What Happens If You Skip Baking Soda in Cookies?

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of my cookie experimentation series. In the past, we've talked about the difference different sugars make in cookies, what a difference it makes if you use less sugar.

[00:00:09]Today, I wanted to talk about leavening agents and the difference they make in cookies.

[00:00:13]Honestly, the difference is pretty huge. So I baked the same cookie dough 4 different ways: we made them without any leavening agents, so no baking powder or baking soda, we made them with only baking powder, with only baking soda, and then probably a more common way to make cookies is with a blend of both, so we made them that way as well.

[00:00:32]So that was the only thing we changed in the dough, and I want to talk about what we found and why this happens.

[00:00:37]So let's talk about our ugliest cookies in front of me right now.

[00:00:40]These are the ones made with no leavening agents.

[00:00:42]So if you look at this cookie, you can see it's just kind of flat and lifeless looking.

[00:00:47]It's kind of dull, a little greasy, and the bottoms kind of flared a little bit.

[00:00:52]You can see how greasy the bottom is or at least it was when it finished baking.

[00:00:56]So what's going on here? Leavening agents are really important for creating air bubbles in your cookie dough.

[00:01:02]And when you have those air bubbles, the butter has a place to melt into and it distributes nicely through the dough.

[00:01:08]So when you have a cookie with no leavening agents and this high of a ratio of butter, what's going to happen is the butter doesn't really have anywhere to go, so it kind of will flare out the bottom, it'll just make for a greasier— see, I had to clean off my fingers, like it's just a less attractive cookie.

[00:01:22]So not only that, but let's go ahead and break into it.

[00:01:25]You can just see how dense it is. Now sometimes you want a dentist cookie so you can take advantage of this, like snowball cookies. They don't use baking powder or baking soda, but they have cornstarch and other ingredients that work well with the butter.

[00:01:37]But once you understand how the leavening agents work, you can start to manipulate your own recipes to do what you want them to. Nikki's mad I didn't pick the uglier cookie. We have lots of ugly ones here.

[00:01:46]So just dull, flat, they didn't really spread.

[00:01:50]When I say flat, I mean like a flat appearance, but they didn't really—they spread some of course when the butter flared, but they don't have like that nice spread where you know you have like the chewy centers and the slightly crisp edges. Let’s find some real uglies here.

[00:02:03]They just look greasy, and they feel kind of greasy too.

[00:02:06]Okay, let's talk about baking powder. Baking powder I use in a lot of my cookies, but these here were made with just baking powder.

[00:02:13]So, if you take a look at these, they're pretty pale and they are slightly puffier than their baking soda counterparts.

[00:02:19]So, a lot of you may already know this, but when you're thinking about what powder— baking powder and baking soda to do, an easy way to remember is baking powder puffs and baking soda spreads.

[00:02:28]That's obviously an over simplified explanation.

[00:02:31]But if you want your cookies to be puffier, it's more baking powder.

[00:02:34]You know, think about biscuits. They use a lot of baking powder. It gives you a nice rise.

[00:02:37]Baking soda is more important for spread. Powder puffs, soda spreads. So these are thicker.

[00:02:43]They're also a bit more cakey, and they're pretty soft.

[00:02:45]Well, that one didn't break that nicely—I made them yesterday —but, still, they’re—they are a pretty soft cookie.

[00:02:51]Now, a lot of times, I don't want my cookies to be too cakey, so we will include the baking powder to get some of that lift, but we will use soda, which is going to help them spread, and then that's going to keep them more chewy and less cakey.

[00:03:05]So that leads me to talk about baking soda specifically.

[00:03:08]Soda spreads. These cookies have spread more than their baking powder counterparts and they're a bit thinner.

[00:03:13]We already talked about that, but also they're a little bit browner.

[00:03:16]So to get a little bit nerdy on the science with you, baking soda makes a cookie dough more alkaline. Dough that is more alkaline will caramelize faster and more efficiently than one that is not. So baking soda cookies tend to get more brown—and that's the same with any baked good.

[00:03:32]You know, cakes that use a lot of baking soda, muffins that use baking soda will brown more and faster than ones that just use baking powder.

[00:03:39]So because of the way the cookies spread and the way the baking soda works in it, it's also going to help make them a bit more chewy and soft.

[00:03:45]So this is your classic, chewy cookie: soft centers, slightly crisp edges. For my best chocolate chip cookies. I only use baking soda because I really wanted to achieve that: the nice browning, the nice caramelization, and a nice spread. Sometimes baking powder comes into play in my recipes. We’ll talk about that in just a second.

[00:04:02]So both of these cookies are soft, just in different ways.

[00:04:04]Because of the spread from the baking soda, these are soft and chewy. Whereas, the baking powder ones are soft and cakey thanks to the puff factor of the baking powder.

[00:04:13]Okay, so what if your cookie recipe uses both baking powder and baking soda?

[00:04:17]This is pretty common. My very popular worst chocolate chip cookies use a blend of both.

[00:04:22]And these two play very well together, and they create a very beautiful looking cookie.

[00:04:26]Let me bring it over here. I think this might be one of the prettiest cookies we have. I think these baked up the nicest. You're getting benefits from both of these leavening agents.

[00:04:33]The cookie will be a little bit thicker thanks to the baking powder.

[00:04:35]It'll still caramelize because of the baking soda.

[00:04:38]You can get a cookie that has slightly crisp edges, but still nice and soft centers that are a little bit on the thicker side.

[00:04:44]So different recipes are aiming for different things, which is why you're going to see different amounts of each in each recipe.

[00:04:50]I feel like I could talk about these ingredients forever, but these are the main points that I wanted to hit about baking powder and baking soda.

[00:04:56]If you have any questions, leave them in the comments because we can talk about it there.

[00:05:01]I get really nerdy about this stuff.

[00:05:02]And if there any other experiments you'd like to see, leave those in the comments as well.

[00:05:06]I am trying to decide if I should keep doing more of these because it's a lot of cookies to bake, so I want to make sure you're enjoying it. The important takeaways for you here are that baking powder and baking soda are not interchangeable.

[00:05:15]Something that always helped me was the whole baking powder puffs, baking soda spreads, so I hope that helps you too. Thank you so much for watching, and I will see you next time.

[00:05:22]Hey, welcome back to another—do I—I should like name this series or something.

[00:05:26]I personally think beauty’s in the eye of the beholder.

[00:05:29]Andi's like, “That's my cookie!”

[00:05:30]Baking sp—baking— Does that make sense?

[00:05:33]Sorry.

[00:05:34]This is m— Um… You're really getting the best of both wo-orlds.

[00:05:39]I don't know what else to do.