The Best Substitutes For Baking Soda When You're Out Of Baking Powder Too

It's the baker's stuff of nightmares: You've creamed your sugar and butter, sifted your dry ingredients, and then realized you're out of a crucial ingredient — your leavening agent. We're always here for creative hacks, and while you can quite easily make baking soda or powder stand in for one another, you can't skip 'em both — or can you? Aside from running to the store, which is never convenient, it turns out there is a remedy for this seemingly deal-breaker of a conundrum, ensuring airy, tall, never-cardboard-y baked treats no matter your pantry supplies.

Employing other less traditional but effective leavening agents, like beaten egg whites, will inject height and airiness into your treats. Club soda can also work (and really, what can't it do — from keeping cast iron pans squeaky clean to giving you the fluffiest waffles of your life). Just don't rely on club soda as your only leavening agent in more fussy recipes like multi-layered cakes, which might fall flat with only the bubbly bev. 

Both egg whites or club soca can save many baked treats — but perhaps the easiest option for any recipe is self-rising flour, if you have some on hand. Use in place of the flour called for in most baked goods recipes and no other leavening agent is required — it's already got those mixed right in.

Do all baked treats require either baking soda or powder? Technically no — things like crepes or flourless cake skip it altogether. But for your standard fluffy cake or even flatter treats like pancakes and cookies, a leavening agent is a must. To understand not just the basic science of baking, but your options for substitutions, you have to understand what leavening agents do in the first place.

Both baking soda and powder are sodium bicarbonate. Baking powder also includes an acid — meaning it only needs liquid to do its thing, whereas baking soda also requires an added acid for activation (think back to those fizzy volcano elementary school science experiments with vinegar and baking soda). When activated, baking soda and powder create carbon dioxide, forming scores of tiny bubbles in your baked goods, helping batters and doughs to rise as they bake.

Luckily, when you find yourself out of both, substitution options like whipped egg whites or splashes of club soda mimic this same chemical reaction by creating space and loftiness in the batter. In both cases, you'll want to act quickly and handle them gently, being especially careful not to overwhip those eggs lest you lose their fluffiness. No kid-glove handling is required when simply using self-rising flour. The dry ingredient is just regular all-purpose flour pre-mixed with baking powder and a bit of salt, saving some ingredients and steps and saving your treats from falling flat.