Too much baking powder?

Kewreeuss

I have a recipe I want to try, one of Mary Berry's.
I have it in a book and I have also found it in her own site, the Bbc good food site and a few others.
The problem is that sometimes the recipe says 2 tsp baking powder and sometimes 3.
The recipe itself is straightforward: 275 gr fat, sugar, self raising flour and 4 eggs and she used the all in one method. There is no added liquid either
Normally with this ratio of ingredients I wouldn't add any baking powder, I use the allin one method and I don't have any problems.
I can't figure out first of all why she adds more powder to the SR flour and then why the variance.
I also hate the taste too much bp has and the way it furs my teeth.
What advice can you give me? Ignore the addition and do as I always do?
I hate wasting ingredients when things don't turn out right. I don't mind so much when it is a brand new recipe, but this one just seems the normal Madeira mixture!
Thanks for your advice!

Faith

It's to give the cake extra lift. SR flour often doesn't have enough of the raising agent in it for something like a Victoria Sponge.

Kewreeuss

Thanks Faith. So what do you reckon I should go with - 2 tsps or 3 tsps? Cooking time is 30-35 mins at 180, which I would lower for fan oven, although she doesn't mention fan temperatures.

Faith

Go with 2 to begin with. It'll rise nicely, I'm sure.

If you have the option to turn off the fan, do that. Fans can blow delicate batter around, which is why you get domes and uneven rises. Otherwise, just cook at 160.

Let us know how it turns out!

I think another factor with the extra baking powder is that baking powder goes stale quite quickly, so the baking powder in SR flour might be oldish and not as effective. By adding your own, it adds more control to the bake.

phormium

Most all in one recipes have extra raising agent, it's to compensate for the fact that you are beating the whole lot up in one go and not using the normal methods of incorporating air such as creaming the butter and sugar first and folding in the flour. The all in one method results in a flatter cake hence the addition of extra raising agent.

I would go with the lower amount first though and see how the result is, if you want to avoid the extra altogether then I would go back to the old long way of making the cake

Kewreeuss

Thank you both.
I will use 2 tspns and the all in one method first and see how it goes.
That is also a good observation about the efficacy of SR flour over time. Hadn't thought of that.
My OH is baking this evening so it will be tomorrow before I will get to it.
Of course I will let you know how the finished turns out.:)

Faith

I actually have my own question now, if anyone spots this in time . I'm making a Victoria sponge shortly, but I only have plain flour. How much baking soda will I add in total?

WildRosie

Faith, I don't use SR flour because it tends to lose it effectiveness, so I subsitute with 150gm of plain flour plus 1.5 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoons of salt.

I think Mary Berry talked about this on one of the GBBO masterclass episodes and said SR flour didn't have enough raising agent in it for cakes like a Victoria sponge so needed extra baking powder. I seem to remember her adding quite a generous amount in the cake she was making!

huskerdu

Faith wrote: »

I actually have my own question now, if anyone spots this in time . I'm making a Victoria sponge shortly, but I only have plain flour. How much baking soda will I add in total?

The recipe I learnt in Inter Cert Home Economics still works for me

Its very old school but easy to remember. 4:4:2:1

4oz plain flour, 4oz butter, 2 eggs, 1 tsp baking powder.

Enjoy

phormium

Any sugar?

rubadub

Kewreeuss wrote: »

I also hate the taste too much bp has and the way it furs my teeth.

What bicarbonate of soda do people find the most tasteless? I drink it with water as an antacid, so know the horrible flavour all too well. Gem brand is the best I have come across. I have yet to try Dr. Oetker

I think its important how you store it, baking soda can be left in the fridge to absorb nasty smells. But if in a musty press or close to strong flavoured stuff it could absorb their smell/taste too. So I have been putting mine in air tight containers.

As it is so cheap I would not mind paying 2 or even 5 times the price, antacids containing bicarb or similar are ridiculously expensive, and do not kick in as fast.

huskerdu

phormium wrote: »

Any sugar?

Thanks.
Obviously, my memory of inter cert Home Ecc is not as good as I think,
but I have never forgotten it when baking !

4oz flour, 4oz butter, 4oz sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tsp BP ( I would use a slightly heaped tsp, not a level one).

Interestingly, recipes vary a lot of the amount of BP for this recipe.

Some have nearly double this amount.

Kewreeuss

Testing photo. Don't think this will work

Kewreeuss

Back to the drawing boards far as loading photos is concerned!

Anyway, I made the cake and it was marvellous. Mary Berry's whole orange spice cake, the four layered version.
Two teaspoons of baking powder was plenty. The crumb was really light, but slightly dry cos I always over bake first time round. I will be happy to eat something that is overdone, but anything squishy and underdone would end up in the bin and it would kill me to have to waste stuff!
On reflection, cake baked and all, the bp might have been necessary also because it needed to lift the liquidised boiled orange.
This version of the recipe had the butter icing incorporated into a tub of mascarpone, which made for a very sweet filling, tooth droppingly, at least for me who doesn't use butter icing much.
The combination of flavours is excellent, leaves a lovely aftertaste and because my cake was a bit dry having four layers softened the texture.
Great cake, well worth trying again.

Kewreeuss

Regarding bread soda i can't say I have ever noticed a bad taste from it. If anything, my brown bread goes green if I use too much of it and my buttermilk scones go a sepia shade!!
However, baking powder is a different matter. If I am heavy handed with it, it's not so much that I notice the taste, but it furs my teeth. I can't think of a better way to describe it:D

Dizzyblonde

Kewreeuss wrote: »

Back to the drawing boards far as loading photos is concerned!

You can upload them onto tinypic.com for free, then copy the "Message Boards" code and past it straight into your post

Kewreeuss

Kewreeuss wrote: »

This version of the recipe had the butter icing incorporated into a tub of mascarpone, which made for a very sweet filling, tooth droppingly, at least for me who doesn't use butter icing much.

I usually halve the sugar that goes into an icing recipe and work from there whether it needs more sugar or not

Kewreeuss

Thanks for the tinypic info.
This is my cake. Whole Orange spiced cake with mascarpone filling, a la Berry.

Faith

Thanks for the advice folks. I went with 3 teaspoons and it was perfect. It was wolfed down!

huskerdu

Faith wrote: »

Thanks for the advice folks. I went with 3 teaspoons and it was perfect. It was wolfed down!

Just out of interest, how much plain flour was there is the recipe, for 3 tsp BP ?

Thanks

Faith

huskerdu wrote: »

Just out of interest, how much plain flour was there is the recipe, for 3 tsp BP ?

Thanks

250g. The recipe called for 225g, but my eggs weighed 250g together, so I added equal weights of flour, butter and sugar. Your method, which I've followed before, doesn't give enough of a rise, IME. That's why I added the extra one.

Kewreeuss

This is the recipe I followed, it has a wee bit less butter and the two tspns worked fine for me too, rather than the three Faith used.

Faith

Kewreeuss wrote: »

This is the recipe I followed, it has a wee bit less butter and the two tspns worked fine for me too, rather than the three Faith used.

Just to note, I was using plain flour, not self-raising, hence the extra teaspoon on yours.