Baking powder

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Baking powder is a dry chemical leavening agent, a mixture of a carbonate or bicarbonate and a weak acid. The base and acid are prevented from reacting prematurely by the inclusion of a desiccant such as cornstarch. Baking powder is used to increase the volume and lighten the texture of baked goods. It works by releasing carbon dioxide gas into a batter or dough through an acid–base reaction, causing bubbles in the wet mixture to expand and thus leavening the mixture. The first commercially sold baking powder ever was Borwick's Baking Powder, launched in England in 1842 by George Borwick, who had spent eleven years from 1831 perfecting a formula passed to him by his father-in-law, a chemist, as a yeast substitute for home baking. The following year, in 1843, pharmacist Alfred Bird developed his own single-acting baking powder (meaning that it releases all of its carbon dioxide as soon as it is dampened). In 1856, Eben Norton Horsford, the Rumford Professor at Harvard University, received...

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