Parchment Cooking

Tips from Victoria

Chemical Leaveners

Baking soda and baking powder are used in baked goods to expand the air bubbles that are created when you cream butter and sugar or whip eggs. They do not make the bubbles themselves. Both of these leaveners depend on chemical reactions between alkali and acidic ingredients to create the carbon dioxide that leavens the batter or dough. And although their names are similar, they are not interchangeable. Baking soda (bicarbonate of soda), an alkali, reacts with the acidic ingredients in a recipe, such as buttermilk, yogurt, sour cream, molasses, and brown sugar, to form carbon dioxide that expands the air bubbles in a batter. Read More