How did you learn to bake?

[cakemonkey]

I learnt from my mum and moved on to Delia at an early age (10). You can never go wrong with Delia, IMO. Nigella, on the other has waaaaaay too much sugar in her recipes. I nearly always follow a recipe (but will reduce sugar), as I agree with Kneazle that it is a science. Don't mess with a recipe too much and you can't go wrong. You tube has tons of tutorials if you want to see how things should look.

[HalcyonDaze]

Jan 1, 2014 11:30:31 GMT -5 brodiebruce said:

Had an after school / saturday morning job in a bakery so pretty much unofficially did the first year of a bakery apprenticeship in that time......

Brodie! You bake.
Now that is a way to woo wimmen.

[brodiebruce]

Snort.

I can cook and bake. Apparently the Finn was impressed by my cooking as she'd rarely let anyone else cook for her in the past as she was just better.

No wooing for a while. Someone was told they should learn to enjoy being single for a while after the Finn experience.....

[Deleted]

Fair point Brodie

Last year my housemate walked in the house and was narrowly missed by a "flying" copy of Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess. Her recipe for profiteroles is shit and I got a little pissed off I reverted to my trusted blogs (as previously mentioned) and made the most AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG profiteroles.

[kneazle]

I flatted with a girl in London who was quite impressed when I baked Afghans and she said she'd always wanted to learn to bake, asked how I'd learnt and said mainly from my Mum but also at school. A couple of weeks later her Mum was over from Poland and went to put a pizza in the oven with the plastic wrap still on. That solved the mystery as to why her mum hadn't taught her to bake!

[wombatrois]

Snigger.

I'm reminded that I probably cured my parents of any cravings for lemon meringue pie for life when I learnt how to make this at school. For the next month I made one every weekend.

My father has just had a hip replacement so Mum didn't have time to do any Christmas baking this year, so I took on the fruit mince pies. They were considered a hit, so I was very pleased.

[tzarine]

not from my mom, who was a great cook, but never baked

in the then home ec,here i learned in mrs. wagners class that "one never cuts a muffin"
from the betty crocker kids cookbook i got for christmas

i still have never made bread

[Phar Lap]

Books, I bought one or two and started off with them, then gradually added more.  Cakes, biscuits, slices etc. They didn't last long enough to go stale. The only bread I cooked was damper.

[vinnyd]

At my mother's knee.

Sometimes "until it looks right" (or better: "until it looks like this") is all you can say. Flours differ depending not only on what's in them but on atmospheric conditions. Baking in Riyadh needed a lot of adjustment to recipes that worked fine on the humid East Coast of the US. Baking in the winter is somewhat different from baking in the summer.Also no two eggs will be exacttly the same size. In theory you could weigh out egg white and egg yolk as commercial bakers do, but in the real world it's easier just to look at or feel the dough or batter and adjust.

[Queen]

A little from my mum and a lot from books. From the age of 12 until I left home at 17 I baked cakes, biscuits, quiches, breads for the family most weekends.

I rarely bake now but I do like it.


Mary Berry would be my "go to" person for anything traditional. And I have Aletta Johnson's books which are great

Don't like Nigella's recipes - too sweet.

[romily]

From my grandmother - some of my cherished memories include being in the kitchen with her baking christmas cookies, and being always allowed to lick out the bowl...I think all german kids learn baking from making christmas cookies!

I love it because it's so exact - when cooking I often stand there and taste and something is missing but I am not sure what - if you follow a good baking recipe you can't go wrong. My standards are the german Dr oettker baking books, and my grandmothers old bavarian cookbook...

I don't bake as much at the moment as I don't really feel motivated on my own, baking is something I love to do for others as much as myself.

I have to admit I never had the patience to play around with breadbaking - the bread I want to make needs a sour dough starter, and it all sounds like a right old hassle...

[Webs]

I read the back of the box.

[itsasmallworld1]

From my mum and my fav aunt who is a great cook.

[sprite]

my dad taught cooking and my mom baking in our house.
and then home ec, and oddly, a children's cookbook from carnation milk, inherited from my dad's sisters. my sister and i both used all the recipes in it, it was excellent.

then a fanny farmer cookbook (funnier for brits, i know) and when i left home, i got the updated version. i love it, and use it once a week, it just has everything you could think to bake or cook. i like my mom's, it's from the early 70s and still has really old-fashioned stuff in it.

my next goal is to learn to halve cake recipes, because i like it but a whole cake is bad news in a house of two people.

[Deleted]

Jan 1, 2014 18:02:30 GMT -5 cakemonkey said:

I learnt from my mum and moved on to Delia at an early age (10). You can never go wrong with Delia, IMO. Nigella, on the other has waaaaaay too much sugar in her recipes. I nearly always follow a recipe (but will reduce sugar), as I agree with Kneazle that it is a science. Don't mess with a recipe too much and you can't go wrong. You tube has tons of tutorials if you want to see how things should look.

yup - apart from Nigella's Christmas Cake which turns out really well, most of her pie & tart & cake recipes do contain too much sugar, enough that I wince!

[whortleberry]

Too much sugar, and too much saturated fat!