Baking Powder

     “You knew!” Anger flashing from Tshirt’s eyes nailed me to my chair.  Still I laughed.

      Part of the package deal for our Cancun trip was breakfast in the hotel’s café.  It wasn’t your ordinary motel free breakfast with cereal dispensers, canisters of rolls, doughnuts, and bagels, bowls of various kinds of fruit, maybe a make-your-own waffle machine.

     There was a cafeteria buffet with pans of scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, sausages.  There was also a chef ready and willing to fix an omelet to your specifications, if you were willing to wait.  There was nearly always a queue of folks waiting to get their omelet.  I didn’t care enough for an omelet to wait, so I went through the buffet every morning.

     One of the attractions in the buffet was a stack of very lovely looking, just-the-right-shade-of-brown pancakes.  They were rather small by our standards, about the size of a saucer.  Of course I took two or three, that first morning.

     I was ahead of everybody else in our party for some reason.  I put on a little butter, a little syrup, cut a small wedge and took a bite.  That was enough. 

     Back through the line I went. It would have to be toast with my sausage and eggs this morning.   When I got back to our table, the rest of the party was there, all except Tshirt.  I saw her coming.  I saw pancakes on her plate.  “Watch this,” I whispered to the Goodwife.

      “Watch what?”

     “Tshirt.  Be quiet and just watch,” I whispered.

     Tshirt took her time getting settled.  She failed to notice the scrutiny she was under.  On went the butter.  On went the syrup.  Plunge went the fork.  Slice went the knife.  To the mouth went the bite. 

     Down went fork and knife.  Up came the head, and I was nailed by the eyes.  “You knew!” she said.

      “Knew what?” asked the Goodwife.

     Ugh!  Baking powder!  Probably a tablespoon or two per cup of batter!  It was strong.  No eating those beauties.  At least not for Tshirt or me.  Bitter, bitter, bitter!

     The ability to taste baking powder came from Dad’s side of the family.  Mom always pooh-poohed us when we said we could taste baking powder.  Nevertheless, she made sure to use Dr. Price’s baking powder in any recipe calling for baking powder.

     Apparently, other baking powders use some kind of sulfate, sodium or aluminum or both along with baking soda and cornstarch in the baking powder recipe.  Some substitute alum for the sulfates.  I’m not sure what tastes bitter.  I just know I can taste it.

    I seem to remember that the worst-tasting baking powder was Clabber Girl.  The most tolerable but still bitter was Calumet.

      The Goodwife got educated in baking powders early in our married life.  We could still get Dr. Price’s product in those days and we used it.  Then came the day when Dr. Price’s was no longer available.  It was long before you could find anything and everything on the internet, but somehow the Goodwife found a recipe for making not-bitter baking powder.  We have used that recipe ever since.

     The recipe:  2 tablespoons of cream of tartar (expensive, which is probably why baking powder makers don’t use it)

1 tablespoon corn starch      

             1 tablespoon baking soda

     That’s it.  Pretty simple.

     The recipe will keep your biscuits and pancakes light and fluffy without interfering with the taste.

     As for me and my cruelty in not sparing my daughter the bitter mouthful, I once again proved that the ability to taste bitter baking powder, an ability some skeptics apparently don’t have, is not all in my head.  I can taste it, by gosh.