If you’re not an avid baker, chances are when you whip out the mixing bowl, it’s just around the holidays, or for a birthday. Am I right?
In that case, is that bag of flour still good? What about the sugar, or baking powder in the back of your pantry? Do you remember the last time you bought fresh ones?
The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service have an online resource called Foodkeeper. Here you can find storage information of hundreds of different kind of foods and their shelf life. Read below for a shelf life guide for common baking ingredients.
Baking powder
Unopened baking powder can be stored for up to 18 months. If you’ve opened your baking powder, it should be used within 6 months.
Baking soda
Unopened baking soda can be stored for up to 3 years! If you’ve opened your baking soda, you’ll want to use it up or throw it out after 6 months.
Both baking powder and baking soda lose potency over time. Because they’re both leavening agents, the potency of these ingredients is important because they determine how well your bakes will rise. Fresher is always better.
Flour
White flour has a little bit of a longer shelf life than whole wheat flour. Unopened white flour can be stored for up to one year. If opened, it will last 8 months. A quick tip: you can put your flour in the refrigerator to help extend its shelf life too.
Unopened whole wheat flour has almost half the shelf life at six months. After opening, keeping it refrigerated will last 8 months.
Sugar
Surprisingly, sugar has the best shelf life of them all. Like honey, unopened sugar will never spoil. It’s generally recommended that granulated sugar should be replaced after two years, but if you’ve opened it during that time, it should still be ok to use.
