Baking soda or baking powder is the most common carbon dioxide (CO2) source. It is used to produce aerated cakes, for example. This article proposes an alternative to the use of baking powder by using the mixing of the batter under CO2 pressure.
by Juliette Palier, Catherine Loisel, Luc Guihard, Cécile Rannou, Alain Le-Bail and Patricia Le-Bail
Baking powder is usually made of a blend of an alkaline agent that generates CO2 and of an acidic counterpart to neutralize the alkaline agent. The neutralization yields the release of CO2 mainly during baking. The removal of baking powder seems to be a ‘hot topic’ for the baking industry, driven by the trend to reduce certain ingredients, including sodium chloride (clean label).
A prototype mixer was used with air and CO2 applied with gauge pressures of 0.3 and 0.5 bar. CO2 pressure-mixing yielded the best results regarding cake-specific volume (2.5 mL/g or 86% of the specific volume of the reference cake with baking powder) compared to air pressure. This result was explained by the solubilization of CO2 in the liquid phase of the batter during mixing and its release during baking.
