so. Fermentation makes acid: compare cabbage & sauerkraut, for instance.
The proportion of 1 teaspoon of baking soda to 1 tablespoon of vinegar is a rule to memorize and respect. When I add applesauce, or even lemon juice, I still put in the vinegar just to be sure. If you use the teaspoon of soda to tablespoon of vinegar rule, you will not taste the soda or the vinegar, as they will fully react with each other and cancel out, producing in the reaction the gasses that make the bubbles that raise the cake.
I use a couple of recipes that have soda and not vinegar, from which I’m gathering the following approximate formula for rising power: 1 tsp baking soda + 1 tblsp vinegar = 1 tsp baking soda + 1/2 cup dark or blackstrap molasses = 1 tsp baking soda + 3 large overripe bananas.
I’m sure if you used a cup of sour milk, yogurt, or cultured buttermilk in place of the water, that would also work well for the acid in your recipe.
People who don’t want to be bothered with all this chemistry can just substitute a TABLEspoon of baking powder (which has an acid mixed in) instead of each TEAspoon of baking soda.
I’m going to try your recipe next time I make chocolate cake. I’ll have my own adventures: I’ll see how it works with gluten free whole grain sorghum flour, try substituting fruit for some of the sugar, and maybe add a little coconut, or a few drops of peppermint oil just for fun.
Laurel Powell of Lenhartsville
