A quick post to move away from Virus stuff…
As I have been making a few biscuits/waffles calling for either levure chimique or baking powder of Baking soda. I have tried to understand the differences.
Levure Chimique and Baking Powder are very similar, they will produce CO2 in your pastry/dough as long as you simply add a liquid. The base and the acid are already present in their dry form.
The levure chimique has wheat flour and baking powder has maize flour. The levure chimique is supposed to be more performing at the same weight.
A packet of levure chimique is about 11g or 2 teaspoons, sufficient for around 500g of flour.
The baking powder should be scaled up by about 40%. So about 15g for 500g.
The Baking Soda (or Sodium bicarbonate) is only a base (high PH) agent for which your recipe needs to have an acid to react with to create the CO2. This could be lemon juice or yoghurt. 3 Tablespoons of baking soda in 500ml of water will make water with a PH of about 9.5…. (Lye or Lessive de Soude is usually PH14). Baking soda is useful for heartburn as it will lower Gastric Acids. (1/2 teaspoon in one glass of water). Baking Soda is also helpful to absorb odours in the fridge or to make a scented jar with essential oils.
Note: Baking soda can be used to clean drains or degrease kitchen ustensils because of the high PH but is not as efficient as Caustic Soda or Crystal Soda (the green bags stuff) is further up the PH scale at approx 11.5. The best being “Lye” or Lessive de Soude which is up in PH14.
