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My grandmother's pound cake recipe failed me at a family reunion in Nashville
Last month I brought her famous pound cake to the family reunion in Nashville, but it came out dry and crumbly instead of moist. Turns out I accidentally used baking powder instead of baking soda because I grabbed the wrong tin from the cabinet. Has anyone else had a trusted recipe go wrong because of a simple swap like that?
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price.gavin1mo ago
I saw something online about how baking powder and soda react totally different... with baking soda you have to have something acidic in the batter for it to work right, like buttermilk or lemon juice. Baking powder has its own acid mixed in so it can work with less fussy ingredients. Grandma's recipe probably counted on that acidic ingredient to make it rise right and stay tender, so swapping them out threw the whole chemistry off. That's rough it happened in Nashville with so many family members watching...
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michael_coleman101mo ago
And that's exactly why grandma's recipes never tell you the science behind it, she just knew what worked. So swapping those two is basically like trying to bake a cake without telling it how to breathe, no wonder it turned into a dry mess in front of the whole family.
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barbarah191mo ago
Isn't that just how everything is nowadays, even with @price.gavin pointing out the science, we still ignore the old wisdom?
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