i have used gluten free as i didn't realize there was a different from my normal baking powder as the packaging is the sameWhen i got my cake out of the oven, something looked differentThe cakes are flatter and breaking apart can anyone help me ?
If you can get the can hot enough it won't simply meltYou'll get a mixture of aluminium oxide and nitride and the magnesium oxide from the ribbon.
You're probably right that the can is cooling itself, but i doubt that's the main reasonI would suspect that you're not directing enough of the heat into the metal of the canInstead, try crushing the can, and then insert a large piece of magnesium ribbon into a fold of the canSee how that works.
Are you sure it wasn't aluminum free? Aluminum free bkng powder is becoming popular now that aluminum has been linked to Alzheimer diseaseMost aluminum free is single acting, most with aluminum is double acting.
Yes you can, under the right conditionsMike A is on the right track The surface of the Al can is actually not Al, it is Al2O3 (actually, if you get really picky, the first few atom layers don't have any Al at all, but that is a different discussion)The thickness of the Al oxide film on Al metal is determined by the temperature and, since the Al can is very thin, it takes very little heat to raise it's temperatureI'm pretty sure that even a little bit of burning Mg produced enough heat to raise the temperature of the Al to above 660CAs far as Trevor H's answerHe needs some education in science Heat does NOT rise, heat flows in 3 ways: convection, conduction, and radiationIt is true that hot air is typically less dense than cold air (not always but also a different discussion) and less dense things rise in more dense things but heat does not riseI suspect the Al around the Mg ribbon converted to Al2O3 before it had a chance to melt or as fast as it was melting (the conversion from Al to Al2O3 produces heat just the same way the burnign Mg does)The Al2O3 oxide skin that forms on molten Al forms instantly and can be fairly thick, easily thicker than the bottom of an Al soda canI have melted chunks of Al and let them freeze and been able to read the numbers engraved on the chunk before I started Try the other suggestion, crumple the Al around the Mg ribbonOf course another thing that will happen is that the Mg could alloy with the Al (there are many commercial Al-Mg alloys) but, if the Mg coverts to MgO before the Mg can contact Al metal, the metals will not alloy butAl2O3 and MgO can also combine to form a ceramic alloyThese are the types of things that metallurgists and materials scientists get to play with regularly.
