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"When Baking As We Know It Changed Forever" (Townsends video 12:43) (Original Post) eShirl Sunday OP
Very interesting wolfie001 Sunday #1
agreed, I love Townsends eShirl Sunday #2
And here is the person who made it Old Crank Sunday #3
Interestingly, this history is different in North America than it is in Europe. surrealAmerican Sunday #4
Germans did a lot of pioneering chemistry work. Old Crank Yesterday #5

Old Crank

(7,119 posts)
3. And here is the person who made it
Sun Apr 5, 2026, 03:39 PM
Sunday

regularly usable for cooks. He standardized the chemical make up and sold it in single use packets.
Enough for 500 grams of flour. A fat pound.

https://www.oetker.com/stories/130-years-baking-powder

As a baker's son, he was aware of how unreliable the usual baking powder worked. Either the dough did not rise properly, the dosage was too high or the taste suffered. Often it just spoiled very quickly. Baking soda wasn't really useful for home users, but something for professionals, like bakers. For baking at home, there were only yeast or baker’s ammonia.

Dr. August Oetker heard the lamentations of the women who complained about deficient baking soda. He saw this as a gap in the market. He set out to develop a successfully safe product. With a master baker friend, he was allowed to test various recipes in the bakery. His son, Eduard Müller, reported years later about Dr. August Oetker: "I can still remember the determination with which he tried to achieve an optimal composition of his baking powder. He was not discouraged by initial failures or by the skepticism with which my father and I initially followed his experiments in our bakery."

And success came. Dr. August Oetker found the perfect mixing ratio of the raw materials. But even more ingenious was the idea of selling the baking powder, which he affectionately christened Backin, in portioned sachets. Such a portion of Backin was enough for the guaranteed rise of 500 grams of flour. In addition, there was always a suitable recipe on the back, with which you could get started immediately.

The absolute success of the application and the neutral taste convinced the users. So baking was finally fun! Backin immediately was a bestseller.

surrealAmerican

(11,891 posts)
4. Interestingly, this history is different in North America than it is in Europe.
Sun Apr 5, 2026, 08:06 PM
Sunday

Baker's ammonia was not much used here (except by Scandinavian immigrants), and individual sachets of baking powder were not (and still are not) common.
What was common were recipe pamphlets put out by baking powder manufacturers, and competitive claims about the safety, or lack there of, of competing products.

Old Crank

(7,119 posts)
5. Germans did a lot of pioneering chemistry work.
Mon Apr 6, 2026, 02:10 AM
Yesterday

My father in law majored in chemistry at Stanford late in WWII and German was required. Class of 46/47.

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