Hi, Italian Cook,

I received an email from Cass (Kid Pizza), in which he sent me two comments about some points you had raised in a couple of threads. (I'm happy that Cass is lurking at Nebraska Kitechen!) I tried to find the specific threads, so that I could post the comments next to them, but I was not able to locate them. So, I will paste below what Cass sent to me, and if anyone can find the specific thread, then I will move the information to it:

"I spent a few moments over at Mikes Site, & I thought I would answer two interesting inquiries stated by member Italian Cook.

Relate to her the following thoughts about the purpose of the function of baking soda in a COOKIE. A cookie generally is thin like about 1/8th inch to maybe 3/16ths inch thick. If so, we do not require a leavener in a cookie most often. Baking powder is employed to make the cookie LIGHTER mostly but it can help in leaven somewhat. that is how the cookie gets to be lighter.

Now then the Baking soda is there for this reason only, to neutralize any ACDIC ingredients in the recipe whatever they may be. Like cocoa, lemon juice sour cream, bananas for banana bundt cake, etc.

In her question on the 30, minutes she held her concoction in the fridge, yes the soda dissipated, but it did its thing first.... It didn't help the cookie to leaven.

Marliss, she posed this question as well about butter fat versus peanut butter fat melting. Tell her the answer to her inquiry is this: the melting point of butter is much lower than peanut butter. That is why it melts sooner."

Thank you for your help. I hope Italian cook understands what I intended for her.

• This topic was modified 8 years ago by BakerAunt.