What do raising agents do

Folding the pastry dough into layers, traps the air between the layers. This happens every time the dough is folded. With puff pastry where the dough is layered with fat , the butter in the layers of the puff pastry, during cooking, lets off steam another natural raising agent. The steam water vapour causes the pastry to rise. Once the steam has evaporated, the pastry is set in place from the heat during the baking process.

The same process can be applied when you make batters, as well as choux pastry for profiteroles etc. The water in these mixtures turns to steam when the food is cooked in a very hot oven. This causes the food to rise and as the water is removed the food bakes and becomes more solid. For steam to be an effective raising agent, you need the mixture to contain a large amount of water and a high baking temperature.

Gases tend to take up much more space than liquid or solid things such as water or ice, so when the gas is formed by the reaction of the baking powder in the water, little gas bubbles create pockets in the baking mixture, making foods like cakes and muffins light and fluffy.

Heating up a mixture containing baking powder speeds up the chemical reaction, making the carbon dioxide gas form more quickly. It is best to add baking powder to ingredients last, as it starts to react as soon as it comes into contact with water. AQA video: Investigating how raising agents work. OCR topic exploration pack: teacher instructions: Raising agents. Sifting is always recommended if you have time because it removes the lumps from your raising agents, which can settle during storage. It has the added benefit of getting more air into the mixture.

All raising agents have a use-by date and will lose their effectiveness if kept too long in the cupboard.

Check your ingredients are in date and throw out any old raising agents. You may have used a teaspoon where a tablespoon was needed! For step-by-step baking videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Share your bakes with us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram.

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Baking Baking Advice Cakes Cupcakes. We raise a few important questions about our dear old raising agents and what their unique properties bring to your bakes.

What do raising agents do?