Before baking powder: the ashes that once rose breads, rendered from hearth to hearth, potash and pearlash.

Potash Leavening — Historical Baking with Ashes (Before Baking Powder)

Update (August 27, 2025): Expanded with historical timeline, safety notes, modern substitutions, and FAQ. Cross-linked to our measurement guides.

What did bakers use before baking powder?

Long before handy tins of baking powder, cooks relied on alkalis from wood ash—known as potash and its refined form pearlash—to aerate quick breads, gingerbreads, and biscuits. When combined with an acid (vinegar, sour milk, molasses), potash releases bubbles that lighten doughs. It’s clever chemistry with humble origins.

Find of the Week

This week we’re highlighting something extra special: a 1,000-Year-Old Italian Sourdough Starter. In medieval and Renaissance Europe, sourdough was the main way to leaven bread long before commercial yeast — so this lets you bring a taste of true period practice into your own kitchen.

👉 Try the Italian Sourdough Starter

✨ Last Week’s Pick

We don’t want you to miss this gem either! The Medieval Monk’s Blend Seasoning adds an instant touch of historic flavor to any dish, sweet or savory.

👉 Medieval Monk’s Blend Seasoning

Weekend Spotlight

Autumn is here, and with it comes the joy of putting up fruit for the colder months. This weekend we’re shining a light on two freshly updated recipes that show how preservation was practiced in the late medieval and early modern kitchen:

Elizabethan Orange Marmalade – Hannah Woolley’s Queen-like Closet (1675) teaches us how to turn oranges, apples, and sugar into a luxurious marmalade once reserved for the wealthy. I made mine with blood oranges, and it vanished almost immediately among taste testers!
To Dry Peaches – From The Forme of Cury (c. 1390), a simpler, earlier preservation method. Drying fruit was practical, delicious, and perfect for adding color and sweetness to a feast board.

Together they show the spectrum of fruit preservation: from everyday dried fruit to the most fashionable banquet marmalade. Both make wonderful largesse or feast-table offerings.

Olive wood honey pot – perfect for serving marmalade.

Serve marmalade in an olive wood honey pot with a matching spoon for a rustic, period-inspired touch.