All Rise for Baking Powder

Baking is one of the job requirements of being a mother. We bake birthday cakes (unless you live near a Publix which has the BEST birthday cakes), bake goodies for bake sales to raise money for preschool cubbies, and we bake chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes...just because. 


Now, some moms out there are great bakers and their award-winning results boost their status as super-moms. Some moms are happy if they produce something edible and don’t burn the house down in the process. I am somewhere in the middle. I love to bake because I love sweets, but I am not too confident in the what/why/how a group of ingredients combined at high temperatures results in a delicious treat (and if successful boosts my confidence as a mom and makes me my children’s favorite person of the day).


During a recent visit with family, we found ourselves with an abundance of over-ripe bananas. In our house, over-ripe bananas = delicious banana bread. I didn’t have my recipe with me, but I had made banana bread plenty of times and thought I could make it from memory. My memory was a little fuzzy when it was time for the baking powder, so I guessed; 1/2 teaspoon felt right. The banana bread didn’t even rise as high as the pan. Normally, my banana bread looks like this:

When I returned home I checked the recipe, which calls for 3 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder. I was way off! I was never sure exactly what baking powder did, but given that my recipe-from-memory produced a banana bread 1/2 as high as the original recipe, I figured it must have something to do with making baked goods rise. I decided to find out exactly what baking powder does in the baking process.

What is baking powder and what does it do?

The purpose of baking powder is leavening, which is how our baked goods rise. It works much faster than yeast, which is also a leavening agent. Baking powder is actually a mixture of three ingredients: baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), cream of tartar (tartrate salt), and cornstarch.  The baking soda (a base) and cream of tartar (an acid) react with water and heat to produce a gas, carbon dioxide. The air bubbles that form create the light and fluffy consistency we find in breads and cakes. The cornstarch is added to prevent a chemical reaction from taking place prematurely with moisture in the air.

Baking Powder vs. Baking Soda

Now it is easy to see why these two substances are so similar in name and texture. Baking powder is baking soda with two extra ingredients, making our baking experience a little easier. Whether you use baking powder or baking soda will depend on the other ingredients in the recipe. If your recipe contains acidic ingredients such as chocolate or buttermilk, it will likely call for baking soda, a base, to neutralize the taste. Since baking powder already has both an acid and a base, it is used in more neutral-tasting recipes.

Substitution

If you suddenly find yourself short on baking powder, you can use the following substitution:

1 teaspoon baking powder = 1/2 teaspoon baking soda                

+ 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar + 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch

Experiment

The link below provides an experiment with a great visual of how baking powder releases carbon dioxide when mixed with vinegar.

http://www.kidsmakestuff.com/articles/show/m35q


Sources:
http://whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/BakingPowder.htm
http://www.howstuffworks.com/baking-powder.htm
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/foodchemistry/f/blbaking.htm

Are You Face Blind?

Every mother has experienced The Public Tantrum, when your two-year-old has decided to let you and everyone around you know that she has had enough. I had the pleasure of this experience while shopping at Target with my family. The circumstances that led up to the tantrum are forgotten, I just remember my two-year-old daughter laying face-down in the aisle, screaming and kicking, with me bent-over trying to pick her up so we can sneak out with a little dignity. Just when I thought no one had seen us (of course they had heard us), a women approached me and said, “That is a lovely coat. Where did you find it?”

What? Is she serious? I am wrestling with my child and she wants to discuss fashion. Did she not see the frustration in my face? Two thoughts came to mind:
1.The woman is a seasoned mother who has learned to block out tantrum-throwing children. She has probably mastered the art of having a phone conversation with her friends while her children are screaming in the background.
2.The woman did not see the frustration on my face because she is unable to recognize emotions on the faces of others.

There is a small population (2%) of people out there who are “face blind”. Also known as prosopagnosia, it is the inability to recognize faces. People with prosopagnosia can see and describe the face, including hair color, eye color, and age. Yet they can not tell you if that person is their spouse, child, or even themselves in the mirror. People who are “face blind” use other cues to identify people such as voice or clothing.

Since “face blind” people are unable to identify others based on facial features, it is often difficult for them to identify emotion, since most emotional cues come from the face. Raised eyebrows, frowns, flared nostrils, and squinted eyes are just some of the cues we use to determine if someone is angry, surprised, or scared.

Clearly this disorder can be a major roadblock in socializing with others. Unfortunately there is no cure, although people with prosopagnosia can learn to use other cues to recognize people.

Do you want to test your facial recognition skills? Click here to take the online test from the Prosopagnosia Research Center at Harvard University.

So, the next time someone you have met gives you a blank look when you say hello, or when someone strikes up a conversation with you while you deal with a two-year-old meltdown, you now have a little insight into what the strange social behavior may be.

Your children can also test their skills with the facial recognition test. For younger children, you can print out pictures of their favorite characters online, and test their memory of their favorite faces.