Processed
Fine Powder
S tier
Fine cream of tartar is the grocery jar: purified potassium bitartrate milled so it disappears into egg whites, sugar syrups, and a pinch-of-soda homemade baking powder. It should be bright white, dry, and sour-tart on the tongue, not grey or lumpy. This is the powder that keeps a meringue from weeping and a boiled sugar from seeding too soon. A damp jar is a dead jar. It is an acid salt, not a flavouring cream. Use it by the pinch or the measured teaspoon the recipe names; a heaped dump will make a frosting taste of wet stone.
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History
Refined cream of tartar was already a named kitchen acid when British cookery books called for it in foams and syrups.
Fine white powder became the American grocery form for homemade baking powder.
Meringue and frosting recipes standardised on a fine, free-flowing cream of tartar.
The small spice-aisle jar remained the default fine-powder household grade.