What's the Difference Between Baking Soda and Baking Powder?

Lauren Salkeld



SEE MORE: Baking Emergencies, Solved

Baking powder is a mixture of baking soda, an acid, and cornstarch. In other words, that essential neutralizing acid is built in, so there’s no need to include an additional acidic ingredient in the recipe. If you’re experimenting and decide to add an acidic ingredient to a baking powder recipe, you’ll need to add baking soda to neutralize the acid. Baking soda is about 4 times as powerful as baking powder so using 1/4 teaspoon baking soda for every teaspoon baking powder is a good estimate.



Here are a few more points to keep in mind:

Always read recipes carefully to make sure you use the correct chemical leavening agent or the right amount of each one when they’re both included. Even without all the acid issues, baking soda is significantly stronger than baking powder so you can’t just swap one for the other.

SEE MORE: 15 Food That Are Better Frozen


Cocoa powder complicates things. Natural cocoa powder is acidic so it’s used with baking soda, while Dutch process cocoa powder has been alkalized to remove the acid, and therefore goes with baking powder. It’s all yet another reason to read recipes and labels carefully.


(Photo: Sara Bonisteel)

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