Cake Raising Agents

A typical cake-making recipe would include ingredients such as baking powder, flour, eggs, sugar, butter, salt. So what happens in order to make a cake rise? The rising of a cake occurs when baking powder or baking soda is added. These ingredients are cake raising agents which release carbon dioxide, allowing the cake to rise.

Baking powder (a white powder) is a dry chemical ingredient used in the making of a cake. It consists of sodium bicarbonate (an alkali), acid salt (such as tartaric acid) and starch that when exposed to water, react together to form carbon dioxide gas causing it to expand, thereby producing bubbles and allowing the cake dough to rise. Typically today, modern baking powders are double acting (meaning they contain two acid salts). One reacts at room temperature, causing a rise as soon as the batter is prepared while the other one reacts at a higher temperature, producing a further rise during the baking process.

Baking soda is also an ingredient which can create the gas. Baking soda is composed of sodium bicarbonate and requires an acidic ingredient (such as lemon juice, buttermilk, yoghurt, etc) to form carbon dioxide.

When mixing baking soda (carbonate) and lemon juice (acid), a clear gas is made called “carbon dioxide”.