These days, it is very easy to make a cake or pie from homemade dough, and the baked goods will turn out to be no worse than the store ones. Even a not very successful dough, thanks to a sachet of baking powder, becomes better - it rises and pleases with a golden brown crust. But a lot of recipes involve the use of soda. What if you don't like this ingredient or is simply not at home? You can use baking soda substitutes.
Why use soda
If you decide to replace soda in any baking recipe, first you need to find out why it is generally added to the dough. When interacting with an acidic environment, soda breaks down into water and salt, releasing carbon dioxide, thanks to which the dough does not stick together.
Baking soda is the most common baking powder, but you can substitute other substances that have similar properties if desired.
Food substitutes for soda
Not only soda can make the dough porous and fluffy. In cooking, pressed or dry yeast and ammonium carbonate are also used for this purpose. Often, alcoholic beverages are used as a baking powder - rum, beer, alcohol, cognac. It is very popular abroad to use food ammonia, cremator, potash in the dough preparation process.
It is not always possible to replace soda with yeast. Usually yeast is used in recipes for baking from yeast dough; such a substitute is not suitable for biscuit. Therefore, it is worth choosing another alternative to soda for making unleavened dough.
When heated, ammonium carbonate releases both carbon dioxide and ammonia, so this component is usually used in industrial baking. When preparing products with such a baking powder, the recommended doses must be strictly observed, unfortunately, it can be difficult to do this at home.
If you put a lot of eggs or butter in the dough, it will begin to stick together, so you can safely replace some of the butter with margarine, which raises the dough. Thanks to this, less soda will be required, and the recipe will turn out delicious and lush.
Baking powder and baking powder
A baking powder or baking powder is ideal for home baking. Although these ingredients cannot be called a 100% substitute for baking soda, they are also included in their composition. In addition to soda, the baking powder contains acid, which ensures its decomposition, as well as flour, powdered sugar or starch. The baking powder is very convenient to use, it is able to raise the dough, which does not contain "sour" products (sour cream, whey, kefir, vinegar, citric acid or yogurt).
When choosing a baking powder, it is imperative to pay attention to its composition, which often contains phosphates, sodium bicarbonate, modified starch. With constant use, these components can adversely affect human health. Also, baking soda cannot be added in large quantities - it has a specific flavor. How to replace soda in recipes is, of course, up to the hostess to decide. You can experiment, because experience is the best teacher, through trial and error you can learn how to cook delicious pastries with different baking powder.
