Food-grade ammonium bicarbonate
Food-grade ammonium bicarbonate is a powdered baking leavener used in dry cookies. In papassini, a carefully weighed small dose joins a dough of flour, nuts and raisins.
- Form
- White powdered baking leavener.
- Choose
- Food-grade ammonium bicarbonate, E503(ii).
- Italian use
- The cookie dough for Sardinian papassini.
Weigh a small dose accurately
Set out the recipe quantity on scales suited to small weights. Distribute it through the dough as directed in the papassini method. Keep the shaped cookies at the stated thickness and bake them fully before cooling on a rack.
A leavener for the cookie tin
Papassini bring raisins and chopped nuts into a shaped cookie dough. Ammonium bicarbonate belongs to the baking ingredients, before the cookies are baked, cooled and decorated. It is a chemical leavener rather than a yeast that needs time to ferment.
Finish the cookies before icing
Baking with ammonium bicarbonate produces an ammonia smell that dissipates as dry cookies cool. Allow the papassini to cool completely before applying their icing, and ventilate the kitchen after baking.
Cook with it
Buy the food ingredient
Look for ammonium bicarbonate sold explicitly for food or baking, with E503(ii) on the ingredient label. Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, a different ingredient. Household cleaning ammonia and industrial chemicals have no place in the recipe. Check whether a baking product is pure ammonium bicarbonate or a mixture with other ingredients.
Keep the powder dry
Close the pack promptly after weighing and follow its storage directions. Use dry utensils, retain the label and keep the container away from steam and oven heat. Choose a pack you can reseal securely.
