When Baking As We Know It Changed Forever

0:00 Imagine a food product we have today that nearly every person

0:04 interacts with but in the 18th century it did not exist.

0:10 So, today we're talking about the origins of chemical leavening.

0:14 Chemical leavening in essence is what makes cakes

0:18 and cookies and biscuits and pancakes light and fluffy.

0:22 So, if they didn't have chemical leavening, what is non-chemical leavening?

0:25 So, that's typically using yeast.

0:28 They might use a wild yeast.

0:30 They might not even know they're using yeast,

0:32 but they're using some kind of yeast

0:35 or a kind of yeast that they're propagating.

0:37 They know it's there.

0:39 They might not understand how it works.

0:41 They might call it fermenting or they might call it something else,

0:44 but it's some kind of yeast product.

0:47 And the trick with yeast is it's slow.

0:50 It takes a long time.

0:52 We can use a wild yeast in the air.

0:55 We can just mix up a bread dough and we can just let

0:58 it set there for like 24 hours and it will start to do something.

1:07 It will have a wild yeast in it and it will start to fluff up all by itself.

1:12 But what if we want instant yeast?

1:15 What if we want to make a bread product immediately?

1:20 Chemical leavening is what we want.

1:22 And they didn't know how to make that happen in the 18th

1:26 century or at least in the early part of the 18th century.

1:29 But they figured it out right here at the end of the 18th century.

1:35 Now, you're going to ask me,

1:35 "What is potash and pearl ash?" The answer is technical,

1:40 but it is related to our baking soda.

1:44 Pearl ash here is potassium carbonate and baking soda is sodium bicarbonate.

1:53 They're similar.

1:54 The carbonate is the part that matters here.

1:57 That's basically bound up carbon dioxide that when we introduce a little acid,

2:03 the carbon dioxide comes out and makes bubbles.

2:05 And it happens instantly.

2:07 And that's why it's it makes these great cakes and cookies.

2:10 We don't have to take any time waiting for yeast to create carbon dioxide.

2:16 It's our little chemical compound is doing it instead.

2:20 Now, America had a vast quantity of this particular resource.

2:27 It actually comes from burning up trees.

2:29 When we have lots and lots of tree ash,

2:32 we can change that into with a quick process of water and boiling,

2:39 we can turn it into our potash.

2:41 And we can use that to make soaps,

2:43 and we can use it for making glass and some other industrial processes.

2:47 This story of chemical leavening is fascinating and there's probably more to it.

2:52 I would love to find it.

2:54 It's a little bit hard to research.

2:56 There's some guide posts and documents that we can read along the way to fill

3:00 this story to help us understand what's happening

3:02 with light and fluffy biscuits that we love today.

3:07 So, the story I know of right now starts in 1788.

3:11 Now, it it's actually going on before 1788 because of the way it's written.

3:16 But there's a doctor.

3:18 It's Dr.

3:19 Mitchell, and he's sort of a professor.

3:21 He's a medical doctor, but he's interested in other things at the same time.

3:26 He's in America.

3:27 In 1788, he writes an article to a scientific newspaper of the time period.

3:34 He says, "Bread is super important,

3:37 and we don't spend enough time understanding it and why it's working." And so,

3:41 he he goes into this long explanation about

3:44 what's happening with wheat and the different components.

3:47 And there's one sentence in this three-page letter which sparks interest.

3:53 What good does potash do in cakes?

3:57 Potash contains a great portion of fixed air,

4:00 which is set at liberty by the heat necessary to bake the cake.

4:05 And therefore, potash supersedes the use of fermenting mixtures.

4:11 It's like two sentences, and we don't have any other story here.

4:15 It's like what do you mean potash cakes?

4:19 He doesn't describe them.

4:20 He But he says potash is used in baking cakes.

4:25 I don't have any other description.

4:26 There are no American cookbooks from previous to uh Amelia Simmons,

4:32 and they have nothing in them.

4:33 We don't know anything about baking this potash cake.

4:37 So, where does the story go from here?

4:39 There's a British magazine that's very similar

4:41 to this one that's called the Monthly Magazine, and the person says Dr.

4:46 Mitchell talked about potash cakes.

4:48 What are these?

4:49 And that was it, which is very odd.

4:51 It was That letter came out in April of uh 1799.

4:56 But a couple of months later, somebody wrote a response to that.

5:00 And it's one of the most incredible responses I have

5:05 ever read in a magazine like this from the time period.

5:10 And it wasn't Dr.

5:11 Mitchell.

5:12 It was Margaretta Curly, who apparently knew Dr.

5:15 Mitchell.

5:16 And she said, "Oh, I saw that question in your magazine,

5:19 and I thought I would give you a response to it."

5:22 And this is What kind of amazing thing is this?

5:25 Who would even read that little thing and say, "Oh, yeah,

5:27 I think I'll write a four-page uh letter to respond to that one

5:31 little tiny question in the magazine."

5:33 But that's exactly what Margaretta Curly did.

5:35 It says, "I observed in your number magazine of June last a question put to Dr.

5:43 Mitchell, how potash cake is made.

5:46 The question refers, I suppose,

5:48 to the mention of that sort of bread in his letter to Mrs.

5:53 F, printed in a magazine for April last.

5:57 I have examined several of your English books of cookery,

6:01 where receipts and directions are given for making

6:04 a great variety of good edible things,

6:07 but do not recollect to have ever observed in a chapter

6:11 of cakes any composition of the kind we call an America potash cakes.

6:16 Here is her written down recipe.

6:19 It goes, "A good recipe for this cake is as follows.

6:22 Take a good wheat and flour, 2 lbs of butter,

6:26 a half a pound of sugar, half a pound.

6:30 Add to these a heaping teaspoonful of the salt of tartar or other form

6:36 of potash or pearl ash that will hiss when vinegar is poured on it.

6:42 The potash must be dissolved in a little

6:46 water before it is added to the other materials,

6:48 and sugar stirred in about a pint of milk,

6:53 and being freed from lumps, the whole must be mixed and kneaded well together.

6:58 This may be done in a very few minutes,

7:01 and the dough will be instantly fit for rolling out and baking.

7:05 It is to be observed that the milk in which this cake is moistened,

7:10 if sour or coagulated, will be preferable.

7:15 In other words, use buttermilk or use sour milk.

7:18 So, isn't it massively fascinating that there's some kind

7:21 of food that's being made in say 1780 in colonial America,

7:26 some doctor writes about it in 1788, 10 years later it gets reprinted,

7:33 and then someone asks a question about it in a British newspaper in 1799,

7:38 and someone writes a response to it,

7:40 giving us this amazing letter here with all the explanation

7:46 and a recipe and the reasons and it goes on and on.

7:49 And then, if we're careful,

7:51 we can see the thread of that pop up again another 10

7:55 years later where this recipe actually shows up in a British cookbook.

7:59 This recipe is pretty easy.

8:00 We're going to cut it in half.

8:02 I have 1 lb of unbleached flour.

8:05 That's probably the best one to use.

8:08 She does have an option of using rye flour.

8:10 We don't need to do that.

8:11 And we have a quarter of a pound or 4 oz of butter.

8:16 We're going to cut that in or rub it

8:18 in so that it's basically just like a pie crust.

8:22 We also have 4 oz of sugar.

8:25 We're going to add that to our flour mixture and just mix it completely.

8:29 Now we have our liquid components.

8:32 We have about 4 oz of water and 4 oz of milk.

8:36 We're going to take our leavener,

8:38 which is our potassium carbonate or in your case,

8:41 you're going to be using baking soda.

8:43 1 tsp full and put that into 4 oz of water and stir it well.

8:48 We also have 4 oz of milk and since we want some kind of acid in here,

8:55 we're going to put in a tsp full of apple

8:58 cider vinegar into this milk and stir it well.

9:01 And then those two will go in to our combination

9:05 here of flour and all that good stuff.

9:07 We will mix that together.

9:08 Mix it together gently, bring it together into a dough.

9:12 Don't knead it well.

9:13 She says to knead it well, but we don't need to do that.

9:15 Just bring it together into our nice dough or batter here and we

9:21 can separate these into little cakes and put them on a baking sheet.

9:24 These go into the oven at 400° for approximately 20 minutes.

9:29 It depends on how big you make your little cakes.

9:32 The biscuits are out of the oven.

9:33 I've allowed them to cool so we can taste them out.

9:36 And I have a couple of versions here.

9:39 This one that I've broken open here is exactly what the recipe is.

9:43 This is uses the potassium carbonate, the pearl ash, as our leavener.

9:48 And you can see that it's not really fluffed up a lot.

9:52 There's a little bit of leavening going on here.

9:55 I did go ahead and I did a version of hers that used the rye and the molasses.

10:02 And these don't taste very good.

10:04 So, I don't suggest that necessarily.

10:07 And I went ahead and I also did one,

10:09 probably like the one that you're going to make with sodium bicarbonate,

10:14 which is baking soda.

10:16 And you can see it's much lighter and fluffier.

10:19 Just by the look of it is lighter and fluffier.

10:21 And when we break it open, you can see a lot more leavening going on here.

10:26 It's got twice as much leavening action.

10:29 So, we get a lot more fluffiness and it does taste a little better.

10:33 The difference between potassium carbonate and sodium is definitely tastable.

10:40 If you get too much of this potassium carbonate,

10:43 if you say, "I want this to be lighter and fluffier,

10:45 so I will use twice as much." It will start to taste

10:48 like soap because potassium carbonate is what they use to make soap with.

10:54 Versus sodium.

10:56 This sodium part ends up being a more

10:59 of a salty taste cuz we're used to sodium chloride, right?

11:02 Not potassium chloride, which has a kind of a metallic taste to it compared.

11:07 So, there is a a good reason why Margareta Curly,

11:11 even in her letter, suggests using

11:14 sodium carbonate instead of potassium carbonate.

11:17 We use it in America because we have lots of it.

11:20 In Europe, you might have sodium carbonate.

11:22 You should use that instead.

11:24 So, she really went in-depth in her letter about the differences

11:29 and how you can use it and what's even going on chemically.

11:32 She did a tremendous job.

11:34 So, let's give these a taste.

11:36 Here is our biscuit here and she did give us uh some sugar in these.

11:43 So, they are kind of sugary.

11:47 These are not bad at all.

11:49 A little dense, a little I'm probably going

11:52 to try a couple of different things to, you know,

11:55 tweak it and get a little more fluffiness in it.

11:59 Having to do with how much acid you put

12:02 in and exactly how much you kind of knead it.

12:05 Probably couldn't have got a little bit fluffier.

12:08 But, here's the sodium one, regular baking soda.

12:13 Definitely fluffier.

12:15 And you can still get a strange metallic taste if you,

12:20 you know, put too much in.

12:22 But, a really really interesting, wonderful little sweet kind of biscuit here.

12:27 You can make these and you are making

12:31 what turns into all our cakes, all our cookies,

12:36 all those things are based on the work that was done here by Margarita Curly.

12:41 They're totally amazing.