Yield: 8 biscuits

Baking Soda and Buttermilk for Baking Powder (Biscuits)

Swap 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and 1/2 cup of buttermilk for each teaspoon of baking powder, then see the math in a drop biscuit recipe with grams, a liquid check and sodium per biscuit.

Prep Time10 minutes

Cook Time20 minutes

Total Time30 minutes

Ingredients

Soda-only buttermilk drop biscuits

• 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour, 250 g at 125 g per cup (Bake School); spoon in and level
• 1/2 tsp (2.3 g) baking soda, 2.3 g at USDA 4.6 g per teaspoon; level, not heaped
• 1/2 tsp (3 g) table salt, 3 g; level
• 4 tbsp (57 g) cold salted butter, 57 g; cut into small pieces
• 1 cup (245 g) cold low-fat cultured buttermilk, This is the only liquid and the only acid

Instructions

1. Heat the oven. Heat the oven to 425 F with a rack in the middle and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment before any liquid goes in.
2. Whisk the dry ingredients. Whisk 2 cups (250 g) flour, 1/2 teaspoon (2.3 g) baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon (3 g) salt in a large bowl until no streaks of soda remain.
3. Work in the butter. Rub or cut the 4 tablespoons (57 g) of cold butter into the flour until the pieces are small and coated.
4. Add the buttermilk last. Pour in 1 cup (245 g) of cold buttermilk and stir with a spatula just until no dry flour shows. Do not add any other liquid.
5. Scoop and bake at once. Drop 8 equal mounds onto the sheet and put it in the oven straight away. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the biscuits are golden.
6. Rest briefly and serve. Move the biscuits off the hot sheet and serve warm.

Notes

Our adaptation, untested. No one at SodaRecipe has baked this exact formula. It is built from sourced ratios: Bake School's 1/4 teaspoon of soda per 125 g (1 cup) of flour and 1/2 teaspoon per cup of buttermilk, with the oven temperature and time from King Arthur's baking powder buttermilk biscuits.

The math is ours. King Arthur's biscuits use 3 cups (360 g) of flour and 1 tablespoon (3 teaspoons) of baking powder. Healthline and Betty Crocker swap each teaspoon for 1/4 teaspoon of soda plus 1/2 cup of buttermilk, so the full swap would be 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk and 3/4 teaspoon of soda, more liquid than the 227 to 255 g in that recipe. Scaled to 2 cups of flour, the powder is 2 teaspoons, which gives 1 cup of buttermilk and 1/2 teaspoon of soda. That agrees with Bake School's per-cup rules.

Time: the 15 to 20 minute bake is King Arthur's figure for its baking powder version. Prep time and the yield of 8 are estimates. The cook time field uses the top of the range.

Soda weight: this page uses 4.6 g per teaspoon (USDA FoodData Central, 2.3 g per 1/2 teaspoon). Other pages on this site use 6 g per teaspoon, King Arthur's figure. The two sources weigh a teaspoon differently, so the sodium here is built on USDA.

Sodium is our own calculation, not a published figure: baking soda 79 mg, salt 146 mg, butter 46 mg, buttermilk 45 mg and flour about 1 mg per biscuit, which adds up to 317 mg, or 14% of the 2,300 mg FDA Daily Value.

Nutrition values are estimates calculated from typical USDA FoodData Central values, with low-fat cultured buttermilk, salted butter and all-purpose flour. Fiber is not listed because the fiber value for the flour was not checked for this page. Sugar counts only the carbohydrate in the buttermilk (all treated as sugar), so it is a rough figure.