KitchenSavvy

Tales from an Old Salt

I recently learned that all white salt is processed and devoid of some 80 minerals. Is that why iodine is added?
--Name Withheld

Salt, whether of the table salt variety or harvested by vestal virgins under a full moon in October contains almost no iodine, unless it is added.  According to M. G. Venkatesh Mannar, Executive Director The Micronutrient Initiative Ottawa, Canada, and John T. Dunn, Professor of Medicine, University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A.¹:

"Since iodine is a constituent of sea water, it is often incorrectly assumed that sea salt contains sufficient iodine for nutritional purposes. The total dissolved salts in seawater contain less than 2 micrograms of iodine per gram of salts, equivalent theoretically to about 3 micrograms of iodine for every gram of recovered sodium chloride (3 parts per million). Even this small quantity of iodine is mostly lost in the residual mother liquor that is drained out during the production process and should be disregarded in calculations to establish the level of iodine supplement."

Mother liquor is the liquid part of a solution that is left over after crystallization.  In other words, when salt is made by evaporation of sea water, the small quantity of iodine that was in the water stays there and does not precipitate out in significant amounts when salt crystals drop out of solution.

The main dietary sources of iodine are seafood, sea vegetation, such as kelp, and until recently dairy products.  With recent changes to sanitary practices at dairy operations, the amount of iodine found in dairy products is decreasing in some parts of the world².  It is also found in foods supplemented with iodine and in vegetables grown in iodine rich locations, typically close to the ocean.

Iodine is added to table salt not to make up for it not being found in salt deposits, but because in some places there is not enough iodine from local dietary sources to prevent the occurrence of goiters, an enlargement of the thyroid gland visible as a swelling of the front of the neck, and cretinism in infants from a deficiency of iodine in the mother's diet during pregnancy.  The Great Lakes, Midwest, and inner mountain areas of the United States were once called the "goiter belt" because a high number of goiter cases occurred there³.  Usually this is caused by iodine-poor soil.

The dietary requirement for iodine is about 150 micrograms (μg) daily for adults, less for children and more for expecting mothers⁴.  Iodine is added to table salt, in the form of potassium iodide (KI) or potassium iodate (KIO3), in most, if not all, developed countries.  In some coutries it may be added to flour also.

As for the rest of the 79 or so minerals, supposedly found in sea salt, the question isn't really what is there, but rather a) can you really taste a difference, and b) are any of those minerals essential for human health and otherwise absent from normal diets.  If you are a frequent reader of KitchenSavvy, you have likely heard me riff on before about claims that you can taste the difference.  If you have a really good sense of taste and a really mild food, then maybe.  For most cooks in most recipes, I would hazard a guess that in a controlled, blind tasting of something like stew, you probably would never know what kind of salt was used.

So, this is the problem I have.  Star chefs spout off recipes calling for sea salt, or flaky kosher salt, or salt harvested from the dark side of the moon.  Readers and viewers happily follow the advice, paying exorbitant prices to buy specialty salts and the salt companies laugh all the way to the bank.  Meanwhile, there is a very real risk to health, due to iodine deficiency, that is completely neglected.  Combine that with a food fad like the 100 Mile Diet and you have a recipe for disaster!

For most foods, plain old boring table salt is all you need.  As a garnish, or maybe in a few special cases, fancy salt may add something, but most of the time, it is just money down the drain.

Oh, and by the way, much of the time the colors in specialty salts are either impurities such as clay that are found in the water where the salt is harvested and have no nutritional value, or coloring agents, such as finely ground charcoal, that are added at the processor to make the salt look exotic.

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1	Salt Iodization for the Elimination of Iodine Deficiency; V. Mannar and J. Dunn; International Council for Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders, 1995; pp 10; an ICCIDD/MI/UNICEF/WHO publication; ISBN 90-70785-13-7; http://www.micronutrient.org/resources/Salt_CD/4.0_useful/4.1_fulltext/pdfs/4.1.1.pdf
2	Iodine Facts; Nutrition Australia website; http://www.nutritionaustralia.org/national/resource/iodine-facts
3	Goiter - simple; MedLine PLus, National Institutes of Health website; http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001178.htm
4	Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs): Recommended Dietary Allowances and Adequate Intakes, Vitamins; Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine, National Academies, USDA Food and Nutrition Information Center website; http://iom.edu/Activities/Nutrition/SummaryDRIs/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/Nutrition/DRIs/RDA%20and%20AIs_Vitamin%20and%20Elements.pdf

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If you have food or cooking questions, send them to Questions@KitchenSavvy.com

 

Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered, nor can we guarantee we will answer questions immediately
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Cream of Tartar vs Tartar Sauce

Are Cream of Tartar and Tartar Sauce the same thing?
--Helen

Seeing this question made me think of a Before and After category puzzle on Wheel of Fortune where the answer is "Cream of Tartar Sauce."

No, they are not the same thing.  Cream of tartar is a dry white powder that is actually finely ground tartaric acid.  The chemical name is potassium bitartrate and the formula, for those who care, is KC₄H₅O₆.  It is found as a sediment in the making of wine (see Crystals in Wine).  Cream of tartar has three main uses in the home kitchen -- to stabilize egg whites when they are whipped (see Beating Egg Whites - How Cream of Tartar Helps), in candy making to help reduce the formation of crystals in boiling sugar, and as a leavening agent when combined with baking soda (see Baking Soda vs. Baking Powder).

Tartar sauce is a mayonnaise-based condiment most frequently served with seafood.  Typical ingredients, other than the mayonnaise are chopped dill pickles, capers, lemon juice, vinegar, onions or shallots, and various herbs and seasonings.  Here is my recipe for homemade tartar sauce which I like to serve with crab cakes:

Homemade Tartar Sauce

	1/3	c	Mayonnaise
1		tsp	Lemon Zest
1		tbsp	Fresh Lemon Juice
	1/2	clove	Garlic, minced
1	1/2	tbsp	Chopped Caper Berries, rinsed and drained
1	1/2	tsp	Chopped Fresh Chives
2		tsp	Chopped Fresh Cilantro or Tarragon
			Salt and Pepper, to taste

Mix all of the ingredients together and refrigerate, covered, for at least one hour for the flavors to meld.  Quantities can be adjusted to suit your taste.

I like to zest the lemon and mince the garlic using a micro-plane since that way they mix right in without any chunks or stringy bits, but both can be done with a knife if you prefer.  Also, I prefer the larger caper berries to the non-pareil size, although any size would work.

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Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered, nor can we guarantee we will answer questions immediately
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

How are Egg Counted in Baker's Percentages

I read your previous posting on Baker's Percentage.  My question is, given that eggs contain a lot of water, should they be counted in the hydration percentage for bread?

--Eric

About 76% of the total weight of an egg is water.  Of the rest, about 9.5% is fat, 12.5% is protein and 0.4% is glucose.   Technically, that means that for a large egg, weighing approximately 50 grams (1.76 oz), 38 grams are water. Egg whites alone have about 87.6% water.

For a typical white bread recipe, the water in one large egg can represent about about 5% - 6% of the total hydration percentage.  For doughs like Brioche and Challah, the water in the eggs can represent up to 20% or more of the total hydration percentage. 

In the Challah recipe given by Reinhart in The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread, he calls for 18 ounces of flour, 2 large eggs (3.3 ounces), 2 large egg whites (1.25 ounces), and 7 to 9 ounces of water.  The water in the eggs and whites totals just over 3.6 ounces or 20% of the total weight of flour.  The water represents between 40% and 50% of the total weight of flour, so the overall hydration is 60% to 70% (i.e. total weight of water from all sources/total weight of flour as %).

While I have heard some comments to the effect that we tend to spend too much time focusing on the minutiae of baker's percentages rather than learning how our bread actually behaves when we make it, since my return from the King Arther Flour Artisan Baking at Home class, I have been tracking my recipes and trying to learn how the science and the art come together in the kitchen.  In part, this is necessary simply because the Canadian flours available to home bakers tend to be higher in gluten forming proteins that their American counterparts.  What that means is that a recipe that works for US all-purpose flour will be under hydrated for Canadian all-purpose.  To get the results I want, I am finding I need to increase the hydration by a factor of about 1.03 -- that is, if a recipe calls for 70% hydration, I need to use about 70 X 1.03 = 72.1% hydration.  So far I would only call that a starting estimate, but without understanding where all of the sources of water are that come into a recipe, I can't make the appropriate corrections.  Either that or I try to figure out how to measure 0.03 of 2 whole eggs.

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Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Just for Good Measure

Along with baking ammonia ... where does one find a dram of lemon oil, and for that matter, how much is a dram?   Thanks for your answer on baking ammonia.

--Karen

The dram measure is not used very commonly now, perhaps because it has numerous definitions.  Depending on who you consult, it is ¹/₈^th of an ounce by weight,  or ¹/₁₆^th of a fluid ounce, or about 3.7 milliliters (mL) in the United States, or 3.6 mL in the United Kingdom.  And as if that wasn't enough, a dram of whiskey or brandy is about two tablespoons.

In cooking the most common conversion of a dram is ³/₄^th of a teaspoon.

Now for lemon oil, there are essentially two types when it comes to cooking^*.  One is the essential oil extracted from the rinds of lemons.  This kind of lemon oil adds a distinct lemon flavor to pound cakes, cookies and other baked goods. Some essential lemon oils are cut with another flavorless oil to make them less intense.  For that reason, you want to read and the manufacturer's directions, if there are any.

The second type is a cooking oil, such as olive or canola, which has been infused with the taste of lemons.  This may be done by heating the oil and simmering lemon rinds in the warm oil, or by crushing lemons with the olives when making olive oil.  This kind is used for salads or drizzling on foods such as pastas or vegetables.

I'm guessing you want the former for baked goods, based on your mention of baking ammonia, but without the recipe, I could be wrong.  You can find lemon oil of both types at most reliable gourmet stores.

So, where does all of that leave you? You likely want to use about ³/₄ teaspoon of the essential lemon oil in your recipe.  Depending on the strength of the lemon oil and the source and accuracy of your recipe, you may need to adjust the amount either way.  You might be able to find other similar recipes to yours that give some guidance, but it will likely be hit-and-miss the first couple of tries.

^* It may go without saying, but only use food grade products.  Lemon oil used for aromatherapy and household cleaning are not edible and should not be used in cooking.

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Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Sifting Through Recipe Instructions

Is there an answer to this? If my recipe calls for 2 cups of flour and then I sift it, I have well over two cups.  Do I use it all or just take out the two cups after sifting?

--Name Obscured

In theory, the answer is hidden in the wording of the recipe. If it says "2 cups sifted flour", then what is needed is two cups of flour measured after it has been sifted.  If, on the other hand, the recipe calls for "2 cups flour, sifted", then you are supposed to measure out two cup of flour, sift it and then use all of the sifted flour, regardless of how much you end up with.  If the recipe just calls for two cups of flour and then in the instructions that follow it says to sift it, then this can be taken as being the same as "2 cups flour, sifted."

Of course, this assumes that the author of the recipe knows the above convention and sticks to it.  Nowadays, especially with large numbers of recipes being posted to the internet without the benefit of professional publishers and editors, it is hard to know just how reliable or precise a recipe really is.

The problem with the second method above (i.e. 2 cups flour, sifted) is that flour settles over time and the amount of flour in a cup can vary tremendously.  A cup of sifted flour may weigh 20% - 25% less than a cup of flour that has settled.  This difference can significantly affect the results, making breads and cakes more dense (see Sifting Flour).  The best bet for accuracy in recipe creation is to use flour that is measured after sifting.

Some recipes now use a simpler scoop-and-level instruction.  If you encounter this type of instruction, stir the flour in its container to aerate and lift it and then scoop out the required amount, getting a heaping measure.  Level it off with the back of a knife or other straight edge.  The measuring cup should not be tapped or shaken as that will make the flour settle again.  This method results in something close to sifted flour in the amount.

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If you have food or cooking questions, send them to Questions@KitchenSavvy.com

Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Stewing over Recipe Instructions

My question involves a step in some soup and stew recipes that I suspect may have a purpose but which feels pointless and even annoying.

After I saute my base vegetables, some recipes call for a small amount of flour to be added to the vegetables along with a little liquid to form a paste, which is cooked on low for about 5 minutes. After that, the recipes call for the main liquid (stock, etc.), which then has to be simmered and stirred for several minutes to unclump the vegetable-flour lumps. At the end I get a thickened soup or stew broth.

I'm wondering if I can go from mixing the flour into the vegetables to adding the main liquid, skipping the step of forming and cooking the vegetable-flour paste--or is there something going on with the flour in those 5 minutes?  Can I get the same results by mixing the flour in a small amount of liquid, then adding it to the soup or stew once the main liquid is simmering, much like I might to thicken a sauce?

--Joanne

I have never seen a recipe with those steps and it makes little sense to me, too. It would seem more likely to create lumps in the finished product than reduce them.  It would also be more likely to break down the vegetables since they will be softened by the time the main portion of liquid is added.

It is not uncommon to see recipes where flour is sprinkled onto the sweated vegetables or the meat that has been browned and then stirred in and cooked for a few minutes before any liquid is added.  Doing it that way does two things.  The flour granules get coated with the leftover fat in which the vegetables or meat were cooked and it gets evenly distributed.  Both the coating with fat and distributing the flour help to reduce lumps.  The other benefit is that the flour is cooked out a bit, removing some of the raw, uncooked taste it might add if it was put in at the end.  Essentially what you are doing is making a roux in the same pot that the solids were cooked in.

Another method, as you point out, is to make a slurry by combining the flour with some cold water or stock and stirring it into the hot liquid.  This way is quicker but may have a bit of an uncooked taste.

You can certainly try using a slurry and see if it makes any difference to the taste or texture of the dish.  Just remember that it may need to be cooked five to ten minute after the slurry is added to reduce the uncooked taste of the flour.  For spicy or hearty soups and stews that taste may not be too noticeable, anyhow.

Or you could try sprinkling the flour onto the sweated vegetables or browned meat, cooking on medium heat for a few minutes and then adding all of the liquid.  That way, you will at least save 5 minutes or so of stirring.  Follow the recipe from there on for how long and at what heat to leave things cook.

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If you have food or cooking questions, send them to Questions@KitchenSavvy.com

Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Steel of a Deal

What do people mean when they say that conventional butcher's steels don’t actually sharpen your knife.  According to the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary, sharpen means to "make sharp or sharper."  It seems to me that is why I use a steel, and the effect that it has.

--Art

OK, this is something that really bugs me too.  It all boils down to some subtle semantics.

If you look at the edge of a freshly sharpened knife under a microscope, its cross section will look like the letter V, coming to a fine point.  With use, the edge of the V starts to curl over.  At that point, if you look under the microscope again, what you will see is something like the tail of the letter J, the little curled part at the bottom, where the sharp point of the V used to be.  The curl is the result of use, and abrasion against the cutting surface or other materials.

Depending on which reference you look at, a conventional butcher's steel either removes the curl or straightens it back out.  Some people say it "realigns" the curl, whatever that means.  After using the steel, the knife is sharper than it was before using the steel, but not as keen as a newley sharpened knife.  In any case, the curl eventually breaks off and rather than coming to a point, the edge is blunted.  Imagine a V with a flat or rounded bottom.

Repeated use of the knife and application of the steel eventually makes the knife edge so blunt that in order to sharpen it again metal has to be removed from the two faces of the V to bring them back into a point.  Then it is necessary to use a grinder, whetstone or other device that actually takes away metal.  I use a set of Japanese water stones running from 250 grit to take of the dull edge fast, 1000 grit to sharpen, and then 4000 grit to give a razor sharp mirror finish.

Ceramic steels and ones with diamond dust embedded in their surface actually do remove some metal from the surface, but because they are a fine abrasive, they can't be used easily to re-sharpen a blade that has become too dull.  They are better than a conventional steel at keeping an edge, though.

So:

• A conventional butcher's steel does make a knife sharper, so it sharpens!
• It does not deliberately remove metal from the face of the knife so it doesn't sharpen in the same sense that, say, a whetstone does.
• A ceramic or diamond steel does remove metal from the face, but is not efficient for sharpening an already dull knife.

For the record, I am not a fan of the little pull sharpeners with the handle and a notch to pull the knife through .  I find that while they are convenient, they don't do nearly as good a job as my whetstones and a bit of elbow grease, and they are more aggressive than is needed for times when only a steel is called for.  To me they are a poor middle of the road compromise.

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If you have food or cooking questions, send them to Questions@KitchenSavvy.com

 

Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Weighing In

My new kitchen scale has a button labeled "Tare".  I'm not sure what it is for or how to use it.  Can you help?

--Tandi

The 'Tare' button, sometimes labeled as a 'Zero' button, is used to reset the scale to zero.  It can be used in a number of ways.  The simplest is to make sure that the scale is actually reading zero.  When you turn on your scale to use it, it will sometimes not read exactly zero.  Pressing the 'Tare' or 'Zero' button will set it to zero.

Now, suppose you want to weigh an ingredient, maybe a piece of chicken breast or the amount of pie filling you have.  Obviously for health or clean up reasons you don't want to put it directly on the platform of the scale.  Instead you might put a measuring cup or a bowl onto the scale to keep it clean.  Now the scale shows the weight of the container.  Rather than having to do the math by hand, if you press the 'Tare' button the scale will read zero again, having subtracted the weight of the empty bowl from the reading, and you can go ahead and weigh the ingredient.

For some recipes, like making bread using Baker's Percentages, you want to weigh a number of ingredients in succession into the same container.  In that case, you can weigh the first ingredient, press 'Tare' to set the scale to zero again before weighing the second, press 'Tare' again, and so on until all of the ingredients have been added.

Another use for 'Tare' is when you are measuring something off of a larger chunk.  Suppose, for example, that you need 4 ounces by weight of grated cheese.  You could try to guess how big a four ounce piece would be and cut it off the larger block before grating it.  Or, you could grate some cheese, put it into a bowl on the scale to see if you have enough and keep going back and forth until you have the four ounces you want. 

Somewhat easier and a lot more convenient is to weigh the whole block of cheese and then press the 'Tare' button.  The scale will read zero, and when you take the cheese off, it will show the weight again, but this time with a minus sign ('-').

Now go ahead and grate the cheese,  When you think you may be getting close to the amount you need, put the whole block back on the scale.  The weight shown will be the amount that you have removed from the block, again with a minus sign in front.  If necessary, grate some more and reweigh  until the scale reads minus four ounces.  This is easier since you don't need to stop to move grated cheese from the work surface to a container.  You will likely also get fewer dishes or utensils dirty that you then need to clean afterward. 

Note that if the number shown when you weigh the block is less than 4 (ignoring the minus sign), you need to grate more.  If it is larger than 4, you have grated too much.  The first few times you use this method, you may need to think it through before it makes immediate sense, but it works.

The only challenge with the last use for the 'Tare' button is that most electronic scales have a time-out which turns the scale if if it is not used in a minute or two.  You need to be faster than the time out, or just put the block back onto the scale to reset the time-out timer.  Worst case is it times out and you either need to remember how much you started with and do the math by hand or you need to weigh the final amount of grated cheese.

For those who are incurably curious, the word 'tare' comes from an old Italian word 'tara' which in turn came from the Arabic 'tarha' meaning 'that which is removed'.

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If you have food or cooking questions, send them to Questions@KitchenSavvy.com



Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

How Big is a Sprig

Help!  My recipe calls for a sprig of fresh parsley, chopped.  How big is a sprig?

--Danielle

Technically, a sprig is a small branch or shoot of a plant.  Unfortunately, that's pretty much useless knowledge in the kitchen.  The problem though, is that a lot of cooking is about inexact measures such as sprigs, pinches, dashes, handsfull and the all time favorite "to taste".  What all of these have in common is that they leave the details up to you and trust your experience, knowledge of the ingredient and personal preferences.

So, how much can you get from one shoot of parsley, or a stalk of rosemary, or a sprig of thyme?  As a general rule, parsley will give from two teaspoons up to about two tablespoons (10 to 30 ml) of usable portion.  A sprig of thyme will give somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 teaspoon (1.5 to 2.5 ml) of leaves, maybe more.  A stalk of rosemary?  In my garden, today, it is just under a tablespoon (15 ml).

When I gather herbs from my garden, I am always rubbing them, smelling the herbs or my fingertips, and perhaps breaking off a small piece to taste.  This may seem like idle fun, and to be honest I do enjoy the smell of fresh herbs as I pick them, but it also tells me how strong they are, or whether they are getting old and losing flavor or becoming bitter.  An older stalk of parsley will give more leaves, and therefore more chopped parsley to use, but you may want to cut back a bit because it becomes more bitter as it gets older.

Now, how to turn that into a practical guide to how much to use?  Use a smaller amount to start with, and add more as you go along.  Start with maybe a tablespoon of of chopped parsley, prepare the dish and taste it.  If necessary increase the amount.  Remember that the longer the dish cooks, the more flavor compounds evaporate.  When I make chili, I save half of the cilantro until the end and toss it in just before serving.  Otherwise the unique flavor it adds to the dish is lessened.

Pay attention as you cook to how your ingredients smell and taste as you use them.  Taste them alone before you put them into the food you are cooking.  While you prepare the dish, and when you eat it, try to taste the individual herbs you used.  As you develop your skills, you will come to automatically translate "a sprig of parsley, chopped" into "I like the taste it adds to the dish and these sprigs are pretty small, so I think I'll use a bit more."  I spoke a little about this learned knowledge in an earlier post, Coming to Your Senses. 

Invite and listen to feedback.  If your SO finds the tarragon a little overpowering, use a bit less next time.  If they say a dish was a little under flavored, add a bit more of the herbs next time.  Don't be afraid to ask or to experiment.  After all, cooking is about sharing with people who matter to you, so taking their tastes into account is always worthwhile.

Finally, have fun!  Learning all of the ins and outs of cooking takes time.  Enjoy the journey.

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If you have food or cooking questions, send them to Questions@KitchenSavvy.com



Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward

Now That You Ask ... or Substituting Agave Nectar for Sugar

I frequently receive questions from readers about how to change a recipe.  They may want to substitute ingredients, reduce calories, or make  the recipe "healthier" in one way or another.  The problem is, they send me the question without the recipe they are hoping to change and expect me to somehow be able to know the context.  Think of it like calling a restaurant you have heard about and asking, "How do I get to your place?"  You know that the first thing they are going to ask is, "Where are you now?"  They can't tell you how to get from here to there unless they know where here is to begin with.

For example, I recently got this question:

I have a cake recipe from Georges Perrier, Le Bec Fin, Philadelphia, that uses 1T baking powder and 1 tsp baking soda with 3/4 cup buttermilk and 1/2 cup good quality bourbon (Bourbon spice cake).  It's delicious as formulated.  I am substituting agave nectar (a low glycemic index liquid sweetener) for the sugar, which also requires reducing the liquid in the cake by 1/3.  If the target ratio is 1/2 tsp baking soda to 1 c buttermilk, and baking soda is four times as strong as baking powder, then presumably I need 2 cups of acid, not the 1.25 cups of the recipe??  I'm worried about reducing the liquid that much.  The other liquid is 3 eggs, easy enough.  Any suggestions?

Now, I'm not about to publish the recipe, or tell people that so and so eats vast amounts of Bourbon Spice Cake, any more than the new restaurant is going to take out billboards telling everyone your address, but it would sure help understand the context in which the question is asked.  It might even allow me to test my suggested fix in the kitchen to be sure I'm on the right track.

Without the recipe, the best I can do is assume some common reference point -- "Drive to the front of City Hall, and then go right six blocks to highway 16 ..."  Of course, those kinds of instructions may be way out of your way, and may not really help if you live in Podunk and I'm in East Eyebrow.

So, having no mile markers to tell me where the recipe is coming from, what can I say about the above question?

1. General recommendations are to replace the sugar with about 2/3 the volume of agave nectar.  Since agave nectar is supposedly sweeter than sugar, you need less of it.
2. Because agave nectar contains water, most substitutions require that you reduce the other liquids in the recipe.  Depending on what type of sugar is being replaced, the amount may vary between about 1/4 and 1/3 of the volume of agave nectar used. 
3. If you are replacing liquid sweeteners like honey or corn syrup, the ratios and the changes in amounts of other liquids may vary.
4. Substitution guidelines recommend reducing the oven temperature by 25°F (12°C) and increasing the cooking time slightly.

If your recipe, for example, calls for 1 1/2 cups of white sugar, then you need to use about 0.666 X 1.5 = 1 cups of agave nectar.  You also need to reduce the amount of other liquid in the recipe by 1/3 of 1 cup.  Now comes the problem, where to get that third of a cup of liquid.  If you take out 1/3 cup the bourbon, it's no longer going to be much of a Bourbon Spice Cake.  If you take out the 1/3 cup from the buttermilk, you may need to reduce the amount of baking soda by a proportional amount, just over half the total, but there may be other ingredients that are reacting with some of the baking soda, so you may not need to reduce it by that much.  If you reduce the number of eggs, then the structure of the cake may change.

There could be two other ways out of the conundrum about how to change the amount of liquid.  One depends on knowing the entire recipe.  Start by working out the ratio of flour to liquid in the recipe, remembering that butter is around 20% water by volume, each whole egg contains only about 3 tablespoons water (the rest is protein and fat), and that the buttermilk is between 1% to 2% fat.  Armed with this information, you have another option, which is to increase the amount of flour in proportion to the amount of excess liquid in the agave nectar.  A typical spice cake might have around the same weight of flour as liquids, so compensating for 1/3 cup too much water could just as easily be dealt with by increasing the amount of flour in the recipe by 5.3 ounces weight or around 1/2 cup.  Chances are that adding a half cup of flour wouldn't be right either, since that would change the ratios on spices, etc., but adding a 1/4 cup of flour and reducing the liquid by 2 tablespoons could very well work out, maybe without even needing to change any of the other ingredients.

Finally, you could cut the buttermilk by the required amount, in this example 1/3 cup, and then add buttermilk powder to replace it.  Since buttemilk powder is used in a 1 to 4 ratio with water, adding 4 teaspoons of buttermilk powder would compensate for the amount of real buttermilk taken out and should balance the recipe back up.  The water from the agave nectar will make up for the liquid lost in reducing the amount of real buttermilk used.

All of this assumes that the cake contains 1 1/2 cup of white sugar in the first place, which I don't know for sure. 

The point is a) messing around with the balances on ingredients can be fussy work and b) without having the whole recipe, it's hard to know how to change it.  The more information you give about where you are starting from, the easier it is to tell you the directions to get where you want to be.

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If you have food or cooking questions, send them to Questions@KitchenSavvy.com



Due to the volume of questions received, not all can be answered.
© Lost Hobbit Enterprises 2004 onward