Fieldwork
Baking ammonia can be difficult to find. Regular grocery stores do not carry it, and even bakery suppliers do not always have it. It can be found in drugstores, though, or ordered from a chemist, local laboratory and some specialty baking supply outlets. Baking ammonia is not as commonly used in North America as in Europe, which explains why it is more difficult to find on our shores.
Baking ammonia is often called for in Scandinavian and German recipes, such as kokosdromme from Denmark, halfmanar from Iceland and, of course, Lebkuchen and springerle, which are two traditional and still very popular German holiday cookies. It is not surprising that the leavening agent of choice for springerle is baking ammonia due to the way the cookies are prepared. The most distinctive feature of springerle is the design embossed onto the cookie's surface. This can either be done when rolling out the dough using a specially carved rolling pin or by pressing the dough into a mold. Both methods will leave imprints on the cookies of animals, Biblical scenes or depictions of everyday life. Once the cookies have been imprinted, they are left to sit out at room temperature overnight, which allows the dough's surface to dry so the design will remain on the cookies when baked. Because of the long resting period, these cookies need a leavening agent with a good bench tolerance. This is why baking ammonia is better suited for this application than baking soda or baking powder.
As mentioned earlier, a small amount of baking ammonia can give pâte à choux a "lift." If using baking ammonia when making pâte à choux, it should be added with the eggs. The ammonium gas released during baking helps increase the volume of the pastries, and the ammonium odor will quickly dissipate as the pastry cools.
The use of baking ammonia in products like springerle and pâte à choux illustrates that baking ammonia can serve as a chemical leavening agent in a way that provides distinct advantages over other commonly used chemical leaveners, such as baking powder and baking soda. Just as the use of baking ammonia can provide the needed bench tolerance in a springerle dough or add some "extra lift" to pâte à choux, baking ammonia's unique characteristics can make it the preferred choice in a variety of other baking applications.
Klaus Tenbergen, CMB, CEPS, is the program chair of Baking & Pastry Arts at Kendall College, Evanston, IL, and coauthor of "On Baking -- a Textbook of Baking and Pastry Fundamentals." He is a chef member of the Research Chefs Association and can be reached through his website at www.knead-2-know.com. Heike B. Eghardt, a student at Kendall College, contributed to the creation of this article. |