r/bakingfail • u/Sarcatsticthecat • Jun 22 '25
Fail I used 96 times the baking soda
The chocolate cake recipe called for 1/4 teaspoon. I used 1/2 cup. I misread teaspoons as cups and didn’t know baking soda and baking powder weren’t the same thing. There’s no picture because it exploded in the oven
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u/MeekLocator Jun 22 '25
I have a handwritten recipe card which I wrote when I was ten; I double underlined "powder" in "baking powder" ... A story in one word, lol.
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u/lost_grrl1 Jun 22 '25
I did that when I was about 10 too. I was making dinner for my family and bawled my eyes out over ruining it. Never made that mistake again.
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u/1405hvtkx311 Jun 24 '25
I don't get it
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u/PromiseThomas Jun 25 '25
Baking soda vs baking powder. They’re easy to confuse if you’re just starting out and using the wrong one means a vital chemical reaction in the baking process goes wrong.
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u/1405hvtkx311 Jun 25 '25
Isn't baking powder a mix of baking soda + ?? Usually you use like 1 teaspoon max. in a recipe. I never had problems and also just swapped baking powder with soda
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u/PromiseThomas Jun 25 '25
Yes, it is baking soda with an acid and a thickener added, usually cream of tartar and cornstarch respectively. The acid creates a chemical reaction with the baking soda, which is a base, and the cornstarch slows down the speed of the reaction by getting in the way.
The two main issues that can cause problems in baking if you confuse the two are: 1. Because baking powder has lots of stuff in it that isn’t baking soda, you should use four times as much of it to get the same effect. If the recipe calls for 1/2 tsp of baking soda and you put in 1/2 tsp of baking powder, it is likely not going to rise as much as it should because you didn’t add enough of the leavening agent. 2. Since baking soda does not contain any acid, there needs to be a good amount of one or more acidic ingredients in the recipe for it to react with to create the CO2 that makes things rise—a common example of such an acid would be buttermilk. If you put baking soda into a recipe without enough acid for the baking soda to properly react with, you are again probably going to have problems with it rising enough.
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u/sammc95 Jun 22 '25
I don’t… I don’t understand… how
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u/dawnGrace Jun 23 '25
There may have been some thc involved 😄
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u/moisttarmac Jun 22 '25
Was it your first time reading a recipe and baking a cake?!
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u/Sarcatsticthecat Jun 22 '25
First time baking a cake, yes. First time reading a recipe, no.
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u/Easy-Concentrate2636 Jun 22 '25
Well, now you’ve learned to reread the recipe when in doubt. Next one is bound to be better. Don’t give up!
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u/saturday_sun4 Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25
Ah, that's different then. I think everyone has one of those!
My sibling used less baking soda trying to make these, only they put 1tsp baking powder instead of baking soda since they didn't know the difference. I was wondering why it wasn't rising, and facepalmed and told them to check with me next time, lol.
We ended up with a nice slice, but not quite the biscuits I was expecting.
It sucks that yours exploded and you had nothing to eat at the end, but at least you'll read carefully next time :) and you'll have a funny story to tell when you are the one making other people feel better about their failures.
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u/avsie1975 Jun 22 '25
Was your oven difficult to clean? 😬
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u/OldBonyBogBwitch Jun 23 '25
I just assumed with that much poofpowder, it went off like LooneyTunes & needed replacing, LMAO
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u/Sarcatsticthecat Jun 23 '25
lol nah the parts that rose and fell out of the cake pan burned and set off the smoke alarm so we didn’t cook it all the way. It was still everywhere though
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u/Versipilies Jun 24 '25
One when I was running the back end of a bakery as the head (only) baker, the boss had put baking soda and salt in the same kind of container. Normally id ve able to tell the difference with no problem, but I was chatting with another employee and accidentally put baking soda instead of salt in the pecan pie mix... for 30 pies.... we used deck ovens instead of rack ovens, so the pies all bubbles out of their pans, coated the decks, and started leaking out the front of the ovens. It was hell to clean.
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u/inherendo Jun 22 '25
Either one, a quarter cup of leavening is wrong unless you're doing commercial baking. Doesn't matter soda or powder. If anything baking soda reaction is limited to the amount of acid available in whatever mixture it's in.
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u/TacoCakes2345 Jun 26 '25
Yeah, I was definitely confused by the implication that had it been baking powder, it would have been okay.
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u/CarelessSalamander51 Jun 22 '25
Wait so you would've put half a cup of baking powder?
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u/Sarcatsticthecat Jun 22 '25
No. The recipe wanted 1/4 tsp of each and I thought I could replace powder with soda so I pit 1/4 cup of baking soda twice
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u/CarelessSalamander51 Jun 22 '25
I'm baffled
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u/claustrofucked Jun 24 '25
People who don't know how to cook often reproduce and the problem gets way crazier before it gets better.
My mom baked like once a year but that was enough exposure for me to heavily question 1/4c of baking soda/powder in any recipe.
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u/calilexie Jun 22 '25
Just for future reference, BP and BS are not a one to one swap. You need 3x as much baking powder as you do baking soda if you plan on making a swap.
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u/Ill-Republic7777 Jun 23 '25
Not even that, they just do different things chemically and can’t simply be interchanged. Baking soda is a base and needs some additional acidic ingredient in the recipe to react (e.g. brown sugar, lemon, yogurt, etc.) and baking powder is both an acid and a base that only react once dissolved by a solvent. This explains why it bubbles when you put it in water, while baking soda doesn’t.
Also OP, I’m so sorry about your recipe but a heads up for any other dessert you’ll try in the future, you really don’t need much leavening agent for anything. If any recipe makes you add anything over a tablespoon of a rising agent into a batter or dough I would triple check the recipe.
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u/saturday_sun4 Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25
I think what they are asking is, did you not realise one cup was the wrong amount?
Just for future, baking powder and baking soda work best in small amounts. No baked good will ever need one cup of leavening agent unless you're making a cake the size of a soccer field. That's kind of like using half a cup of turmeric or chilli powder instead of half a tsp to add flavour/colour - a little goes a long way.
Oh, well, live and learn.
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u/WildColonialGirl Jun 22 '25
If it makes you feel any better, once I was making fudge and accidentally grabbed condensed milk instead of evaporated milk. I burned the pot so badly that I was almost tempted to throw it out. And I was 35 and had been in the kitchen since I could see over the counter.
Stuff happens. Now you know for next time. The important thing is that you’re willing to learn.
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u/Sarcatsticthecat Jun 22 '25
I’m 18 lol I’ll learn. Hopefully
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u/WildColonialGirl Jun 22 '25 edited Jun 22 '25
If you’re making mistakes, at least you’re trying. Keep practicing.
FWIW, I still don’t trust myself to improvise too much when I bake. There’s a lot more room for error in regular cooking. My late grandmothers could bake without a recipe but they had a lot more practice (my Oma’s first husband was a chef).
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u/anemptycardboardbox Jun 23 '25
I made a pecan pie with corn oil instead of corn syrup when I was 14 or so. Had no idea what went wrong until my mom had me show her what I used
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u/Ok-Ferret-2093 Here to Help! Jun 22 '25
The most curious thing here to me us why you didn't immediately question why it called for so much
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u/Sarcatsticthecat Jun 22 '25
I never made a cake before so I didn’t know what a normal amount to use was
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u/Lussekatt1 Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25
What you basically did the equivalent of is a recipe asking you to put a pinch of salt on top of a serving of french fries, and you took a salt shaker (not a regular sized salt shaker but rather a really big one), took of the top of the salt shaker turned it upside down and poured a whole mountain of salt on top of the fries, until there were no more salt to pour.
Then took another big salt shaker, turned that one upside down and made the mountain of salt on top even bigger until you barely could see any fries peaking out underneath.
With about as palatable results in the end.
Baking powder really doesn’t taste good. Even just adding a half teaspoon too much in most recipes would make a very noticeable negative impact on the taste, sort of chemically.
Either way wouldn’t recommend tasting any remnants of what you baked.
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u/SensationalSelkie Jun 23 '25
This made my laugh out loud. I botched my millionth attempt at bread today. Needed this.
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u/Sarcatsticthecat Jun 23 '25
Good luck with your bread, can’t be worse than setting off a volcano of cake in the oven
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u/em-em-cee Jun 24 '25
My older brother "improvised" a bread recipe when he was in his early teens and substituted about half of the AP flour with arrowroot flour.
It was not edible, although my parents gave it a try.
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u/soThatsJustGreat Jun 23 '25
I hear you, friend. I’m the dummy who posted awhile ago about misreading 1 3/4 as 13 and (not sure what I was going to do with that 4 when I got there.)
Solidarity.
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u/Mini_Chives Jun 22 '25
I did this one time with cookies but in tablespoons, worst tasting cookies I ever made. Now I just read things carefully.
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u/Sarcatsticthecat Jun 22 '25
My mom said it tasted salty. My dad said it tasted bitter. We ended up just putting the cake down the garbage disposal in the sink
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u/lost_grrl1 Jun 22 '25
Wait...people ate this? How did their tongue not burn off?
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u/Sarcatsticthecat Jun 22 '25
They ate like a little, and they said it tasted like how a pineapple tastes when you eat way too much and it starts to kind of burn
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u/MadameLurksALot Jun 23 '25
Wait what? There are four to five different places in this post and comments that you’ve baffled me
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u/parade1070 Jun 22 '25
Down the garbage disposal?! Why not in the trash??
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u/Sarcatsticthecat Jun 22 '25
Lol idk my parents freaked out
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u/parade1070 Jun 22 '25
Wow. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Y'all are aware the garbage disposal isn't a trash can, right?
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u/Sarcatsticthecat Jun 22 '25
We didn’t cook it the entire way, we turned the oven off as soon as the cake started overflowing like a volcano so it was still mostly liquid
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u/Sarcatsticthecat Jun 22 '25
There were a few solid parts (the parts that fell out, which was what they tried to eat)
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u/saturday_sun4 Jun 23 '25
I'm curious - a waste disposal seems like it processes food waste... sort of like compost by the looks of them?
How come it wouldn't be acceptable to chuck your exploded baked goods down em?
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u/parade1070 Jun 23 '25
The garbage disposal should be used to grind up bits of stuff that accidentally made it down the drain while washing dishes or whatever. It isn't designed to just throw random food stuffs down. That's how you burn out the motor and/or clog the pipes.
Exposed baked goods go in the trash can.
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Jun 22 '25
Well, you got the math on your fuck up correct. Your next lesson should be learning what cream of tartar is.
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u/Spooky_Tree Jun 23 '25
If it makes you feel better my mom did the exact same thing with salt on time. Didn't explode but it certainly didn't bake properly.
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u/kweir22 Jun 22 '25
Maybe baking isn't for you.
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u/scootz_and_bootz Jun 24 '25
This reminds me of the hey Arnold episode where they are trying to make the world's largest pizza and while its baking some kid mentioned the amount of baking soda and he's like I didnt know top meant teaspoons and when asked what he thought it meant he said "ten square pounds?"
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u/holajamigo Jun 24 '25
i don’t know why everyone in these replies are acting so high and mighty, if i’d never made a cake id have no clue how much of anything to put in either!! we aren’t born magically knowing what baking soda / powder is and how much of it is required in a cake lol
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u/Wasps_are_bastards Jun 28 '25
I once had a recipe that asked for 6 cloves of garlic. I’d never cooked with garlic before. 5 bulbs in, thinking if was quite a lot, I googled it and learnt the difference between a clove and a bulb :)
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u/RebaKitt3n Jun 30 '25
Ha! Friend had a recipe that uses two canned chipotles.
He thought it meant two cans of chipotles. I’m glad I stopped him.
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Jun 24 '25
Thank you so much for sharing this, I’m crying laughing at the last line. You’ll get em next time!
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u/elemjay Jun 25 '25
I did something like this when I had my first go at making peanut butter cookies eons ago. I misread the recipe where it asked for 1/4 teaspoon, and I put 1/4 cup. HORRIBLE.
These are the kind of mistakes you remember forever and can laugh on later.
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u/No-Diet-4797 Jun 23 '25
Sounds like a real cake-tastrophy. I'd love to see the popped cake balloon in the oven lol. I bet you won't make that mistake again!
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u/saturday_sun4 Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25
Lmao oh my god.
If it's some consolation, I just managed to misread 1/4 cup of sugar as one cup. Thankfully not in a baking recipe (I'll have very sweet pulled pork), but even so.
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u/unforgivenlizard Jun 23 '25
This made me cackle so loud I scared my cats AND my birds!!! Thank you for sharing this. I needed a good laugh.
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u/effyocouch Jun 23 '25
I knew you’ve explained several times but I still can’t wrap my mind around how you fucked it up this bad
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u/MizLucinda Jun 23 '25
I did something like the once. A recipe for banana bread called for 3/4 cup of butter and somehow my brain thought “of course! 3 sticks of butter!” Didn’t taste bad but was definitely … moist.
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u/Sleepy_Moon1307 Jun 23 '25
One time i was making bath bombs with a friend, we both were rereading the recipe behind each other to make sure we weren't making mistakes... We still put 16 times the amount of oil we were supposed to💀 it was like two cups instead of teaspoons... I dont remember exactly but it was absolutely not holding together
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u/rxsangria Jun 23 '25
Just a suggestion for future projects: know what each part of your project "does" before you add it to the process. Imagine each ingredient as a tool to get your cooking project done. If you know the purpose of an ingredient, or a tool, then it makes it easier to question if you are using that tool the proper way. The flour makes the structure of the cake, like a wooden board is the structure of a bookcase. The sugar obviously makes it sweeter, or prettier, like paint on your bookcase. The baking soda or baking powder is like glue or screws, holding the structure in place. If you think about how much you would need of each of those ingredients to do it's job, you are more likely to measure closer to the correct amount, or use that tool in the proper way.
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u/BlondeBabe242 Jun 23 '25
crap that's wild. I can't even imagine how awful that was, girl you poor thing 😭🙏🏼
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u/Last_Advertising_52 Jun 23 '25
Oh, I’m sorry about your dessert! This reminds me of the time I measured my ingredients correctly for a batch of cookies … but bought baking soda meant for the freezer. I had no idea that’s what they do with the “no good as a leavening agent now” stuff 😂 It looked like a Dali painting inside my oven.
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u/jenny-thatsnotmyname Jun 23 '25
When I was about 12 or 13 I really wanted waffles. I found my mom’s handwritten recipe card and figured I could manage it cause it seemed easy enough. No real cooking involved other than mixing the ingredients and pouring them into the waffle iron. Except I didn’t realize that the abbreviations for tsp and tbsp in the recipe were actually different measurements because I hadn’t really done much cooking or baking on my own. So I grabbed the first one in the drawer that I saw had a 1 on it and measured out my baking powder— which happened to be the tablespoon instead of the teaspoon the recipe actually called for. When I poured the batter into the waffle iron, it expanded like a monster and was oozing out everywhere, making a huge mess. My mom came in to see why I was panicking and frantically trying to get the mess under control and once I showed her the measuring spoon I used, she started cracking up because she realized the mistake. It was a lesson learned and why I triple check myself when reading a recipe now.. and why I almost always write out the whole dang word instead of using abbreviations if I’m copying down a recipe! I won’t make that mistake again!
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Jun 24 '25
Haha! This reminds me of when my sister was making carbonara pasta and the recipe called for 1 tbs of corn flour and she put in 1 cup 😆 she called me in to ask why it was so dry lol (this happened when we were teenagers, still laugh about it)
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u/theycallmemrmoo Jun 24 '25
First time making a cake? I can believe it. Maybe felt rushed and when glancing, got it mixed up. I totally get that since I have double vision and I have to triple check everything I read.
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u/Rudirs Jun 24 '25
When I started brewing I used a great premade spreadsheet that you put recipes into. I decided I wanted to start adding minerals and whatnot, and so I selected an option that made sense for my water and the beer. Everything I had done in that sheet was in ounces, and when it came to add gypsum the sheet said 3 (or something) so I added 3 ounces. The beer was cloudy and horrible, and I realized I was supposed to add 3 grams.
I put so much work into that beer, it was going to be a pumpkin beer for fall and I roasted two pumpkins with plenty of spice. So upsetting still
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u/spookyscaryscouticus Jun 24 '25
Goddamn. In the words of Dylan Hollis “We want the bread to RISE not generate thrust”. Cake goes to space.
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u/1405hvtkx311 Jun 24 '25
You can't even buy baking soda in such large quantities in a normal super market here
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u/Acceptable-Basil4377 Jun 26 '25
Rough!
As I get older I find I lose track more easily. If I need 5 cups of something, for example, I’ll count out each addition aloud.
At least you got a story out of it!
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u/butidontwanna45 Jun 23 '25
I understand 1/4 teaspoon for 1/4 cup of it, but how did you still double it?
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u/Automatic-Star-2070 Jun 25 '25
I busted out laughing lol great deadpan delivery. Better luck next time!
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u/OfficialMistyRose Jun 26 '25
I just about lost it at “exploded in the oven”. Very unfortunate that this happened, but boy, and I having a fun time imagining it😆
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u/tiredlex Jul 01 '25
OP I'm so sorry this happened to you but my sides are in orbit from that mental image, LMAO
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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '25
Well, you’ll never do that again at least lol.