Ask the Blogger!

On Saturday I received a call from my friend who was in the middle of a cooking conundrum. She had a lot of overripe bananas and was making banana bread. She was in the middle of mixing ingredients when she realized the recipe called for baking soda, and she only had baking powder. Hmm. She called to ask if the two are interchangeable, since she didn’t want to stop what she was doing to go to the store and get a box of baking soda.

I said I had used one in place of the other before, but truthfully it was only because I wasn’t paying attention to my recipe and didn’t realize what I had done until after everything was already mixed. Oops. But after some quick research, I discovered that they are interchangeable in a pinch. The website Joy of Baking states the two products are both “chemical leavening agents that cause batters to rise when baked.” They suggest an appropriate substitution is two teaspoons of a double-acting baking powder. It is also noted that too much baking powder can give batter a bitter taste, so that’s why it’s really appropriate only in a pinch. If you’re interested in looking at more of the chemical reaction of baking soda, here’s a link.