Baking powder taste

[ladycardamom]

Over the past 6 months, anything I bake with recipe that calls for baking powder to be added tastes foul. These are tried and tested recipes I have never had problems with before. I've even had it happen at a Cafe, I couldn't eat my cake because of the overwhelming taste of baking powder. Has this happened to anyone else?

How much are you putting in?

have you had covid?
that messed with my sense of taste for a while.

do you take any medication that has change of taste as side effect?

I'm just using what the recipe calls for, and they're recipes I've used before no problem. For example today's rock cakes. 250g of self raising flour to 1 teaspoon baking powder. They're so bad I will put them in the bin. The baking powder burns my tongue.

The kids notice it too.

I've always been able to taste baking powder especially in things like shop bought scones, it's awful.

When I make cakes I use self raising flour without any baking powder...always works fine. I know the taste you mean...it's vile!

I find baking powder burns my lips when I'm eating anything with it in. I only used it in one recipe now where I can't taste it at all and that was a really simple one for flatbreads,

Years ago I put baking powder in with the eggs instead of sieved into the dry flour. It turned the eggs sulphuric!
Could your baking powder be clumping in the mix?

I get this and assumed it was something to do with freshness? Try a new pot and see if that fixes things?

you're not accidentally using baking soda instead? I did this once and it does have a much stronger taste.

I had the same issue but it turned out I put in 2 tbsps rather than 2 tsps!

I'd just leave the baking powder out and use self raising flour.

Thanks, everyone. I'll try leaving it out. It's just so odd it's happened all of a sudden.

A few thoughts: it's happened all of a sudden and you've not had the problem with the same recipe before, could your baking powder be out of date? Might be a stale taste?
Are you using a teaspoon measuring spoon or a regulär teaspoon (as the latter vary in sizes).
You've also got to be careful it's not too compacted - i give the spoon a little tap to loosen it.

I wonder if it's too compacted. I checked the date and ok. It seems to be when the recipe asks for SR flour plus baking powder. I tried again today and left extra powder out and tasted fine. Still rose perfectly well too. Mystery

You seldom need extra baking powder with self raising flour unless all in one mixes which don't benefit from the air incorporated if creaming sugar/butter together separately. Or something with a heavy ingredient like banana bread is another example, gingerbread too sometimes with all the syrup. On top of that not all self raising flour is the same so some may have more raising agent than others, some 'plain' flours even have some raising agent added.

I sometimes find I can taste too much baking powder in things too, scones for example, in one of my regular coffee shops I can't eat the scones as they clearly think they will get them to rise higher with extra baking powder instead of just making them high enough to start with. They are yeuk

I live in Italy where self raising flour is almost unheard of. They just sell individual packets of baking powder for a generic 250g flour “cake”. So imprecise. I still make mistakes and get that salty lip burn.

But yesterday I made my first ever banana bread. I’ve always thought of it as stodgy stuff but the BBC good food recipe “banana drizzle bread” (without the drizzle) called for SR flour and baking powder, like a PP said.
I thought I’d gone too far with the baking powder but it came out light and delicious so I’ll be doing that again!

I never add extra baking powder if I'm using SR flour.

My scones have been tasting vile lately due to the BP
Same recipe as always