Baking powder and baking soda are both leavening agents that cause baked goods to rise.  You need your pancakes to rise or else they will be flat and resemble nothing of a pancake, neither look nor taste.

When you are going to start your baked goods, you will need either baking soda or baking powder.  If you are missing the needed one but have the other, you may be tempted to substitute.

Don’t do this.  There is a reason why they are different, and it’s more than just two different names. 

Leavening agents require a reactant, an acid, that causes it to react and bubble.  Baking soda is only the base, but baking powder is baking soda plus the acid, which is cream of tarter.  The baking powder requires a liquid to react to. 

This is why you use baking powder in pancakes.   Pancakes don’t have an acid in the ingredients and only requires a liquid to cause the reaction.

So why shouldn’t you substitute?  If you use baking soda instead of powder, you will end up with flat, lifeless pancakes, just as if you hadn’t added anything at all.

For two things that seem so basic, you need to understand that it does make a difference.  It’s better to know this now and ahead of time instead of finding out later on when you ruin a whole batch of pancakes.

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