Lessons from Baking that no one told me about

Photo by Elly Fairytale from Pexels

Yes, I was one of the many who turned to the kitchen when the pandemic hit and we were told to stay home. I’ve attempted baking endeavors on and off in the past when a random wave of “I’m going to bake cookies today!” thoughts hit. But apart from those short bursts of inspiration and the occasional baking with friends, I’ve never really been engaged in the process for an extended period of time. My baked goods have also been pretty mediocre, the photographs on recipe websites looking much better than the end result.

In the past three months, I’ve baked consistently over 12 weekends and realized there are many little lessons to be learned from baking that I’ve never come across on the net, so I’ll be sharing them with you.

It’s all about the ratios.

Many common dishes in baking are all about ingredients and their relative ratios. As a simple example, a cookie dough will incorporate more flour than a cake batter, for flour is a dry ingredient, and cookies and drier than cakes.

It is important that you have an understanding of what an ingredient does, as how much to add in what kind of recipe will then come naturally. This is why chefs tend to describe recipes in terms of “cups” or “parts” — when they say “two parts flour and one part sugar”, they’re really thinking about proportions, and that’s what you should be paying attention to.

Look for texture.

Instead of following the recipe online to a tee, I find that looking for texture is more useful. What does looking for texture mean? I tend to look for recipes that have accompanying videos or pictures so I can see what the consistency of the mixture should be like.

In this gif, for example, we can see that the batter is soft, but still thick enough that the drizzles hold their shape momentarily. Source.

Recipes don’t always turn out the way they should because ingredients may differ or the local climate and environment are different. When you look for the ideal texture of your mixture in a video, you can increase or decrease ingredients to achieve that outcome.

Don’t expect it to be perfect the first time.

There is nothing more discouraging than getting all excited about a wonderful chocolate chip recipe that has over a thousand good reviews and then not achieving a perfect outcome. As mentioned earlier, even after you follow a recipe down to the gram, it may still not turn out the way you thought it would.

This is a normal result. I repeat! This is a normal result!

Especially if you’re not an experienced baker, don’t think it’ll be perfect the first time. It is important to take note of what the issues were and find out how to mitigate them next time. When I was trying to make a good butter cake, I attempted the recipe five times before I got a satisfactory result, making little tweaks along the way.

(On this note, try not to attempt baking a new recipe as a gift on the day-of. You’re better off doing a trial bake a week earlier!)

Treat it like a science experiment.

Okay, this one appeals to the trained scientist in me. But treat it like a laboratory experiment. Each ingredient is a reagent and they interact in different ways. Environmental conditions like temperature and humidity matter for many scientific experiments; they also matter here in the kitchen!

Remember the experimental protocol? That’s the recipe. Often, you’d go through the whole protocol and make notes, even reshuffling things to fit your schedule or what you have available. Sit down and do the same for your recipe before you start weighing out ingredients.

After baking, scrutinize your final dish and note down how it looks and tastes. Did it turn out better or worse than expected? Was it the same as the original recipe? Maybe you added too many toppings — make notes to your future self to add or omit stuff the next time around.

In all, I’ve found that like everything, baking is a journey. No, you don’t have to be talented in the kitchen to bake, all you need is consistent work, an ability to make observations and revisions, and a formidable spirit. I hope that these lessons have helped you in some way — if you have had any other epiphanies, please share them in a response!

Thank you for reading till the end of this article! Here’s a little more about me:

I’m currently trying to get back into the habit of reading and writing more. If you’re curious, you can view my reading progress on Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/tankityung. Follow me on Medium or my publication: medium.com/tan-kit-yung to see more of my work.