Friday, August 21, 2009
why are my baked goods turning blue?
So you’ve made some fruit scones or peach cupcakes and you notice that the end product is streaked blue and green. Sound familiar? In almost every case, it’s not you, it’s your baking powder. Baking powder with aluminum in it reacts to acidic ingredients, causing this discoloration and what many people find to be a “tinny” or metallic taste. Fortunately, this is as easy to rectify as ditching your baking powder for an aluminum-free brand, such as Rumford (the brand also makes Clabber Girl baking powder, which, oddly, does contain aluminum) or Bob’s Red Mill.
Thank you! The blue baked-goods problem has been annoying me for a while. For some reason it tends to happen when I include sunflower seeds in muffins (but not in yeast breads, which makes sense now). I wouldn’t expect the seeds to be acidic, but maybe they are. I love the tips section by the way!
Whole Foods version is aluminum-free too!
I switched to Aluminum-free recently. It seems to work a lot differently than my old baking powder – I tend to need less of it – like half (mainly noticed this when my go-to pancake recipe came out very different). I wonder if the Al-free product is just fresher or does it actually take less than the Al brands?
Interesting – i have baked A LOT for A LONG time and have never run into a blue streak . . . . .or anything like it and have always used Clabber Girl or Calumet . . . . .the only time I come up with weird colors is once in a while a blue berry blows up in a muffin and collides with the super yellow batter from yolks from my chickens and turns the cake “green” . . . . . .
Nice post. I was checking constantly this blog and I’m inspired! Very helpful info particularly the final phase
I maintain such information a lot. I was seeking this particular info for a very lengthy time. Thanks and good luck.
Just found ARGO aluminum free baking Powder in Fairway. Seems to come from the cornstarch people and is in a nifty squarish container..nice. Seemed to do just fine in Shortcake Biscuits.