Baking soda, baking powder - what's the difference? Both are white powders, odorless and nearly indistinguishable. Yet both help your baked goods to rise. Without them or another leavener like yeast or beaten egg whites), all of our breads and cakes would be very flat as well as dense. In this portion of the lab, you will devise and conduct a simple experiment to determine the difference between baking soda as well as baking powder in terms of their chemical make-up, chemical reaction and application.