What is "CREAM OF TARTER?"?!
What is "CREAM OF TARTER?"?
What does it do? What could I use instead?
I live in Germany and often cook with recipies from N.America. I′m wondering what to use instead, because no one knows what it is here. It′s not even in the "Joy of Cooking"! Does it keep whipped eggs stiff?
Answers:
YOU CAN SUBTITUTE cream of tarter with 11/2 teaspoons of lemon juice or vinegar for every half teaspoon of cream of tarter.
Cream of tartar is is the common name for potassium hydrogen tartrate, an acid salt that has a number of uses in cooking. Now, before you get all jittery about the thought of cooking with an acid, it's worth noting that milk, brown sugar, steak, plums, and just about every other food we eat is acidic. In fact, egg whites, baking soda, and milk are the only non-acidic (alkaline) foods we have.
Cream of tartar is obtained when tartaric acid is half neutralized with potassium hydroxide, transforming it into a salt. Grapes are the only significant natural source of tartaric acid, and cream of tartar is a obtained from sediment produced in the process of making wine. (The journal Nature reported some years ago that traces of calcium tartrate found in a pottery jar in the ruins of a village in northern Iran are evidence that wine was being made more than 7,000 years ago.)
Cream of tartar is best known in our kitchens for helping stabilize and give more volume to beaten egg whites. It is the acidic ingredient in some brands of baking powder. It is also used to produce a creamier texture in sugary desserts such as candy and frosting. It is used commercially in some soft drinks, candies, bakery products, gelatin desserts, and photography products. Cream of tartar can also be used to clean brass and copper cookware.
If you are beating eggs whites and don't have cream of tartar, you can substitute white vinegar (in the same ratio as cream of tartar, generally 1/8 teaspoon per egg white). It is a little more problematic to find a substitute for cream of tartar in baking projects. White vinegar or lemon juice, in the ratio of 3 times the amount of cream of tartar called for, will provide the right amount of acid for most recipes. But that amount of liquid may cause other problems in the recipe, and bakers have found that cakes made with vinegar or lemon juice have a coarser grain and are more prone to shrinking than those made with cream of tartar.
Now, if they were making cream of tarter 7,000 years ago in Iran (or at least if cream of tartar was making itself), don't you think you can find the small plastic or glass bottles it comes in among the hundreds of other small jars and bottles in the spice section of your grocery store?
Source(s):
http://www.ochef.com/933.htm this link lists substitutions http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/foods/he1...
its this powdery stuff you cook with here let me look it up...her ya go...
http://www.ochef.com/933.htm
Say`HOURGLASS`is a clever`Girl`Jenny`
cream of tartar is after wine is made, the acid left in the wine barrels is processes into cream of tartar. You can add to egg whites in the beginning stages of beating for more stability and lots of volume.
Wow Jenny, that was a wonderfully erudite response. according to southern african folk law the original creme of tartar was originally found as a "fruit" around the seed of the Baobab tree (adensis digitata). The seed are in pods and when the pods fall they split open and the seeds inside are very bitter/acidic but very rich in vitamin c and are then eaten by animals. I imagine this behaviour was seen by early settlers and then used in cooking baking etc. there endeth the lesson........ such fascinating stuff food.