While searching for the perfect biscuit I discovered that folding and refolding the dough helps to create steam pockets, which yields a flakey and light result. So I gave that method a try when I baked up a recent batch. However, the recipe I used called for cream of tartar, which seemed like an odd, out-of-place ingredient. Regardless, I went with it and the resulting biscuits were amazing, everything the perfect biscuit should be. 

What was the secret to my biscuit success? Was it the folding or was it the mysterious cream of tartar? What role did the cream of tartar play and just what the heck is cream of tartar anyway? I was stumped. So I poured out a little bit of the stuff into my hand. It looked like super-fine granulated sugar, but it tasted salty...something I wasn't expecting. 

It turns out that cream of tartar also goes by the lesser-known names of potassium bitartrate and potassium hydrogen tartrate (or KC₄H₅O₆, if you're into formulas), an acidic salt. Grapes naturally produce tartaric acid and the cream of tartar is the byproduct of winemaking--basically the sediment leftover in wine barrels. 

Most people use cream of tartar as a stabilizer when whipping egg whites into meringue. The  cream of tartar reacts with the egg proteins and helps to shape and add that luscious volume to the topping on your lemon meringue pie. Rumor has it that you can also add a tiny amount of cream of tartar to boiled vegetables to keep their colors bright. On another note altogether, it can also serve as a mild abrasive when cleaning up your pots and pans. It's a multi-use kitchen ingredient. Who knew?

Yet the big discovery for me was that cream of tartar is one of the main active ingredients in baking powder, along with cornstarch and baking soda. Its magical ability to form create air bubbles while baking is probably what helped to give rise to my tender and light biscuits. 

But I also think that the acidic properties of the cream of tartar may have helped things here too. Most biscuit recipes call for buttermilk, which is acidic, and lends a soft texture to baked goods as well as helping them to rise. The original recipe calls for plain, old regular milk and perhaps the cream of tartar adds that acidic zing to help fluff things up. 

So maybe I didn't get to the bottom of what made my biscuits so freakin' delicious. But I did find out more than I expected out from that weird little box in my cupboard. Cream of tartar, it was lovely to get to know you better! And while I didn't find a definitive answer, I'm OK with that as long as I've got a batch of homemade biscuits at the ready. 

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