does eliminating the baking soda in a recipe for a rolled cookie make the cookie very flat? does it effect the taste? can a dough without baking soda hold its shape better?

does anyone have pictures of a sugar cookie with and without baking soda?

thanks.

I'm not positive about this, but I think the lack of baking soda allows the cookie to hold it's shape. I'm pretty sure most sugar cookies don't contain baking soda. The "flatness" will depend on how thick you roll out the dough. They will still rise a little because of the egg.

the recipe i use does not have baking soda in it.
i avoid baking soda recipes because it is a leavening agent that i do not need (creaming your butter and sugar will give you all the "lift" you need for a delicious cookie). i use the recipe from the cookie craft book and love it. it is very reliable and it really has a great taste and good mouth appeal.

i like to have a nice flat surface to decorate that won't spread o and adding baking soda usually makes it more chancy that i will get that exact result. the few cookies i have posted (and i have made way more than posted, lol) are all made with this recipe and glace icing.

diane

In my recipe, I have 2tea spoon baking podwer for 5 cups of flour and it works very nice !
They don't spread and they are flat but they stay soft... they are sooo yummy... and they also have 4 eggs!

***edited from baking soda to baking powder
no baking soda in my cookies

in my experience (and from my understanding), baking soda will cause cookies to flatten, while baking powder will cause them to rise...hth...

hi,

both soda and powder are leavening agents which means both will cause the dough or batter to rise. baking soda requires an acidic ingredient to activate and baking powder already includes the acidifying agent.
they are not usually directly interchangeable in recipes.

there are many great cookie recipes with and without these leavening agents. just because you have powder or soda, doesn't mean the cookies will spread uncontrollably. i like it without but many get equally flat cookies with them.

in recipes without them, you get the same kind of leavening from creaming your butter and sugar. so cookies without them, are pretty soft and fluffy because they get the lift from the creaming.

diane

oh dear. thanks diane.

does anyone know what using powdered sugar vs granulated sugar will do a sugar cookie dough? how does it impact texture, browning, etc?

where the heck is alton brown when we need him?

yellobutterfly- do you mind sharing which chocolate roll out recipe you used on your valentine's hearts in your gallery?[/quote]

ha! funny you should ask - that was actually an experiment, I think what I did was just substitute 1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder for 1/2 cup of flour...

I was just talking about Alton Brown! I've been experimenting with different rolled cookie recipes. I found a dark chocolate sugar cookie on this site that is REALLY tasty and it stays flat for decorating. I use my mom's recipe for sugar cookies and they puff up pretty good. Not fabulous for decorating and was wanting to omitt something from the recipe but not sure what. I tried the NFSC but didn't dig it as much as my moms. Her recipe has 4c flour to 2 tsp powder and 1 soda.

I did a test with and without the leavening in the NFSC, as I didn't believe it would work; and nobody noticed any difference.
I leave it out now.