"baking soda" news and stories

Baking powder helps gives cookies, cakes and breads a lift -- but what if you run out?

With a little baking soda, you can turn sparkling water into club soda.

You know that baking soda can help your quick breads and muffins rise, but it can do so much more than that.

And we're talking literally - painted fingernails and everything.

Gael over at Pop Culture Junk Mail made these ladyfingers for her book club. Pretty easy instructions. You just shape dough into finger shapes (see pic), poach it in simmering water with baking soda. Drain them and sprinkle with rosemary (I love rosemary), use almonds for the fingernails, and bake them. She doesn't say what to bake them at or for how long, but you can probably figure it out and keep an eye on them. Or leave a comment for her and see what she did.

Anyone else making Halloween treats shaped like body parts? Maybe eyeballs or ears?

After busily cleaning out the pantry, I discovered two open, but only partially used, containers that I didn't know I had. One was baking powder and one was baking soda. It's always useful to have extra on hand in case of a baking emergency, but I figured that it would be a good idea to test them to see if they still worked, since chemical leaveners can lose their potency over time for various reasons, including poor storage conditions.

The procedure for testing these two products is simple. Get out two small glasses or bowls and fill one with 3-4 tablespoons of white vinegar and fill the other with 3-4 tablespoons of room temperature water. Add about 1/2 teaspoon baking soda to the bowl containing the vinegar and the same amount of baking powder to the water bowl. Each mixture should fizz up, with the soda/vinegar producing a bigger reaction. If they both work, mark the containers with the date and check them again in 6-12 months (if you haven't used them up by then) to make sure they're still active. And if they don't fizz up, you better stop by the store before the next time you want to whip up a batch of cookies.