Baking soda affects pH, which in turn affects browning The pancake all the way on the left is inordinately acidic, due to the unneutralized buttermilk It cooked up pale and bland It was also underrisen, with a flat, dense texture The one all the way around on the bottom, with a full ½ teaspoon of baking soda in the batter, had the opposite problem It browned far too quickly, lending it an acrid burnt flavor tinged with the soapy chemical aftertaste of unneutralized baking soda Interestingly enough, this pancake was also flat and dense—the large amount of baking soda reacted too violently when mixed into the batter The carbon dioxide bubbles inflated too rapidly and, like an overfilled balloon, the pancake “popped,” becoming dense and flaccid as it cooked This browning phenomenon isn’t just limited to pancakes, of course For example, cookie recipes routinely include baking soda to aid browning, even when there isn’t an acid for it to react with Double Bubble If there’s one major drawback with chemically leavened breads, it’s that they need to be cooked pretty much immediately after the batter is mixed Unlike a yeasted bread dough, which is low in moisture and kneaded until a tough, elastic gluten network forms to trap the massive amounts of carbon dioxide produced, a quick bread must be made with an extremely moist batter—baking powder simply doesn’t produce enough gas to effectively leaven a thicker dough Batters have relatively little gluten formation, meaning that they aren’t all that great at trapping and holding bubbles Once you mix a batter, your baking soda or baking powder immediately begins producing gas, and that gas almost immediately being trying to escape into the air When working with quick breads, those who aren’t into the whole brevity thing may run into difficulties Cook your pancakes immediately after mixing, and you ... baking soda to aid browning, even when there isn’t an acid for it to react with Double Bubble If there’s one major drawback with chemically leavened breads, it’s that they need to be cooked pretty much immediately after the batter is mixed... with the soapy chemical aftertaste of unneutralized baking soda Interestingly enough, this pancake was also flat and dense? ?the large amount of baking soda reacted too violently when mixed into the. .. baking soda reacted too violently when mixed into the batter The carbon dioxide bubbles inflated too rapidly and, like an overfilled balloon, the pancake “popped,” becoming dense and flaccid as it cooked