Yield: 36 cookies

Baking Soda vs Baking Powder in Cookies: Two Formulas

One chocolate chip cookie dough written two ways, with baking soda only and with baking soda plus baking powder, in cups and grams. A formula comparison built on published tests, not on bakes of our own.

Prep Time20 minutes

Cook Time10 minutes

Total Time30 minutes

Ingredients

Dough (the same for both versions)

• 1 cup (222 g) unsalted butter, softened, 222 g
• 3/4 cup (173 g) granulated sugar, 173 g
• 3/4 cup (185 g) brown sugar, packed, 185 g; the dough's main acid for the soda to react with
• 2 large eggs, about 100 g total, our estimate
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups + 2 tbsp (342 g) all-purpose flour, 342 g; weigh it if you can
• 1 tsp table salt, about 6 g, our estimate
• 2 cups (400 g) semi-sweet chocolate chips, 400 g

Leavener: pick version A or version B

• 1 tsp (4.6 g) Version A: baking soda, food-grade and aluminum-free, 4.6 g, USDA-based working value; level spoon
• 1/2 tsp (2.3 g) Version B: baking soda, food-grade and aluminum-free, 2.3 g; level spoon
• 1/2 tsp (about 2.3 g) Version B: baking powder, about 2.3 g, our assumption of 4.6 g per tsp; level spoon

Instructions

Make the dough

1. Preheat the oven. Heat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 C) and line baking sheets with parchment.
2. Whisk the dry ingredients. Whisk the flour and salt with your leavener. For version A that is 1 level tsp of baking soda. For version B it is 1/2 level tsp of baking soda and 1/2 level tsp of baking powder. Whisk until no clumps of powder remain.
3. Cream the butter and sugars. Beat the softened butter with the granulated and brown sugar until the mixture is combined and smooth.
4. Add the eggs and vanilla. Beat in the eggs and the vanilla until the mixture looks uniform.
5. Stir in the flour and chips. Add the flour mixture and stir just until no dry streaks remain, then fold in the chocolate chips.
6. Portion the dough. The dough weighs roughly 1,440 g in total (our math), so cut it into 36 equal portions of about 40 g each. Space them on the sheets.

Bake

1. Bake and check the edges. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 C). The soda-only source says 7 to 9 minutes and the soda-plus-powder source says 10 to 12 minutes, from different doughs, so start checking at 7 minutes. Pull the sheets when the edges are set and golden.
2. Cool before moving. Let the cookies sit on the sheet for a few minutes so they firm up, then move them to a rack.

Optional: bake both versions side by side

1. Split the dough before the flour. Make the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla base, then divide it equally by weight into two bowls. Into each bowl goes 171 g of flour, half the salt and 200 g of chips. Whisk the leavener into each bowl's flour first: 1/2 tsp of baking soda for A, 1/4 tsp of baking soda plus 1/4 tsp of baking powder for B. This is our suggested method, not a bake we have run.

Notes

Formula sources: the dough and the 1 tsp of baking soda in version A are adapted from Cookies for Days (a Toll House style soda-only formula). The 1/2 tsp soda plus 1/2 tsp baking powder split in version B comes from Desserts on a Dime, whose own dough has a different sugar and flour balance. We kept one dough for both versions and changed only the leavener, so the two versions here are a controlled pair on paper only.

This is a formula comparison. Nobody at SodaRecipe has baked these cookies, so every result described on this page comes from published tests by others.

Time and temperature come from the two source formulas: 375 degrees F (190 C), 7 to 9 minutes for the soda-only source and 10 to 12 minutes for the soda-plus-powder source. The 10 minutes on the card sits inside the second range. The 20 minutes of prep is our estimate.

Yield: both sources say 36 cookies of about 1 tablespoon of dough, but the dough here weighs roughly 1,440 g by our math (using our estimated weights for the eggs, vanilla and salt), which is about 40 g per cookie. Portion by weight and expect to adjust the bake time.

Nutrition values are estimates calculated from typical USDA FoodData Central values, shown for version A with unsalted butter, enriched all-purpose flour, semi-sweet chocolate chips, large eggs and table salt. Version B has the same values except for a lower sodium figure. The baking powder is assumed to be the double-acting sodium aluminum sulfate type at 4.6 g per teaspoon.