Bread, cakes, and biscuits

BREAD, CAKES, AND BISCUITS. carbonic acid gas. If this be liberated, by the addition of any stronger acid which removes the soda, the gas is dis- engaged, as may be seen by dissolving an effervescing powder. Should this disengagement take place in the substance of the tenacious and adhesive dough produced when wheat flour is mixed with water, the bubbles of gas so liberated are retained, and, distending the dough, pro- duce a light bread. The best means of liberating this gas is the addition of tartaric acid, which forms with the soda a dry powder, the ingredients of which do not react upon one another until wetted, so that, if the mixture be stirred in the flour and then moistened, the carbonic acid gas is entangled in the dough. But as alum also contains a large proportion of acid, and Avhen mixed with carbonate of soda causes' effervescence, so, as it is only a fraction of the cost of tartaric acid, it has been used to a very large extent as a substitute for the latter in making baking powder. The question whether such employment of alum is, or is not, legal has at last been decided in the Court of Queen’s Bench, after some years’ litigation, the question raised being whether baking powder is, or is not, an article of food coming within the scope of the Act of Parliament regulating the adulteration of food and drugs. It was decided that baking powder not being an article of food, the employment of injurious substances in it does not entail any penalty on the makers. The decision was a perfectly legal one on the following grounds : that the sale of alum is not an offence, and that the small quantity of ground rice or other starchy ingredient in baking powders made with alum does not convert them into food. It is true that the purchaser of baking powder, if he mixes it with food and then sells the food, does commit an offence, but legally the vendor of the powder does not. The question turned entirely on the legal point whether baking powder was, or was not, to be considered as food, which alone would bring it w ithin the scope of the Act of Parliament. BREAD. The decision is unfortunate, because it is generally admitted, and was so even in the evidence on the present case, that alum in food is injurious. It decomposes when heated in connection with flour’, and its addition acts inju- riously upon the latter, rendering it indigestible. It seems a legal absurdity to regard pepper, mustard, and salt as foods and to prevent their adulteration, and yet to regard baking powder not as a food, so that it may be adulterated to any extent. The Food and Drugs Act is badly worded, and requires considerable alteration to prevent the occur- rence of such contradictions, there being in the Act a pro- vision against the use of alum in bread, but none against its use in baking powder.