3 Answers
1
Baking soda(bicarbonate of soda) is like a basic riser, usually recipes that call for it also call for salt to react with it a bit to cause things to rise faster. If you use baking soda in buttermilk pancakes it’ll react with the acidity of the buttermilk causing them to be extra and rise faster. Baking powder is baking soda with additives to make it rise more efficiently. Alum powder I think is the main one, might be something else though. But basically it’s like baking soda mixed with other stuff to make it work better. Yeast is an organism, usually you have to put it in warm water to get it started, the yeast consumes sugars to cause the rise, and needs warmth. It’s why when you use yeast you have to wait for things to rise, and then you flatten them again and let rise again otherwise you’ll have bitter dough, same with if you leave it too long. So yeast takes longest, then baking soda is the next, baking powder I believe works fastest and hardest. I think yeast has to be used for breads to get a uniform rise, otherwise the middle of the bread wouldn’t rise. So if you used baking soda or powder for bread it would rise a bit but not enough, and would come out more like cake than bread, cake being a bit denser and a different texture.