Can I use baking soda instead of baking powder?
If you have cream of tartar, you can mix two parts cream of tartar and one part baking soda to make baking powder. Baking soda is a base and it needs and acid to react. Cream of tartar is an acid. So once they are mixed with a liquid they are able to react with each other. That’s why baking powder is able to react to just water (it is both an acid and a base mixed together) and baking soda needs something like vinegar or lemon juice to react. If you don’t have cream of tartar at home, mix in a bit of some sort of acid with the cookies, a squeeze or splash of lemon juice with the milk, or even just swap out a little of the white sugar with brown sugar.
