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Why does nobody talk about how baking soda and baking powder have totally different expiration dates
I was making my grandma's banana bread recipe last Tuesday and it came out flat as a pancake. Took me three tries and a trip to the store to figure out my baking powder was 8 months past its date. The box said "best by" but I figured it was like salt, lasts forever. Nope. Apparently baking soda goes bad slower than baking powder. Who else has ruined a batch because of old leavening?
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the_vera11d agoMost Upvoted
Yeah I used to think both were basically the same thing, just one was for cookies and one for cakes and that was that. But after my sister's biscuits turned out like hockey pucks I actually looked it up and realized baking powder has a built in acid that goes dead way faster than plain baking soda. Now I just write the month I open a new can right on the lid with a Sharpie.
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karenw9011d ago
Oh man the Sharpie trick is smart but here's the thing nobody talks about - altitude. I moved from sea level to 5000 feet and all my baking went to hell. Baking soda and powder behave totally different up high. My biscuits went from fluffy to flat overnight. Turns out high altitude messes with how fast those chemical reactions happen. So if your sister's puck incident happened somewhere like Denver or Salt Lake City, it might not have been the powder's fault at all.
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