There’s also natron and potash which have been known since antiquity, but I can’t find any reference to them being used as leavening agents before the early Industrial era.
Sodium carbonate (washing soda) is used in baking to encourage browning, but it doesn’t produce carbon dioxide when heated.
You need sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) which is only a small constituent in trona, and without knowing how to concentrate it, or that you can, it’s unlikely it would have been used as a leavening agent before the advent of modern chemistry. You’d have to add so much that it would ruin the batter or just turn it bitter.
Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) turns into sodium carbonate when heated in an oven, which is used by amateur chemists sometimes to make the carbonate if they don’t have it on hand.
Baking powder is a combination of baking soda and a food-safe dry acid, which react when water is added. This wouldn’t have been invented before the chemistry of acids and bases was discovered.
This got me for a second until I looked up the actual object.
It’s made from sandstone, not oatmeal.
Baking powder wasn’t invented until the 1800s.
Maybe the one in Edinburgh Castle now is a fake and it got swapped out with the real oatmeal one before England stole it 😂
They could’ve used trona 😅
There’s also natron and potash which have been known since antiquity, but I can’t find any reference to them being used as leavening agents before the early Industrial era.
Sodium carbonate (washing soda) is used in baking to encourage browning, but it doesn’t produce carbon dioxide when heated.
You need sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) which is only a small constituent in trona, and without knowing how to concentrate it, or that you can, it’s unlikely it would have been used as a leavening agent before the advent of modern chemistry. You’d have to add so much that it would ruin the batter or just turn it bitter.
Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) turns into sodium carbonate when heated in an oven, which is used by amateur chemists sometimes to make the carbonate if they don’t have it on hand.
Baking powder is a combination of baking soda and a food-safe dry acid, which react when water is added. This wouldn’t have been invented before the chemistry of acids and bases was discovered.
god dam it I wanted it to be real