Ingredients by Dwight Eschliman & Steve Ettlinger

Author:Dwight Eschliman & Steve Ettlinger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regan Arts.

Monocalcium phosphate

CaH2P2O8

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CFR number

182.1217

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E number

E341(i)

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CAS number

7758-23-8

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Synonyms or siblings

Calcium hydrogen phosphate, Tricalcium phosphate

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Function

Process and Prep- Leavening Agent, Stabilizer

Preservative-Antioxidant

Description

The third basic ingredient in baking powder, after baking soda [p. 18] and sodium acid pyrophosphate [p. 152], monocalcium phosphate is just a simple blend of calcium and phosphoric acid. It’s basically just dry phosphoric acid, put into baking powder (or any leavening mix) so that it will react with the baking soda to create a mad fizz when it’s introduced to water or milk. It can also be used to add the tart tang to dry beverage mixes.

Eben Norton Horsford, the inventor of baking powder and a former Harvard chemistry professor, experimented for years with hundreds of calcium phosphate sources in order to create a powdered acid to mix with baking soda. The first reliable source (marketed in 1859) was animal bones from local slaughterhouses soaked in sulfuric acid. Good idea, nasty process.

Happily, a cleaner calcium source—limestone—presented itself as time moved on. Mined in the Midwest mostly for industrial use, calcium lime plays essential roles in construction, steelmaking, water treatment, and a host of other industries. Cooked at high heat into calcium oxide, or quicklime, the highly reactive stone (it burns if it gets wet) is shipped in sealed boxcars to the baking powder plant. Mixed with phosphoric acid in an intense reaction, the resulting thick liquid is dried slowly into the small, white crystals. They’ll be mixed with sodium acid pyrophosphate and baking soda, and packaged into those little cans of baking powder we know and love.

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