It needs to be said

  Taking anything for granted is very risky and it just occurred to me that there's something that might need clarification as I've not mentioned it before. What I have mentioned on various occasions however is that it's very easy to get caught out by out of date baking powder. Before you start rolling your eyes, it's a real rookie mistake and easy to get caught out so pay attention.

  I'm not going to assume that you know all the blind spots so let's go back to basics for a second and talk about flour. As you may know, if you want your recipe with plain flour to rise, you add a bit of baking powder. In brief, baking powder is made of two chemicals that, though inert when dry, get fired as soon as they get wet and start fizzing and producing gas.​​​​​​​

  However, after the use by date, the chemicals stop reacting so when you open the oven and reach in, full of expectation, you discover your cake is more pancake style than you were hoping for and spend the rest of the day flagellating yourself with a soggy spring onion. So far the only flour I've mentioned is the plain stuff but to make life easy, you might use self-raising. And why not? It saves having to weigh out an extra ingredient.

  I don't need to ask you where this is going, do I? I've set you right up in the early stages but as I'm not going to take anything for granted, I'll spell it out. Self-raising flour doesn't need any baking powder to be added because it's already got the right amount mixed in. And what happens to baking powder? That's right, it goes off.

  So guess what? The chances are that the bag of self-raising flour currently comatose at the back of your cupboard is beyond geriatric, which means when you do finally reach for it to make that special cake, you find it's as useless as a bag of sand. Hopefully the fact that I've laboured the point so painfully will mean that when you eventually do excavate the bag of self-raising from the darkest depths, you will have a glance at the sell by date and avert a disaster, you lucky bastard.

Kirk out

RevoltingFood.com