batter question (need answer soon)

Cafe Society
1

I just whipped up a bowl of gingerbread batter. It’s this recipe if that makes a difference. But My friends want to leave to eat in 15 minutes and obviously the cake won’t be done by then. I’m planning on covering it with saran wrap and refrigerating it until we come back. Or will the baking soda have spent itself and I’ll end up with a brick cake?

2

I thought this was going to be a baseball question…

Something tells me you’ve figured out the answer by now. What was it?

3

I hope it was, “told friends to wait 10 minutes so I could finish the dang cake”

4

Well, when I baked it a few hours later, it almost rose out of the pan so it either didn’t hurt or possibly even helped.

Prettydorky, I would have except it wouldn’t have been ten minutes, it would have been an hour because it takes that long to bake and my friends had another engagement a little later in the evening. Waiting wasn’t really an option.

5

Wow, that is interesting and good to know. I’ve always thought, as I guess you did, that once the baking powder/soda hit moisture it was best to get the stuff into the oven very soon.

Then I started making some low carb flax and ground nut muffins that had no flour in them and I discovered that they rose better if I let the batter sit for a while. Now I’m wondering what would happen if I left the batter in the fridge overnight… At best these were little dense hockey pucks. But if they could rise a bit more the would be much better.

Good kitchen science! Thanks!

6

Refrigerating it retards the rising. I have several bread baking recipes that call for making of pre-doughs and letting them sit for 24-72 hours before combining, rising and baking and it really adds to the flavour.

Glad your cake turned out!

7

Wow. Good info. Will share with my dear bride as she is the cook here.

8

I know refrigeration slows the rising of yeast breads as yeast is a living organism.

Quick breads like the OP’s recipe use chemical leavening and I wonder if refrigeration would make any difference?

9

Yeah, that’s yeast, though, not baking powder (or soda & acid). Different process at work.

That said, I would have thought that after a couple hours, the leavening properties of baking soda or powder would have been exhausted, but apparently not. (Or pehaps the little bubbles of CO2 gas remain trapped in the batter for quite a lot longer than I expected.)