How to save your flat batter

If you're like me, then more often than not you will just get the batter made for some delicious dessert: cake, muffins, etc. and then will have to leave it sitting in order to run off and do something else. Maybe the dryer just quit or the baby started screaming or, like what happened on Sunday, you looked at the clock and realized that you didn't have time to bake it right away because you had to be to the choirside in 5 minutes!

So, on Sunday Andrew made the batter for the poppyseed bread (that I still have to deliver) and then we had to run out the door.

When we got home we realized that there was no way the batter would rise in the oven since it had been sitting in the fridge for a few hours.

Batter rises because of the chemical reaction between the baking soda and whatever acid-like substance is found in the batter. You have to cook it immediately, though, otherwise the reaction finishes and your batter becomes somewhat "flat."

Andrew suggested that we put more baking soda in the batter. He said he thought he remembered trying that on the mission once or twice and it seemed to work.

After researching for a bit and finding nothing, I started to think back on the days when I was really into experimenting with vinegar and baking soda. I recalled noticing that if you put more vinegar into the volcano after it had already "erupted," nothing happened. However, if you added more baking soda after the initial eruption, the chemical reaction would take place again and the volcano would erupt once more.

So we added another teaspoon of baking soda to the batter and, wouldn't you know it, little gas bubbles started rising to the surface of the bowl. We baked the bread and it rose wonderfully. Of course, it then fell in the middle but bread normally does that when I bake it.

A happy ending to a nearly disastrous cooking experience.