Pinterest Cupcakes More Like Pinter-MESS Cupcakes!! (Post #3)

So it's a lazy Sunday afternoon, and you're in the mood for baking some cupcakes. You look up on google and find a cute recipe on Pinterest entitled "Simple and Cute Cupcake Recipe" followed by an HD close-up picture of a perfectly golden brown, full and fluffy cupcake...so you decide to give it a try. During the mixing of the dry ingredients, your shaky hand accidentally puts a little too much baking powder, but you brush it off as no big deal. Time passes and it's time to take your masterpiece out of the oven, only to find a dozen little concave disasters, lacking that cute little rounded top the recipe promised. Moping at your baking failure, you can't help but ask yourself "What went wrong?". Well dry those tears hypothetical me! And have no fear, because I recently read an article that talked about the importance of baking powder, and as it turns out, was the reason your lovely cupcakes turned out the way they did.

Firstly, it's important to talk about what baking powder even is, before I can share its importance in baking. In the article, it explained that baking powder is a mix of baking soda, and an acid (usually cream of tartar). When adding liquid to the dry mixture, whether it be eggs, milk or any water-based ingredients, it reacts with the baking soda (NaHCO3) and cream of tartar (KHC4H4O6) to form carbon dioxide bubbles, which is what makes the mixture rise (and why it is important to separate the dry and wet ingredients until right before you bake). The reaction looks like this:

NaHCO3 + KHC4H4O6 → KNaC4H4O6 + H2O + CO2

This relates to our third unit, as it involves the use of chemical quantities and calculations–like when you add TOO much baking powder, just like hypothetical me did. 

So what DID happen to the cupcakes? Why did adding too much of the ingredient ruin the texture of the cupcakes? Well, since the reaction causes carbon dioxide bubbles to form and rise the cupcakes, adding too much makes the cupcakes rise too much, and therefore the cupcake collapses on itself, turning it into a sunken mess. 

This article was very helpful to me, as I did not know the chemistry on what was actually happening to the batter when you add baking powder, and it definitely explains a lot of mishaps in the past. Now I will make sure to bake with complete accuracy, to ensure I get Pinterest-perfect cupcakes every time! 

Has this ever happened to you? Share your experience down below :) 

Link to article: 

http://chemistry.about.com/od/foodcookingchemistry/a/How-Baking-Powder-Works.htm