Quenching soda with vinegar often raises many questions - why do it, how to do it and what is better to use for this: vinegar, kefir or boiling water? In old Russian recipes, soda was not mentioned at all, but today it is widely used as a baking powder, which must be extinguished.
Soda and vinegar
Soda is extinguished for the reason that in its original form it has a rather unpleasant soapy aftertaste. When cooking pancakes, it can be extinguished with the help of fermented milk products or boiling water - but such methods do not work with shortbread dough, therefore, as a substitute, housewives began to use 9% vinegar for extinguishing. As a result, soda, under the influence of an acidic environment, begins to actively emit carbon dioxide, which gives baked goods porosity and splendor.
In addition to vinegar, you can also use a small amount of freshly squeezed lemon juice to quench the baking soda.
Some professional cooks do not recommend extinguishing soda with vinegar - this practice appeared spontaneously, from the myth that extinguishing soda should occur in reaction with something sour. To prepare the dough from which baking will be prepared, it is advisable to extinguish the soda with honey, which, despite its sweet taste, has an acidic pH reaction, which is quite enough to quench the soda baking powder. To properly knead such a dough, you must first mix dry baking ingredients with baking soda, and mix liquid ingredients with acid in the form of vinegar, honey, kefir or lemon juice. The dough is then quickly kneaded from both mixtures and baked immediately.
Vinegar quenching method
When choosing vinegar for extinguishing soda, you need to remember that improper implementation of this method will give minimal benefit in loosening the dough. Many housewives pour soda into a teaspoon and drip vinegar into it - while the entire reaction for the release of carbon dioxide goes into the air, without having time to get into the dough. To avoid this, it is necessary to immediately pour quenched soda with bubbles into it so that those residues that did not have time to react with 9% vinegar give the desired porosity and splendor.
The unpleasant taste of soda ash is minimal in cooled baked goods, but strongly noticeable in hot baked goods.
In addition, the intensity of the soda flavor in baking depends on the accuracy of the dosage - few people weigh the ingredients used using electronic scales, preferring to measure them by eye. The correct dosage for extinguishing should be ¼ teaspoon of baking soda and ¼ teaspoon of vinegar, which, after mixing, should be immediately introduced into the dough, until the bubbles have disappeared into the void. Thus, with the correct technology for adding slaked soda, baking will always be light, porous, even and beautiful.
