Years ago, I was at a friend’s house and I wanted to make some chocolate chip cookies. When I went digging in her pantry, I found baking powder that had expired many, many years earlier. I tossed it, ...

Baking some last-minute holiday cookies? Be sure your baking powder and baking soda are fresh and active so they can leaven the dough. Most containers are marked with "use by" dates. To test baking ...

If you've gone to all the trouble of baking a homemade cake or batch of cookies, only to find they came out flat or dense, your leavening agent might be to blame. While baking powder and baking soda ...

Dear Heloise: I've got a problem! Sometimes my cookies, muffins, cakes and biscuits don't rise enough. I was told that there is a test for checking the freshness of baking powder. I tried this and was ...