How to Fix Sour Pie - The Ultimate Guide

Baking a cake is a joyous process that leads to an even more enjoyable occasion: eating the cake. If you take that first bite and find that instead of a luxurious sweet delight, you’re chewing a mouthful of bitterness, your whole day could be ruined.

The bitterness of the cake is usually due to a mishap involving the baking soda or baking powder. If you notice bitterness before you start baking, what can you do?

Can you fix a sour pie? You can fix sour cake by adding an acid to the batter. The most common solution is cream of tartar, but depending on your recipe, you can also try lemon juice, sour cream, or even cocoa powder. For a baked sourdough, the options are fewer, but you can reuse sourdough as an ingredient in various recipes.

In this article, we’ll explain what causes sour cake so you can avoid this travesty in the first place, as well as provide you with a number of options for neutralizing the bitter taste of too much baking soda or baking powder in your pastry.

What causes a sour cake?

Barring some freak accident or ingredients gone bad, there are three reasons why you may have accidentally baked a sour pie:

1. You have used too much baking powder (or baking soda)
2. You have used a baking powder that contains sodium aluminum sulfate (next time use a quality baking powder that does not contain aluminium.
3. You accidentally used baking soda instead of baking powder

Too much baking powder or baking soda

Too much baking powder or baking soda in a cake will not only make it taste bitter and metallic, but it will probably also make a big mess in your oven by rising beyond your expectations.

If you find you’ve added too much before stirring, the easiest solution is to spoon out the baking powder or baking soda.

It’s best to err on the side of wasted flour to ensure you get all the extra leavening out of the cake. Start measuring again, adding a touch of flour if you consider it necessary.

If you’re beyond mixing and only realize you’ve added too much yeast or baking soda because you’ve tasted the dough and it’s sour, you’ll need to take somewhat more drastic measures.

You have three basic options for fixing a sour pie crust caused by too much baking powder or baking soda.

• Increase the recipe until all the other ingredients match the amount of baking soda or powder you used
• Add a neutralizing acid (see table below)
• Start again

Unfortunately, if you don’t know how much baking powder you used and aren’t familiar with proofing, you may end up wasting more time and energy trying to fix your sourdough than simply starting over.

Baking Powder Formula: Sodium Aluminum Sulfate

Baking soda used to be the quintessential leavening agent, but with the invention of baking powder, many cooks and recipe creators have changed their tack.

Baking powder is a comprehensive leavening agent, making it easy to use in many ways.

Baking powder is a multi-ingredient leavener. Contains sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) as well as 2 acids. One of the acids is monocalcium phosphate, which does not react until exposed to a liquid.

The other acid is sodium acid pyrophosphate or sodium aluminum sulfate. Both acids need a combination of liquid and heat to react.

This formula creates a “double action” effect which is a more foolproof way to ensure your baked goods rise correctly.

Unfortunately, if your baking powder formula is made with sodium aluminum sulfate, that can also be the reason for a sour-tasting cake.

Use aluminum-free baking powder

If your baking powder has sodium aluminum sulfate as an ingredient, the bitterness you might be tasting in your cake might not be due to an overdose of leavening agent, but rather the presence of the metal in your food.

Some people are more sensitive to this taste than others, but it is never pleasant, nor especially healthy. If you’ve noticed that your cake tastes sour, or perhaps any other recent baking, it may be time to switch to an aluminum-free brand of baking powder.

When you’re shopping, you might notice that Rumford’s is produced by Clabber Girl, which also offers baking powder.

Unfortunately, if the aluminum in your baking powder is the reason your cake is sour, there’s no solution to the bitter, metallic taste.

Baking Soda vs. baking powder when making cakes

Baking powder and baking soda are leavening agents used in baking to help items rise, but they should not be confused with each other.

They can be substituted for each other, but with just a few other tweaks to the recipe and the results may not be exactly what you expected.

Baking soda, also known simply as baking soda in many parts of the world, needs to be paired with an acid and a liquid to activate. In any recipe that calls for baking soda, you’ll also see ingredients like apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, or buttermilk.

Is there aluminum in baking soda? No. Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, which does not need any additional acidification.

The taste of baking soda in cakes

Baking soda is a basic or alkaline ingredient , which naturally has a bitter taste. If you accidentally (or on purpose) use baking soda instead of baking powder without making any other changes to the recipe, you’ll end up with a bitter, metallic taste.

Baking soda needs the addition of an acid to activate and help raise the cook , but also to neutralize the bitter taste. The reverse is also true: foods with acids, like lemon juice or sour cream, need a bit of baking soda to neutralize the acid taste.

Also, baking soda is much more potent, so you have to use less. If you substitute baking soda in the same ratio as baking powder, you’ll be saturating your recipe with baking soda.

When you’ve accidentally used baking soda for baking powder

If you want to substitute baking soda for baking powder without suffering from sour cake, you need to alter the ingredients in the recipe a bit more.

Before making this decision, you should know that baking soda only activates once: as soon as the liquid is added. The baking soda activates twice: once when the liquid is added and once when it is exposed to heat.

If you’re substituting baking soda for baking powder, your cake may not rise as much as you’re used to. But if you act quickly to get the cake in the oven as soon as possible after adding the liquid, you should be quite successful.

Here’s the best way to successfully substitute baking soda for baking powder (even if it was an accident):

1. Reduce the amount of baking soda. A general conversion rate is ¼ teaspoon of baking soda for every teaspoon of baking powder.
   1. Similarly, for every cup of flour, you’ll typically need either ¼ teaspoon of baking soda or 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
2. Add a type of acid (lemon juice, vinegar, buttermilk) to offset the bitter taste and activate the baking soda.

How to neutralize the bitter taste of the cake

First of all, you will need to proof the dough before baking it to successfully neutralize the bitter taste caused by the baking powder or baking soda.

So go ahead and dip your finger, lick the spatula or clean the beaters with your tongue - you know you want to.

To fix a sour pie crust, you have to add an acid.  Here are the best acids you can use to fix a sour pie.

Related questions

I accidentally used baking powder instead of baking soda, now what?

I hate for this to happen, but you’re not the only one. I’m sure everyone who has baked 10+ items in their life has done this accidentally. The “now what” depends on when you realize your mistake.

If your cake is baked and you realize why the cake is flat and lifeless, there isn’t much you can do except reuse the cake (see tips below).

If you notice it before it’s baked (lots of people enjoy eating batters of all kinds!), you can probably save the cake in one of two ways.

1. Add baking soda, just a little less than the recipe originally called for
   1. either
2. Add more baking powder

To get the same leavening power, you typically need 2-3 times more baking powder than baking soda. This isn’t foolproof and there’s no guarantee it will work, but at worst it should be pleasantly passable.

How much baking powder for a cake?

The amount of baking powder needed for your cake will depend entirely on the size of your cake and what other ingredients are called for.

The general rule of thumb is 1 teaspoon of baking powder for every cup of flour, but for best results, always follow a recipe that has been tried and proven delicious and successful.

What to do with a failed cake?

There are many ways to save a cake, but the way to do it will depend on the reason why it failed. Here are some of our favorite ideas for salvaging a failed cake:

• Overcook : Crumble it up, mix with frosting, and make cake pops
• Torn or Cracked: Crumble, add melted butter, press into a pie plate, and use as a base for a cheesecake, cream pie, or no-bake pudding pie
• Sour : Crumble your cake into some homemade ice cream before freezing it