I want to learn baking for my family

[clairelv]

all my family love cooking even my six years old son .  i think cook for them is a kind of happiness and i really want to learn more . 

i am not good at baking .  hope i will learn some skill here . 

thank you so much !

 

[SylviaLovegren]

Baking is fun!  But tricky.  You must follow recipe directions exactly and measure exactly.  Start easy!  What kinds of things do you want to bake?

[Lisa Shock]

Get a scale and a good baking cookbook with the dry ingredients measured by weight, not volume (cups). These are hard to come by in the US, but, common in other parts of the world.

 

Start with simple things, but things your family likes, maybe muffins or scones or cookies. Then move on to more difficult items. Yeasted breads involve a different set of skills, but can be very rewarding to bake.

[keychris]

Get a scale and a good baking cookbook with the dry ingredients measured by weight

 

THIS

 

SO MUCH THIS.

 

Why can't hardly any websites that I want to cook their recipes use weights, dammit!

[liuzhou]

THIS

SO MUCH THIS.

Why can't hardly any websites that I want to cook their recipes use weights, dammit!

This is why, when searching internet for recipes, I always append "uk' to the search terms to get UK websites which nearly always use weights. You could append 'au' to get Australian sites.

Cups drive me mad!

Have you read this?

Edited June 9, 2015 by Smithy
Corrected link (log)

[radtek]

It's frustrating to have to learn by oneself with advice from afar and perhaps a book or two to guide. However, practice makes perfect... and it's a good thing you have a ready and willing panel to critique and offer suggestions as well as get rid of the product.

 

In order to understand baking perhaps it is better to think of baking as chemical reaction with a formula, where you want to be exact as possible and also need to pay attention to the order of process to achieve desired results. 

[LizD518]

For me, baking is similar to cooking in that you still have to use your own judgement with regards to when things are done or if a batter is mixed properly, etc.  Just because a recipe says bake something for 25-30 minutes doesn't mean that your oven won't run hot or cool and affect the time.  I always start with the least amount of time recommended and then check it and put it in longer if necessary.  And pay attention to the things you are eating as well.  Find a good example of your perfect chocolate chip cookie - do you like them cakey? chewy? crispy?  Then search for recipes that promise these types of results and read up on techniques to achieve the results you want.

[emmalish]

THIS

 

SO MUCH THIS.

 

Why can't hardly any websites that I want to cook their recipes use weights, dammit!

 

I've gotten used to doing the conversions myself – a lot of things, I have memorized, but I also have a few handy conversion sites bookmarked.

 

Funny thing is I have a blog and even though I prefer to work with weights, since the majority of my readers are in the US and use volume measurements, that's the way I set it up. I'm planning to include both in the future, though. Trying to figure out the most logical way to lay it out.

 

That said, while working with weights is easy and much more accurate, it's absolutely possible to get good results using measuring cups. Maybe not consistent results, but certainly edible!

[SylviaLovegren]

 

 

That said, while working with weights is easy and much more accurate, it's absolutely possible to get good results using measuring cups. Maybe not consistent results, but certainly edible!

 

If you consistently use the same measuring cups and the same flour and are an experienced cook, good results are not only possible but likely.  I can look back to Grandma Nora's angel cake, Great Aunt Edna's sour cream cake, Aunt Molly's chocolate fudge cake, Aunt Beki's lemon sponge cake and my mother's impossibly light biscuits and pie pastry.  None of them would have known what to do with scales in the kitchen and Nora and Edna probably only had a few battered old cups to measure anything with, but their cakes were famous among friends and family.    Oh, for a slice of Nora's angel food with the pink icing...  Sigh.