baking soda
Taste Profile
Primary Flavor
bitter
Intensity
strong
Flavor Notes
Pairs Well With
Cooking Behavior
Baking soda is a base. It needs an acid in the dough — brown sugar, buttermilk, cocoa — to react and release carbon dioxide, which inflates the air pockets that creaming put there. It also raises the dough's pH, which speeds up the Maillard reaction, so a cookie made with baking soda browns noticeably more than one without. Too much and the unreacted excess tastes metallic and soapy.
Best Techniques
Common Mistakes
- Using it where there is no acid to react with (no lift, just an off taste)
- Confusing it with baking powder (baking powder carries its own acid; they are not interchangeable by volume)
- Adding more for a bigger rise (the excess tastes soapy and the crumb collapses)