Why do some baking recipes do this?

[SnakesForPM]

Why do some recipes call for unsalted butter and a pinch of salt, and some recipes call for plain flour and baking powder and bicarbonate of soda? I just use salted butter and add no salt, and use SR flour instead of adding BP and BoS. Is this ok or am I making sub standard bakes?

Following as I was thinking the same thing the other day. Was making a rhubarb cake....and just used self raising flour....

I have no idea!! I'm always wondering this!

It can reflect differences in what product is available locally e.g..I don't think the US has SR flour. The writers may also want a bit more control of the balance of ingredients e.g. slightly more raising agent or slightly less salt than the blended product trends to have. As a cook I use my judgement on how to adjust to what I have in stock.

I think it's largely that unsalted butter is standard for baking so that's how recipe writers tend to default to. I suppose it also allows more control- some butters are much saltier than others.

On the plain flour + BP/bicarb point, some recipes need a different proportion of flour to raising agent than you get in standard SR flour depending on the acidity/alkalinity of the other ingredients or because you are looking for more/less lift.

I always buy salted butter, and just use that for everything.

I tend to use plain flour, and add bicarb and/or baking soda tho. It allows you to tailor the amount and ratio of raising agent.

I might switch SR for plain and baking powder, but id always use bicarbonate if that's what was requested.

You can buy SR flour in much of the world.

Great thank you. Off that back of this, what does BP and Bicarbonate do (as in, how do they differ)?

Baking Powder is bicarbonate (baking soda) plus a mild acid like cream of tartar. It also has a filler like cornflour to keep the acid and alkaline appart for they don't react before being mixed into a cake.

This is why you usually use more baking powder than pure baking soda - some is just inert filler.

They are raising agents. Without it you would need either yeast or well-beaten eggs to get a rise in cakes.

I use salted butter because that's what I have in the house. It's very rare that recipe is so incredibly finicky about the amount of salt to need the control it beyond using salted butter and a tiny pinch of salt, but different brands use different salt contents, and consistency is useful when writing recipes.

THe amount of raising agent needed in a recipe can vary. For a bog standard Victoria sponge type cake, using SR or plain-plus-baking-powder is a straight swap.

For something like scones or soda bread, you want more lift than SR can give, so you ramp up the raising agents in your mix. You also are using an acid like milk or yogurt or buttermilk in the mix, which means there's no need for baking powder, just baking soda.

Does that make sense, @SnakesForPM?

But for bicarb you need something acidic in the cake (e.g. golden syrup) to ensure the bicarb can do its job, whereas the baking powder just needs to get wet.

I just use all salted except for vanilla buttercream which I use unsalted for. That said our butter is not very salty, not all countries and brands are the same so it affords more control in that scenario.

Self raising flour is fine in theory instead of baking powder and plain flour for something like cake but scones for example would usually have more BP to flour than you would get in SR flour, I always add extra to SR flour. If a recipe calls for BP or BS or both I use as directed, they do different things depending on the other ingredients in the recipe.

We do indeed have SR flour.
Plain (aka All Purpose) flour tends to be fresher AFAIK.

The issue with SR flour is that a given recipe might call for quite a lot of baking powder or soda, and you have no idea how much is already present in the SR flour.

I personally prefer to use plain (AP) flour as I can predict the saltiness and rise when I add raising agents. I also bake a lot using yeast and for this I need either plain or higher gluten bread flour, not SR.

Read lessons in chemistry, it's a great intro to the concept of baking as a science. I never appreciated the difference between baking and cooking (despite getting bakes wrong REGULARLY and loving GBBO) I guess I always assumed it was down to a "knack" or talent as opposed to an actual scientific process. So although I had great respect for baking, I never appreciated it for the science it is.

I also use salted butter regardless of what a recipe calls for.

I'm going to have to look into this a bit more, it's so scientific! I have read Lessons in Chemistry, but probably skipped the science-y bits! It sounds so technical, though I do think maybe I'll stop using SR flour and start to follow the plain plus raising agents instructions. Thank you all, so much knowledge here