Buttermilk and baking soda increase pancake fluffiness by liberating carbon dioxide

The goal of this study was to determine whether adding buttermilk and baking soda to pancake mix would result in fluffier pancakes. To accomplish this, we made two batches of pancake mix in an identical manner. However, in one of the mixtures, we substituted milk for homemade buttermilk and added more baking soda. We measured the resulting height of 30 pancakes from each mix and found that pancakes made with buttermilk and baking soda were taller by an average of 2.4 mm. A t-test revealed this height difference (Buttermilk + baking soda Mean = 11.383 ± 1.3 mm; Control Mean = 8.960 ± 1.6 mm) to be significant (p = 0.0001). These results support our hypothesis that the addition of buttermilk and baking soda into the mix result in fluffier pancakes.