Driers

Driers are baking ingredients, such as flour, starch and gums, that absorb moisture and balance the liquids in a formula.

Driers: A small pile of white cornstarch on a plain surface, fine and powdery.
  • Food science and baking chemistry

Driers are ingredients that take up moisture. Figoni's baking text notes that flour is a drier because it contains starch, gums and proteins, and that all starches and gums are driers because they absorb moisture and often fats and oils.

Cornstarch is a familiar case. It is added to dry powdered products to absorb moisture, and in baking powder it keeps the powder from clumping and holds its leavening strength by soaking up moisture that would otherwise set off the reaction between acid and soda too early.

Professional cake balancing sorts ingredients into tougheners, tenderizers, dryers and moisteners. The rule is that dryers should balance moisteners, so a formula with extra liquid needs more drier to hold its structure, and the reverse. Egg yolks, as the same text notes, serve more than one function.

Related entries

Sources

Written by VanillaGoods in our own words from these sources. Last reviewed October 15, 2026.

  1. Absorbing Moisture, ckbk reference library: How Baking Works (Paula Figoni)
  2. Ingredient Functions, ckbk reference library: Professional Baking (Wayne Gisslen)