Soda bread published containing a recipe for Soda Cake. In Europe, soda breads began to appear in the mid-19th century when bicarbonate of soda first became available for use as a raising agent. Breads, griddle cakes and scones with bicarbonate of soda, plus cream of tartar or tartaric acid became popular in Austria, Britain, Ireland and Poland. Traditional soda bread, eaten in Serbian cuisine, also uses bicarbonate of soda, particularly the traditional "česnica" (Serbian Cyrillic: Чесница), a soda bread made at Christmas. In Ireland, the flour is typically made from soft wheat, so soda bread is best made with a cake or
Sodium bicarbonate salt has many related names such as baking soda, bread soda, cooking soda, and bicarbonate of soda. In colloquial usage, the names sodium bicarbonate and bicarbonate of soda are often truncated; forms such as sodium bicarb, bicarb soda, bicarbonate, and bicarb are common. The word "saleratus", from Latin "sal æratus" meaning "aerated salt", was widely used in the 19th century for both sodium bicarbonate and potassium bicarbonate. It is known as one of the E number food additives E500. The prefix "bi" in "bicarbonate" comes from an outdated naming system and is based on the observation that twice as much