How does baking soda make cakes and bread rise?
The Bubble Magician
How does baking soda make cakes and bread rise?
A cake batter goes into the oven flat and pale, and comes out tall and proud, full of soft little holes. It puffed up — but nothing inflated it with a straw. So who blew it up from the inside? The answer is a tiny bubble-making magician hiding in your pantry, and its name is baking soda.
Those soft holes in your cake are the real secret. A cake isn't really "raised" so much as it's stuffed full of trapped gas bubbles. Bake those bubbles in place and they leave behind little pockets of air. More bubbles means a lighter, fluffier crumb. So the whole game is simple: make gas bubbles, and make them right inside the batter.
