Experimenting With Baking

By: Kristen Mummert

When baking, the ingredients make the dessert.  Cooking doesn’t have to be perfect and things can be changed around to a person’s liking.  Baking, on the other hand, is precisely measuring all the ingredients that are needed to make the product, as well as including all ingredients at the right time.  I enjoy baking because I can follow step-by-step directions and turn out a great dessert.  An ingredient that is used quite often in dessert, bread, and pastry recipes is a leavening agent.  Leavening agents are used to help the product rise, taste better, and look better.  Baking soda, yeast, and baking powder are some of the more commonly used leavening agents.  I wanted to discover how baking soda and baking powder would affect a recipe.  These two ingredients look and sound the same, but in reality are quite different.

                Baking soda and baking powder are both used in baked goods for the same reason.  Anne Marie Helmenstine states that baking powder and baking soda are used “to produce carbon dioxide and cause the product to ‘rise’.”  Baking soda only contains sodium bicarbonate.  Helmenstine adds for the baking soda to create the carbon dioxide gases “baking soda [must be] combined with moisture and an acidic ingredient.”  This means that the baking soda, without an acid, will not make the baked good rise.  

Right: control cookies, Left: cookies without baking soda

On the other hand, baking powder contains baking soda and an acid.  Helmenstine says that the baking powder “contains sodium bicarbonate, but it includes the acidifying agent already (cream of tartar).”  In this case, baking powder would be used in a different kind of recipe, one that did not include an acid as an ingredient; whereas, baking soda needs an acid included in the ingredient list: buttermilk, chocolate, or yogurt.  

I thought that both of these leavening agents could be interchanged freely because they sound similar; however, this is not true.  Helmenstine states that baking powder can be substituted for baking soda, but baking soda cannot be substituted for baking powder.  When using powder instead of soda, she says to add more powder.  “The ultimate goal is to produce a tasty product with a pleasing texture,” Helmenstine writes.  Within this sentence alone, I realized that the leavening agents don’t just help the product rise; it also helps with the texture and taste of the baked goods. 

I wanted to “experiment” with these ingredients to determine how they actually affected a recipe.  I found a chocolate chip cookie recipe from allrecipes.com that looked perfect.  I cut the recipe in half for the first batch, the control cookies, or the ones that I followed the directions for step-by-step.  The next batch was half of the half (I didn’t want a lot of them in case they didn’t taste good).  The first half-second batch- I didn’t add any baking soda at all.  The last batch I made-third batch- I used baking powder instead of baking soda and just added double the amount of it.  The first batch was delicious.  They were soft and spongy-like, a perfect cookie consistency, and they were perfectly brown all over with a good rise on them.  The second batch, without the baking soda, was not as good.  First, I could tell they were lighter in color, despite the fact I baked them for an extra five minutes compared to the control batch.  Continuing with the looks, the cookies looked a lot smoother on the outside with less ‘dimples’ in them.  The rise was the same with the second batch as it was with the control; it didn’t affect the height of the cookie at all.  Next, I wanted to taste them.  I broke one apart and already noticed a difference.  The cookie without the baking soda was denser, almost like a hard piece of bread, and was not as moist as the control.  However, the taste was very similar to the control batch, still the same sweetness.  The consistency was quite different than the first, but these cookies could still be eaten.  After a while the cookies cooled down and I noticed the ones without baking soda where harder than the control.  With the third batch, the ones with baking powder, I didn’t notice much change compared to the control cookies.  They were a little lighter in color, but they tasted the same and had the same consistency as the control.  These cookies raised the same as both the control and the second batch.  In both pictures, the cookies on the right are the ones without baking soda and the left ones are the control cookies.

In conclusion, I realized that baking powder and baking soda not only affect how baked goods rise, but it also affects the taste and texture of the product.  With my cookies, the baking soda helped keep a soft consistency, keep the cookies moist, helped to create the golden brown color we are all used to seeing.  The next time I bake, I will make sure that I keep all of this information in mind so my desserts, pastries, and breads will be perfect every time.

Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe-Allrecipes.com

By Debbi Borsick

Ingredients:

• 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 (3.4 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 2 cups chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sift together the flour and baking soda, set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips and nuts. Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Edges should be golden brown.

Works Cited

Helmenstine, Anne Marie. "Difference Between Baking Powder and Baking Soda." Chemistry- Periodic      Table, Chemistry Projects, and Chemistry Homework Help." Web. 14 Mar. 2011. <http://chemistry.about.com/cs/foodchemistry/f/blbaking.htm>.

Borsick, Debbit. "Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe - Allrecipes.com."Allrecipes.com - Recipes, Menus, Meal Ideas, Food, and Cooking Tips." Web. 14 Mar. 2011. <http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Award-Winning-Soft-Chocolate-Chip-Cookies/Detail.aspx>.