Make Your Own Baking Powder With Just 3 Ingredients

Whether you are just getting started on your baking journey or are a veteran of the culinary arts, you have likely felt a sense of immense pride at baking something entirely from scratch. But what if you find that you're missing some key ingredients like, say, baking powder? You don't necessarily have to dash out to the store. Hana Dreiling, founder and head baker of Holey Grail Donuts, is an expert on all things donut, and by proxy, baked goods and baking powder. Dreiling shared the key ingredients and their proportions, for making your own baking powder. That mixture, says Dreiling, is simply "1 part baking soda with 2 parts cream of tartar and 1 part cornstarch."

According to Dreiling, you should take the process one step further and consider storage. For best results, she says to "store it in an airtight container to keep it dry and effective." keeping it dry will also help to preserve its effectiveness for as long as possible. Because moisture is the activating ingredient for baking powder, it is worth protecting this pantry staple from excess moisture with proper storage. Following this piece of advice is an easy way to avoid mistakes made when making pancakes or other baked goods.

Baking powder is more prevalent in the culinary world than you might at first expect. While it is not strictly one of the two ingredients in the viral ice cream bread trend, it is the key leavening agent in one (self-rising flour) that enables this baked good to rise. It's worth understanding the science behind it all before you put your homemade baking powder to work. The sodium bicarbonate present in baking soda alone reacts with heat and acid to create carbon dioxide. This gas is responsible for the fluffiness, light texture, or the crumb of a baked good. But baking powder is not solely sodium bicarbonate. Instead, it gets additional help from cream of tartar.

When cream of tartar is combined with baking soda, its acids lay waiting for moisture to be added, at which point a rise-inducing chemical reaction will occur. Lastly, the cornstarch acts as a drying medium in your homemade baking powder. Because it absorbs moisture well, cornstarch delays the reaction from taking place until the baking powder is added to the recipe or combined with a liquid — this can be key if you're trying to get a rise timed just right. Together, these three ingredients balance each other to facilitate a fluffy, light bake. The uses of baking powder go beyond distinguishing old-fashioned donuts by increasing the volume and lightness of a wide variety of baked goods.