Rising to baking challenges

If you think Baking Soda and Baking Powder are one in the same, you’re not alone. Often times, this common mistake could lead to a rather displeasurable experience for the palate. Too much baking soda, and your cakes could be bitter. Too much baking powder, well, something’s just not that right about the cookie.

By understanding the chemistry behind baking soda and baking powder, perhaps you can begin to understand a little more as to how each works. From here, you can apply what you know to any recipe and make it your own by adding ingredients that work well with each ingredient.

Baking Soda

Baking soda (or sold as ‘Bicarbonate of Soda’ in Asia and Europe) is pure sodium bicarbonate. How a ‘bicarbonate’ works is simple. By adding moisture and an acidic ingredient (for instance, sour cream, yogurt, chocolate, buttermilk, honey), a chemical reaction begin. This reaction or carbonation process, produces carbon dioxide bubbles that expand in oven temps. Which is why your baked goods can rise. The reaction begins immediately as soon as ingredients are mixed – you can see instantly that your batter begins to stiffen and expand. So any recipe with baking soda needs to be baked immediately. Otherwise, the batter will go flat as will your baked goods!

Baking Powder

Baking powder is also a sodium bicarbonate except it already contains an acidifying agent – in this case, Cream of Tartar. You may have noticed that baking powders come in two forms: single-acting and double-acting. Single-acting powders are activated by moisture (eggs, milk etc). Therefore, you MUST bake this mixture immediately. Double-acting powders react in two stages. In one of the stages, the mixture will be able to withstand some time without baking. In the other stage, when the baking powder is added to the batter or dough, some gas is released at room temperature and the majority of it happens after the dough rises in the oven. 

When do you use Baking Soda and Baking Powder?

Some recipes need baking soda, while others need baking powder, yet a rare few may have both. Baking soda will yield a bitter taste unless it has an acidic ingredient, such as buttermilk or sour cream to counter it. You’ll find baking soda in cookie recipes with chocolate. Because baking powder is both basic and acidic, it actually just neutralises a recipe. Recipes with baking powder usually combine with other neutral-tasting ingredients, such as milk. 

What you if have one but not the other?

You can substitute baking powder for baking soda – but, do realise that because baking powder tends to have more of a neutral taste, it could affect the taste of the final baked product – which is why sometimes that cookies just taste like a milk cookie. No oomph! The other way cannot happen though – which is substitute baking soda for baking powder. Baking soda, as mentioned before, requires an acidic moisture to make a bake product rise. But you can easily make your own baking powder by combining two parts cream of tartar with one part baking soda.

 

Now that you’ve gained some insights into some common baking slip-ups, hopefully you can rise to the challenge with some of your own delicious creations!

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