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I played with my snickerdoodles yet again, this time testing the necessity of cream of tartar and baking soda. I thought maybe I could replace those two ingredients with baking powder, since it is baking soda with an acid, typically cream of tartar. I made 3 batches: one only using baking soda, one with baking soda and cream of tartar, and the other with only baking powder. The original recipe calls for 1 tsp cream of tartar and 1/2 tsp of baking soda. Where there was no cream of tartar, I used 1 tsp leavener. All cookies were rolled into 30 gram balls (about 1 oz) and all had the same amount of rest time (none) before getting shoved into the oven.

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As you can see, batch #1 with only baking soda was very flat and yellow because the baking soda didn’t have any acid to react to. Batch #2 with baking soda and cream of tartar was less flat, higher and whiter (due to more aeration from chemical reaction). Batch #3 with the baking powder had a huge rise in the oven and look more like scones than cookies.

Moral of the story is that the cream of tartar is key here and that you can’t just substitute a mixture of baking soda and cream of tartar with baking powder with the same results. If you want big, puffy scone-like cookies, then by all means use baking powder in soda’s stead.

So am I done with the ‘doodles? Not quite yet my dearies — I want to play around with the role of different brands of flour. I figure snickerdoodles are a good cookie to do it with, since they are so simple.