Oops - wrong raising agent!

[Frontpaw]

I had was tidying up after mixing a cake and realised that instead of using 2tsp baking powder, I had used cream of tartar.

It said on the side of the tub 2 parts cream of tartar and 1 part bicarbonate of soda to make baking powder. I threw in a teaspoon of bicarb and shoved it in the over.

Will it turn into a cake moster and take over my kitchen?

Oh bugger - it has been int he over for 45 mins and is like soup with a crust!!!!!

Argh! If I pop it back in for another 20 mins, will it all be ok??

You needed to add more bicarb. The cream of tartar is just an acid that activates the bicarb.

Feck! Polenta soup, anyone?

Is it a polenta cake?

If so, it wil not rise much. It will not be like a sponge cake. The polenta just expands and the egg in the mix gives it structure.

I cook this Nigella Tangy Lemon Polenta cake fairly often and it takes an hour at 160 degrees.

Also if your cake mix was quite cold (eg because your eggs and butter were cold out of the fridge) it will take a lot longer and probably go quite dark brown before it cooks properly. I usually make sure my mix is slightly warm before putting it in the oven for this reason.

It is orange polenta, but quite light. I suppose when it cools it will get denser. I wasn't worried about it rising - more the 1 hour is took to bake!