Posted by Karen Upright on February 07, 1998 at 08:44:45:
In Reply to: Re: sodium bicarbonate posted by G on February 07, 1998 at 02:25:18:
: I can't say I understand the chemistry and have never found it to be necessary
: I've heard the reasons why acids are needed but still have no
: interest in understanding, I suspect theres enough acids present in other ingredients
: in most anything, the lemon in banana muffin might be there to
: prevent the banana discoloring, I used to make thousands of muffins, no acids added.
: Sometimes you just blow it, I think I could make a banana muffin without lemon, it would probably turn grey though.
: The muffins I made blew up like ballons and I can't see how adding banana would hold it back.
: Gerard (puzzled in Boston!)
My banana muffin/cake recipe is a modification of one that uses baking soda and originally called for buttermilk. Since I never have buttermilk, I modified for milk+lemon juice, necessary to make the baking soda react.
My understanding is that baking powder reacts with heat and base (double-acting) and baking soda reacts with acid (make a vinegar volcano). The muffins tasted like straight baking soda -- because it was unreacted. They rose only a little (I suspect from the air incorporated during creaming), and left that horrible chemical taste in your mouth. YIKES!
I've never had it go gray on me... I didn't even consider that possibility. One more thing I need to look out for, I guess.
I made the mistake of thinking it would be a sweet little "gimmick" to serve mini muffins with lunch instead of bread, no need for butter, easy to handle for the wait staff. Well, it was sweet while we were doing 6 or 8 covers a day when we were just getting started, but now we're making batch after batch after batch and it's killing us. I hate those stupid muffins. I don't even like to eat them anymore. But my customers like them...
Karen