 | Bread wasn’t always as easy to bake as it is now. Bread gets its airy structure by capturing gas bubbles in the elastic gluten of wheat. But how does one get those gas bubbles into the dough to begin with? The answer is leavening. |
One way to leaven bread is through the use of chemical mixtures that produce gas. Pearlash is an early chemical leavening first used in breads and baking in the 1780s. Like soap, gunpowder, and potash, it is a byproduct of lye, which comes from fireplace ashes that have been soaked in water. Mix pearlash with sour milk, vinegar, or another acid, and it produces carbon dioxide bubbles that make bread and other baked goods rise.
In 1840, a chalk-like chemical leavener named saleratus entered the market. It was sold in paper envelopes similar to the ones now used for yeast and is chemically similar to baking soda, which became commercially available in the 1860s.
None of these chemical mixtures came without controversy. The August 15, 1853 edition of The Adams Sentinel and General Advertiser, a paper produced in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, explained the process of making both pearlash and saleratus, but ends with a warning:
What is saleratus? Wood burnt to ashes. Ashes are lixiviated -- lye is the result . Lye is evaporated by boiling -- black salts are the residuum. The salts undergo a purification by fire, and the potash of commerce is obtained. By another process, we change the potash into pearlash. Now put this into sacks, and place them over a distillery wash-tub, where the fermentation evolves carbonic acid gas, and the pearlash absorbs and renders it solid, the product being heavier, dryer and whiter than the pearlash. It is now saleratus. How much salts of lye and carbonic acid can a human stomach bear and remain healthy, is a question for the saleratus eaters.
Tomorrow my blog will feature an old fashioned baking soda and vinegar cake recipe handed down to me by my mother.
In 1840, a chalk-like chemical leavener named saleratus entered the market. It was sold in paper envelopes similar to the ones now used for yeast and is chemically similar to baking soda, which became commercially available in the 1860s.
None of these chemical mixtures came without controversy. The August 15, 1853 edition of The Adams Sentinel and General Advertiser, a paper produced in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, explained the process of making both pearlash and saleratus, but ends with a warning:
What is saleratus? Wood burnt to ashes. Ashes are lixiviated -- lye is the result . Lye is evaporated by boiling -- black salts are the residuum. The salts undergo a purification by fire, and the potash of commerce is obtained. By another process, we change the potash into pearlash. Now put this into sacks, and place them over a distillery wash-tub, where the fermentation evolves carbonic acid gas, and the pearlash absorbs and renders it solid, the product being heavier, dryer and whiter than the pearlash. It is now saleratus. How much salts of lye and carbonic acid can a human stomach bear and remain healthy, is a question for the saleratus eaters.
Tomorrow my blog will feature an old fashioned baking soda and vinegar cake recipe handed down to me by my mother.
Photo borrowed from The American Philosophical Society's webpage. Visit here for five interesting blogs on the history of cooking.
Jennifer Bohnhoff is the author of a number of middle grade historical fiction books, including The Bent Reed, which is set at Gettysburg during the Civil War. You learn more about her books and her adventures in historical cooking here.
Jennifer Bohnhoff is the author of a number of middle grade historical fiction books, including The Bent Reed, which is set at Gettysburg during the Civil War. You learn more about her books and her adventures in historical cooking here.
