Historically, bakery product developers’ main goal when selecting appropriate leaveners for a specific application was simply to attain a specific desired outcome every single time. Consistency mattered. Targeted finished-product attributes for the most part revolved around density, volume, spread, and stack height. The functional strengths of certain leaveners—whether natural or chemical—served as the primary drivers for decision-making.
At the simplest end of the leavening spectrum, homemade crêpes need not much more than eggs and heat in order to trap air bubbles for just the right springy touch of lift. On the other end, commercial baked muffins, especially those that need to go through a process of prebaking or baking, freezing, packing, transporting, thawing, and handling before even making it to an oven to finish or reheat, call for a more complex, often custom mixture of chemical leaveners, including baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), sodium acid pyrophosphate, and monocalcium phosphate, to name a few. These help baked goods achieve and maintain a fluffier texture by timing the gas release perfectly during manufacturing.