Any Cooking/Baking Tips?

[ZeldaCrossing64]

I really like cooking and baking, but I'm not the best at it. Far from it, really. My food is usually edible, but not the most appealing to look at. That's probably the nicest way I could describe it. I have had many cooking disasters in my life, and I will talk about the most notable (in the spoiler of course).

Spoiler

One time I tried to make a breakfast sandwhich for my younger brother's birthday. A sweet sentiment, but I completely ruined it. I practically destroyed the egg, I dropped the sliced cheese on the floor and washed the hair off under the tap (that was really stupid though, I should've just thrown it away), the bagel was stale, the lettuce was a little rotten, the baloney was undercooked, and there was mayonnaise everywhere. It was so gross my brother didn't want it, and I ate it because I was hungry. I'm surprised I didn't end up in the ER.

Another time I watched a video about how to make a mini pizza in the microwave, and of course I had to try it out. When no one was home, I followed the instructions to the video and made the pizza. Welll, I didn't roll out the dough properly and there were clumps of flour, I didn't add enough sauce, I added too much cheese, and it was undercooked but really hot. I took a picture and sent it to my friend, who had an unecessarily raunchy way of describing it. (Which I'm not gonna say for obvious reasons.)

And yesterday was my older brother's birthday, so I baked him a cake. I made two, actually. But for some reason making the frosting was stupidly difficult, I think I spent half an hour just on that. Apparently you're supposed to have more powdered sugar than butter, but I added the entire thing of butter and had to use a whole bag of powdered sugar to balance it. And the cake ripped when I tried to put the frosting, despite letting it cool down. I think it was just the cake itself, oh and I got cake crumbs on the top.

So yeah, I was wondering if anyone had any good tips for such a novice baker like me. Both my parents know a lot about it, but there's only so much they can tell me. I'd love to hear what advice you have, I think it would definitely help me and other individuals in the long run! ^^

 

[nightglow]

I rarely make cakes, but I kinda dab the icing on with a butter knife. And when making dough and batter and stuff, mix wet things together first then slowly add in the dry stuff. It helps avoid powder clumps. If you want something to have a little more air in it or want to avoid damaging soft ingredients like peas, use a whisk to stir.
I think the way to get better with cooking is just practice and trying out different recipes even if it is for the same dish.
Yesterday I made cookies out of cake mix. For me it turns out better than doing cookies from scratch, plus time saver and less leftover ingredients to store.

 

[amemome]

Baking is so hard! I think I mess up at least one of every 10 or so baking projects because my kitchen's just not warm enough to let bread rise, or because I touched the butter too much and it softened...

My baking tips are to always follow the recipe exactly until you're comfortable making the dish, to measure out every ingredient ahead of time, and to use the right tools. I've gotten the most consistent success by using a kitchen scale and a stand mixer. I also try to practice a lot, and try not to take any failures too personally. I think half of being a "successful" baker is to be able to understand where things went wrong, and usually doing something too much or not enough is the reason why a baking project fails.

For cooking, I think you can be a bit more liberal! But it really takes practice and following recipes closely until you understand what kinds of textures and flavors each spice or ingredient have, and how different methods of cooking can affect those textures and flavors.

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

I only started baking (from scratch instead of using a box mix) a few years ago, so I don't think I have a ton of advice other than some simple tips:

- Get out all your ingredients before starting to make sure you have enough of everything to complete the recipe
* Don't forget to soften the butter beforehand if the recipe calls for it

- USE UNSALTED BUTTER instead of salted butter! That way you can control the amount of salt in your baked good

- All ovens are different.. for example sometimes a recipe will say it should only take 30 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius but it could end up taking 45 minutes. So if possible, test to see if it's done with a toothpick!

- If the recipe calls for a 6 x 6 pan but you have a 7 x 7 pan, be sure to do the conversion math for how hot the oven needs to be and how long it should be on.. Google is your friend

- Baking chocolate and Chocolate Melts are two different things, the first is for making the baked good chocolatey, and the other is the kind that you drizzle or dip stuff in and let it harden to make a chocolate shell

- There's so many great baking channels on Youtube!!! I highly recommend Preppy Kitchen, he's like the Bob Ross of baking to me

 

[Mariah]

Baking and cooking are my lifelong passions.
Anything in particular you need help with?

Number one tip is to always use a kitchen scale. Do not ever use measuring cups. Ever. Throw them out.

 

[Megaroni]

I recommend starting with one thing practicing that until you get it right before moving on to something else. This especially applies to more simple things like scrambled eggs, bacon, rice, basically any single ingredient recipe. From what I'm seeing from your cooking/baking mishaps, they all had to do with recipes that usually take a while to master. You were trying to make an entire meal when you weren't exactly sure how to do the individual components.

I personally started off with eggs. I learned how to make different types of eggs. Scrambled, fried (different types of fried eggs too), boiled, poached, baked, etc. Eggs are amazing practice in my opinion cause they get you familiar with a recipe, there are very few ingredients, and if you mess up the stakes are very low. At the end of the day you just lose an egg or 2. I can send you some of my favorite egg recipes if you'd like.

Another thing that helped me is learning the science behind cooking. Learning why you use certain things in recipes and why certain things are cooked the way they are. There must be tons of videos on this on Youtube to learn for free and the way I learned is by reading a book I got as a gift called The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt. This book is so cool and fascinating and you learn so much about the science of cooking. You could probably just look up articles and videos about the science of cooking too.

Once you've gotten better at eggs and other simple things, I'd move on to simple baking such as mug cakes. Basically things you'd probably let a preteen make by themselves. This helps you get used to making more complex things with more ingredients, once again with pretty low stakes. It's not like you're trying to make a full cake. Also try to make things that aren't very time-sensitive. Try not to use fresh veggies and fruits, don't include anything that needs to be mixed or beat right away, anything that needs to be refrigerated and baked immediately after, etc. This just leaves less room for error and adds more stress. Try to find simple easy recipes for kids that don't require much rushing or time-sensitive actions.

After simple baking I'd move on to simple meals such as fried rice and noodles. After you master these you basically just keep getting more and more complex as you go. You could go from fried rice to stuffed bell peppers to scones to macarons, or something like that.

I wish you luck as you continue cooking and baking and I know you can get better! If you ever want help or advice feel free to dm me, I love teaching people how to cook.

 

[Alienfish]

Make sure you have all ingredients at home. I don't even recall how many times you have to rush down to the store cause you forget that one thing. So yeah read the recipe carefully.

Also yeah cups are definitely useful so I wouldn't say throw them away tbh. Though yeah scales are useful too.

 

[Mariah]

Make sure you have all ingredients at home. I don't even recall how many times you have to rush down to the store cause you forget that one thing. So yeah read the recipe carefully.

Also yeah cups are definitely useful so I wouldn't say throw them away tbh. Though yeah scales are useful too.

What do you mean they are useful? They’re a completely inaccurate form of measurement and a sure fire way of failure as far as baking goes.

 

[Alienfish]

What do you mean they are useful? They’re a completely inaccurate form of measurement and a sure fire way of failure as far as baking goes.

For measuring, but that's just my take. I don't know which measuring system your country uses but I haven't failed with them here and personally I'd probably fail more by weighing since our system relies more on spoons/cups and such.

 

[Mariah]

For measuring, but that's just my take. I don't know which measuring system your country uses but I haven't failed with them here and personally I'd probably fail more by weighing since our system relies more on spoons/cups and such.

How could you fail by weighing? It is exact?
125g of flour will weigh the same no matter what. What if you overfill the cup? 140g will make a difference.

 

[Alienfish]

How could you fail by weighing? It is exact?
125g of flour will weigh the same no matter what. What if you overfill the cup? 140g will make a difference.

True, I think rather than grams there is cups in recipes at least from what I have noticed but yeah it also depends on recipe(s). But I guess it differs what and how you bake things? I agree it's useful for butter and if you eg. use fruits and stuff though.

 

[Belle T]

Not a particularly helpful tip, but just something to keep you from going insane if you're the "watches food videos at 3 AM when anxiety won't let me sleep" type, as I am: If you enjoy baking for aesthetics, bare in mind that while you can definitely improve this craft with practice, many of the things you see on cooking shows are made with studio magic and multiple attempts at the same thing. It doesn't mean you can't make delicious goods that are also aesthetically pleasing in your home, but your home kitchen probably isn't equipped to handle something designed to be photogenic. So lower your expectations on what you can immediately accomplish.

 

[Mr_Keroppi]

I LOVE BAKING SO MUCH SO I AM GOING TO PUT LOTS HERE

I agree with a kitchen scale. For the most part I use a set of measuring cups but if I am making something like macarons you bet I am using that kitchen scale. Also if you are making cakes often like me PLEASE BUY A TURN TABLE AND OFFSET SPATULA. They make the decorating process so much easier. You can move the table around as much as you would like to get all sides and the spatula is th best for crumb coats. If you were wondering about pretty designs buy some piping tips! Little metal things you put inside a piping bag that you use to put icing in pretty designs on your cake/cupcakes! If you are baking and cooking a cake or a baked good that goes into the over make sure you dry any fruit throughly. The moister can throw off the balance when baking or cooking.

Thats really all I can think of atm but I hope it helps a little. Sometime when I get my mothers computer I can send you some pictures of the things I have made because I think they look really good! Have a super happy day!!! <3

 

[ZeldaCrossing64]

I LOVE BAKING SO MUCH SO I AM GOING TO PUT LOTS HERE

I agree with a kitchen scale. For the most part I use a set of measuring cups but if I am making something like macarons you bet I am using that kitchen scale. Also if you are making cakes often like me PLEASE BUY A TURN TABLE AND OFFSET SPATULA. They make the decorating process so much easier. You can move the table around as much as you would like to get all sides and the spatula is th best for crumb coats. If you were wondering about pretty designs buy some piping tips! Little metal things you put inside a piping bag that you use to put icing in pretty designs on your cake/cupcakes! If you are baking and cooking a cake or a baked good that goes into the over make sure you dry any fruit throughly. The moister can throw off the balance when baking or cooking.

Thats really all I can think of atm but I hope it helps a little. Sometime when I get my mothers computer I can send you some pictures of the things I have made because I think they look really good! Have a super happy day!!! <3

I love making cakes!! Thanks for the super useful tips! I don't think I could afford a turn table, and our rubber spatulas are broken. ;w; But maybe I can ask for one from my parents! I like making cookies, too. ^^

 

[-Blue-]

Best advice I can probably give you, is just keep practicing. Experiment if you want to and also follow the instructions on the recipe. Just keep at it and live and learn as you make mistakes.

I made pancakes a long time ago when I was first starting and they were the saltiest things ever. Well not really, but I could taste the salt. We all make mistakes as we're learning. People will probably laugh at your expense, but how else are you going to learn anything in life? I ended up frying some bacon and sausage and wrapped them in the pancakes. It wasn't amazing, but at least I didn't waste anything lol.

 

[Bluelady]

I know that this thread is old but I came across this app called Parsnip (android and iOS supported). It’s like Duolingo but for cooking. It might be helpful for people looking for the “why” in cooking.

The only thing that I hate is that it doesn’t give you the correct answer right away if you get it wrong. You would have to wait until the end of the quiz to guess again. Nor does it have a cooking terminology.

I’m still a beginner so I don’t have a lot of tips. I do know that when chopping food, your hand should look like this in order to prevent cutting your fingers.