I checked if the biscuit would be baked if I did not extinguish the soda when making the dough.
Recently, a subscriber approached me with a request to figure out whether it is necessary to extinguish soda when adding it to the dough. I decided to conduct a visual experiment.
I don’t know where the rule came from in Soviet times to extinguish soda before adding it to baked goods. After all, if you add soda to the dough with an acidic medium (it contains kefir, honey, lemon juice, etc.), when heated, it perfectly turns into gas and raises the dough on its own.
I can only assume that in the USSR there was no baking powder, which consists of soda and citric acid, and housewives found a way out: they extinguished soda before adding it to the dough without acidic products. But at some point, everything got confused, and people began to extinguish the soda, even when it was not required. Let's explain why you shouldn't extinguish the soda.
After we add soda to the dough with sour foods, it does not take effect immediately. She will begin to raise the dough only when heated, when the dough is in the hot oven.
And if you extinguish the soda before baking, then the reaction will occur immediately, and there will be nothing to raise the dough. More precisely, the remains of soda, which did not have time to react, will raise the dough. But this is all theory, let's show what happens in practice. I will cook a biscuit with kefir according to the recipe sent by the reader.
A step-by-step recipe for how to cook a biscuit on kefir
Ingredients per form 18 cm in diameter:
- Kefir 250 g
- Sugar 200 g
- Flour 225 g
- Eggs 1 pc
- Soda 9 g
- Vegetable oil 15 g
I pour kefir into a container and add soda, slaked with vinegar.
In the second biscuit, I did not extinguish the soda, but simply added it along with all the dry ingredients.
I add the rest of the ingredients and beat with a mixer until smooth.
I pour the dough into molds and send it to bake in one oven at a temperature of 180 ° C. I will check the readiness for a dry skewer.
The first time I checked the readiness after 30 minutes: both biscuits had already risen, but inside they were still moist. After 45 minutes, the quick soda sponge cake was ready.
The sponge cake with slaked soda remained to bake further, and an hour later I still took it out of the oven, as it began to burn on top. But the sponge cake was still sticking to the skewer. Let's show what I did.
Here's a sponge cake with slaked soda. The crust is slightly burnt on top. I wonder what's inside.
The texture inside the biscuit is porous, but the holes are small. It's time to take a look at the second biscuit.
The sponge cake with quick soda was baked for 45 minutes and did not burn at all.
The inside of the crumb looks porous and airy. In my opinion, much better than the first one. I wonder if there is a difference in taste?
Both biscuits came out with a slight soda flavor. In the “slaked” sponge cake, the taste of soda was felt less. But, if we consider that the “quick” biscuit rose better, then the amount of soda can be safely reduced, and then the taste of soda will not be felt. It's time to summarize.
It’s quite clear to me that baking soda should not be extinguished. Since kefir already contains enough acid for the soda to work, which is what the experiment showed. There is even an abundance of it.
Do you extinguish soda when baking?