For making cake, baking powder is taken. If at home your mother uses baking soda instead of baking powder in cake,
(a) how will it affect the taste of the cake and why ?
(b) how can baking soda be converted into baking powder ?
(c) what is the role of tartaric acid added to baking soda ?
Baking powder is a mixture of baking soda and tartaric acid. Out of the two, only baking soda is actually used for making bread or cake fluffy. The
role of tartaric acid is to neutralise sodium carbonate formed in the reaction.
(a) If baking soda is used for making cake in place of baking powder, then cake will taste bitter since there is no tartaric acid available to neutralise
sodium carbonate formed.
$2 \mathrm{NaHCO}_{3} \stackrel{\text { heat }}{\longrightarrow} \mathrm{Na}_{2} \mathrm{CO}_{3}+\mathrm{H}_{2} \mathrm{O}+\mathrm{CO}_{2}$
(b) Baking soda can be converted to baking powder by adding appropriate amount of tartaric acid.
(c) Tartaric acid as pointed above will react with sodium carbonate which makes cake bitter. This means that the cake will not taste bitter.
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