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.

Grits get a bad rap. Thought of as a staple in Appalachian and Deep South diets (which conjures up plenty of fried and fatty foods), grits are making their way into the mainstream and, gasp, can be had in restaurants as far north as Seattle and Boston.

Grits, or hominy grits, are made from corn kernels dried on the cob, removed, and soaked in a solution of baking soda, lime or wood ash. The kernels are then dehulled from the hominy. There is a do-it-yourself process from Mountain Laurel in case you venture to try a grits dish and want to give it whirl in the kitchen. Watch the lye solution ... I've made soap this way and you wouldn't want any going down the gully.

I'd like to see grits incorporated into recipes considered traditionally Northern: any rice/meat combo that doesn't involve shrimp: souffles, tabuli, any rice dish. Still, pork-laced red beans and grits, Andouille (a Louisiana sausage) and grits, creamed spinach and grits ... I feel like the shrimp boat guy in 'Forest Gump.' Seriously, check out the grit scene. And if there isn't one around you, start asking hosts/hostesses to pass along the request to management at your eats joints.

Baking powder and baking soda are both types of chemical leaveners used in baking. The two have different properties, so they cannot simply be substituted for one another directly.

Baking soda is also known as bicarbonate of soda. It reacts with acidic ingredients, such as buttermilk, yogurt and molasses to create bubbles of carbon dioxide, which causes batter to rise. It starts to work immediately when exposed to the acidic ingredient, so a batter made with baking soda should generally be baked as soon after mixing as possible. Baking soda can also aid in browning during baking.

Baking powder is actually a combination of baking soda, cream of tartar and a bit of cornstarch. Cream of tartar is an acidic ingredient, so it prompts the baking soda to work even when no other acidic ingredients are present in a batter. The cornstarch absorbs moisture and prevents the baking powder from being activated too quickly, or before it makes it into the batter in the first place. It works by releasing CO2 bubbles, just as baking soda does. Many baking powders, and most of those used in the US, are "double acting," meaning that they work once when exposed to moisture and again when exposed to heat. This gives the impression that baking powder doughs and batters will rise higher than those made with baking soda alone, but this is not necessarily the case.

 

Cream of tartar is potassium hydrogen tartrate, which is an acidic salt. Grapes are the most common natural source of tartaric acid. During the wine production process, a sediment forms as a result of combining potassium hydroxide with the tartaric acid, leaving a white sediment: cream of tartar.

A combination of cream of tartar and baking soda was the original baking powder. Baking soda reacts almost instantly when exposed to wet/acidic ingredients, but the addition of cream of tartar tempers the effect of the baking soda and delays the rising reaction – which will produce a higher rise in the oven. Unlike baking powder, however, cream of tartar will not lose it potency over time, so you can buy a jar and keep it in your kitchen cupboard forever.

In the early and mid 1800’s, rural Ireland did not have a strong tradition of yeast bread making. Baking was done in the home and, in addition to having limited supplies, time was often at a premium. The use of baking soda as a leavening agent was quick, effective and it produced a much more consistent result than yeast did. It caught on quickly and made soda breads a staple of the Irish diet until commercial bread production began in earnest, though it is still popular in Ireland and many other parts of the world.

The original soda breads contained nothing more than flour, buttermilk, baking soda and salt. The buttermilk was leftover from the butter making process and the bread was almost always served with freshly churned butter. Today, the breads often contain additional ingredients, like sugar, butter, currants or caraway seeds to enhance the flavor of the bread. Soda bread is heartier than most yeast breads and pairs very well with soups, stews and meat dishes. It also makes outstanding toast. For an irish soda bread recipe, click here.

 [Photo by Nicole Weston]