Can I substitute yeast with baking soda/powder for my bread dough?

Question

I have all the ingredients to make a dough except for the yeast, can I use baking soda or powder instead of using a yeast for making a bread dough (high gluten)?

Answer 1

Yes, it is possible to make bread using baking powder or baking soda. However, I would strongly recommend that you find a recipe using those ingredients rather than trying to convert a recipe that is supposed to use yeast.

Soda bread made with baking soda, for example, is a very traditional type of bread. Baking soda requires an acid ingredient to react with, though, so typically soda bread includes ingredients like buttermilk. Sometimes soured milk or milk soured for vinegar or lemon juice is used instead. I've occasionally seen recipes that even dispense with the milk altogether and just use lemon juice or another acid to react and allow the soda bread to rise, but typically milk of some sort is used to soften the crumb and give flavor.

Plain bread recipes using only baking powder are a bit more rare; that's more typically the domain of so-called "quick breads" that tend to be more flavorful and cakelike (often with higher sugar content). But a quick internet search will pull up many recipes for plain bread made with baking powder too. Again, I would encourage the use of some sort of enriching agent (milk, butter, eggs, etc.) to avoid a dry, bland, crumbly bread.

Bread made with baking soda or baking powder also needs a completely different procedure. Most importantly, it will need to be baked as soon as mixed, without time for a "rise." (Delaying putting it in the oven will actually result in a flat, dense product.) It will also generally have a much more crumbly texture, without the gluten development one obtains with longer fermentation.

In sum, it is possible to make bread with only baking powder or baking soda, but it's best to use recipes that have instructions specifically intended for those ingredients.

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If you insist on making the substitution yourself:

• Use baking powder, unless you already have an acidic ingredient in your recipe to react with baking soda or are prepared to modify your recipe to add acid.
• The amount of baking powder needed will vary, but a good place to start might be about 3/4 tsp. per cup of flour. Some bread recipes may need a bit more, but using too much baking powder can risk giving the final product an odd flavor.
• You don't mention anything about your recipe except that it is "high gluten." Typically, high gluten breads are chewy and elastic in texture (like bagels or pizza dough), and they also can have a high rise. Be prepared for the fact that your bread will now likely be crumbly and more dense instead.
• Depending on your recipe, you may need to add more liquid to get a satisfactory result. Baking powder/soda breads often work best with a relatively high hydration level (i.e., ratio of water to flour by weight). Aiming for a somewhat sticky dough is probably best; less liquid than that, and the final result may be quite dry.
• Modify your mixing procedure to mix in baking powder with most of the dry ingredients toward the end. Kneading for a long time is not necessary (and may actually be counterproductive, as baking powder typically releases a lot of gas when first mixed with the dough, so heavy handling can actually deflate the dough and lead to a denser product). Instead, mixing (and gentle kneading) only until all the dry ingredients are absorbed is best. Then form into a rough loaf or put in pans. Detailed and extended shaping of this sort of bread will generally not be helpful.
• Get the bread into the oven as quickly as you can after shaping.
• You may need to modify baking temperature and time. Unlike some lean yeasted breads that are baked at high temperatures (450F or above), baking powder breads are probably best baked at somewhere between 325F and 400F to allow time for the reactions in the dough to create lift before the crust hardens too much.