the.com/cream of tartar
Wine's bitter leftovers, recruited to make your egg whites behave.
means A fine white acidic powder (potassium bitartrate) used in baking to stabilize whipped egg whites, keep sugar syrups from crystallizing, and add lift to recipes like snickerdoodles.
from It crystallizes naturally on the inside of wine barrels and vats during fermentation, a crusty residue winemakers once called 'tartar' (from medieval Latin 'tartarum,' of uncertain deeper origin, possibly Arabic-influenced). Purified into a fine powder, it became 'cream of tartar' — 'cream' here used in its old sense of a refined, skimmed-off essence, the way 'cream of the crop' means the best part, not anything dairy.
- true origin
- Crystallized acid scraped from wine barrel sediment
- job one
- Stabilizes whipped egg whites into stiff, glossy peaks
- job two
- Keeps sugar syrups from crystallizing into gritty messes
- baking trick
- Mixed with baking soda, it fakes baking powder