bicarb or baking powder?

danz0l

Mmm according to this webpage you can substitute

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/foodchemistry/f/blbaking.htm

Substituting in Recipes
You can substitute baking powder in place of baking soda (you'll need more baking powder and it may affect the taste), but you can't use baking soda when a recipe calls for baking powder. Baking soda by itself lacks the acidity to make a cake rise. However, you can make your own baking powder if you have baking soda and cream of tartar. Simply mix two parts cream of tartar with one part baking soda.

Joolzr68

But is you use baking popwder your biscits will rise and be more of a cake than biscit!

buyitall

They have turned out fine! I did eat quite a lot of the mixture while I was making them, so maybe the raising agents were in that part!! I will make them again in a few days using bicarb - purely in the interest of scientific research of course! Thanks for the original recipe.

kittykat500

I was always under the impression that these were one and the same. I bought a large bag of bicarbonate of soda from my chinese supermarket as it is relatively cheap and have used it for cleaning and on the odd occasion for baking.

On the baking front, I've found that although the muffins/yorkies rise, they taste horrible (after taste of bicarb)! So much so that I can't bear to eat them - so am I wrong in thinking that they are interchangeable? I used a muffin recipe that required 10oz flour and 3 tsp of baking powder (for which I substituted bicarb). Anyone enlighten me please?

Penelope_Penguin

Baking powder is bicarb and tartaric acid

I'll add this to the existing thread where there's plenty more info

Penny. x

kittykat500

Thanks Penelope Penguin

I've read the beginning of the thread and now know why my muffins taste so minging! Although curiously they did rise. Got Cream of Tartar in the cupboard so had I read this first I could have made my own baking powder!

jorichste

is there a huge difference between them? I was going to try making hobnobs but recipe says bicarb and i don't have any, what would happen if I use baking powder instead??

thriftlady_2

No they aren't the same.

Baking powder is a mixture of sodium bicarbonate and tartaric acid. These 2 ingredients-an alkali and an acid undergo a chemical reaction in the presence of moisture and cause your cake to rise.

If you have acidic ingredients in your recipe like sour or buttermilk, yogurt, lemon juice etc then you may not need the tartaric acid in the baking powder. In this case you can use bicarb on its own.

Some times recipes -muffins for example have both raising agents in them. This is because an extra acidic ingredient has been added and the mixture needs the added help of more alkali in the form of the bicarb.

Hope that makes sense -I am no chemist, but I think that's the gist of it.

Penelope_Penguin

jorichste wrote: »

is there a huge difference between them? I was going to try making hobnobs but recipe says bicarb and i don't have any, what would happen if I use baking powder instead??

Hi there :beer: I've made twink's hobnobs and left out the bicarb

thriftlady - this chemist says you're spot on with your explanation

There's an existing thread on the difference between bicarb and baking powder; I'll add this thread to that one later

Penny. x

kaya

i did see amovie that explained the difference once, apparently if you cut cocaine with baking powder you get muffins growing up your nose!