How to Bake Anything and Everything

After spending tens of thousands of dollars in culinary school, I learned that a few patterns and rules apply to everything in baking. Once I got used to those patterns, I was able to bake literally any recipe I found online without even having to read the steps.

And let me tell you, if you are a beginner and afraid to start baking from scratch, you can’t be worse than I was. I had a class potluck in high school, and I wanted to stand out. I signed up for the potluck saying that I would bring red velvet cheesecake whoopie pies. I imagined making red velvet half cake-half cookie circles and sandwiching cheesecake in between. I thought I was a genius. But I realized I had never baked before. EVER. Not even boxed mixes.

So I researched online and found some whoopie pie recipes and cheesecake recipes. I got everything I needed at the grocery store, and got ready to bake. But I didn’t have any measuring cups or even a kitchen scale. So you know what I did?! When the recipe called for 8 ounces of butter, which is half a pound, I took out a pound of meat from the freezer and started comparing the weights with my hands. When the hand holding the butter seemed half as light, I used it. And when the recipe called for however many cups of flour, I didn’t know there was a standardized size for the cup measurement. I opened my cabinet to find cups of all sizes and just settled on one.

Needless to say, I had no idea what I was doing. My whoopie pies, which were supposed to be separate little circles, came out as one big burnt piece because the entire batter spread. And then I didn’t know how to make a cheesecake I could sandwich in between so I made a cheesecake in foil, because I didn’t even have a round pan, and then I mashed the whole thing to make a cream. It was just a horrible disaster. I took it to school the next day and no one touched it. Everyone complimented each other on their creations, but they all just skipped past my creature of a dessert.

But have you seen the stuff I bake now? 😃 I have evolved into a new being, and I am sharing those baking patterns and secrets with you.

Though there are exceptions and differences depending on what specific thing you are making, I am going to generalize some things. Baked desserts split into 3 big categories – cakes/cookies, pastries, and bread. These all have different patterns, so I’ll tell you the basics.

Cakes / Cookies

1. Always start with room temperature butter and room temperature everything.
2. Cream the butter and sugar first for every recipe – that means mixing the two together for about 5 minutes until the mixture becomes super fluffy and the color turns lighter. That is air being incorporated for a lighter texture.
3. Add in all the wet ingredients slowly. That means adding eggs one by one, waiting for the previous egg to be completely mixed in before adding the next one. That also means drizzling in the milk slowly while mixing.
4. Mix all the dry ingredients together with each other first – the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, etc.
5. Fold in the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Only mix until you can’t see any more streaks of flour. Don’t keep mixing because gluten will form and turn it chewy instead of soft.

Pastries / Scones / Pie Tart

1. This time, mix all the dry ingredients with each other first.
2. Add chunks of COLD butter to the dry ingredients.
3. Use your hands to press each chunk of butter into the flour mixture – the shards of butter are what turn the pastries flaky.
4. When the butter is all incorporated, add cold liquid little by little.
5. Mix with a fork or your hands in between. You don’t want a wet dough – you want a sandy looking dough to keep it flaky and dry. Making it too wet will make it like a big cookie dough. So add tiny bits of liquid as you mix just enough to make the dough barely come together.

Bread

1. In warm – never hot – water, mix in your yeast and sugar. Don’t add salt yet because salt can kill the yeast.
2. Leave it for about ten minutes until the yeast mixture is bubbly. That’s how you know your yeast is working.
3. Add the flour, salt, and whatever other dry ingredients.
4. Knead it for about 8 minutes to make sure you really got the gluten working and strengthening. You want to go until the dough looks as smooth as a baby’s butt, in the most innocent way possible.
5. Then you cover it and let the dough rest until it doubles in size.
6. Punch out the air and shape it – bagel shape, pretzel shape, sourdough shape, etc.
7. Cover and let it rise again before baking.

No matter how complicated a recipe looks, this is the basic pattern that every single baked good follows. Practice a few times, and you will get the hang of it! That’s how I went from a horrifying burnt red velvet cheesecake mash to baking professionally now! You’ve got this!