08. how to become a better baker

As someone who has been doing this for the better part of 20(?) years!!

These are the things I wish someone had told me when I had first started out in a professional kitchen. Or honestly even way before that- from the first time I started experimenting in my home kitchen. Some of these would have saved me a ton of heart break & self doubt.

We are all hung up on being the “best” at whatever it is we do- the best baker, the best cake decorator, the best whatever. The thing about being the best is… it isn’t real. You can not quantify best with a test. What makes the best, the best? Answers may vary. Instead of being the best baker in the entire world, focus on being a better baker than you were yesterday. Compete with yourself and not with others, I promise that’ll take you so much further in life.

#thebest #professionalfuckup

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Start with the basics

Trust me, I know how tempting it can be to want to put the cart before the horse. The basics like cookies & quick breads utilize the fundamental techniques that will carry through your baking journey. Think of baking like lincoln logs- put an emphasis on mastering a technique (the foundation) before moving on to something a little more complicated (the house). Right? You shouldn’t start out with croissants if you’ve never worked with a yeasted dough, or laminating with butter. Instead, start with puff pastry to get a feel for what comes next. It’s also nice to start out with things that are kinda hard to fuck up- you’ll feel better about yourself honestly and you won’t want to give up! Early on in my journey I attempted to make a croquembouche without having made choux or pastry cream before- it was a DISASTER and I felt horrible because I failed.

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Read the entire recipe before you start anything

This includes the head notes, truly anything and everything on the page- they usually contain some super secret hidden nugget of truth. It’s important to read over everything to get an idea of what you’re getting yourself into and everything the recipe entails. At a glance this may seem like a good old chocolate chip cookie recipe, just to find out you have to reverse cream the butter, and whip egg whips for some reason? then you have to rest the dough?? If you know ahead of time, you’re mentally prepared for it. Or you can make the informed decision that this is a project for another day and to try something else out today.

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& while you’re at it mise everything out

Piggybacking on the last tip, mise en place is crucial. What is mise en place? French for “put in place”. While reading over the recipe, gather everything you need for a recipe before you start. I think you should weigh everything out before starting, but at the very least get eyes on everything (and double check expiration dates). By having everything laid out in from of you, you know you’re ready to start baking. Because the alternative is starting the recipe, mixing most everything and coming to find you don’t actually have a crucial ingredient, like baking powder. Which brings production to a screeching halt- thus forcing you to put on a bra and run to the store.

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Follow a recipe exactly (at least once before you go making changes)

Admittedly this one is still so so so hard for me to follow but do as I say not as I do.

The first time you make a new recipe, follow it to the letter. You’ll get a gauge of that the final texture should be like- light and fluffy, tender and buttery? I dunno, honestly it’s just really annoying as someone who puts recipes out to get feedback from someone who “made my recipe” and it sucked. But, they actually didn’t make my recipe because instead of milk they used nothing but lemon juice, used baking soda instead of powder, they doubled the amount of sugar, used no salt, added cottage cheese and whatever other god awful substitutes they felt like making. I’m all for experimenting and making changes but only when you have a baseline of how the recipe is supposed to turn out. Then you know if it’s a recipe problem or, well, a you problem.

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Technique is EVERYTHING

Recipes ain’t shit with out technique. You heard me!! RECIPES AIN’T SHIT WITHOUT TECHNIQUE!! While the perfect ratio of butter, sugar, eggs, etc can result in perfect flavor, a recipe is nothing without technique. So put an emphasis on mastering them; creaming, folding, kneading, whipping, etc. Sure the flavor of a vanilla chiffon cake would be just fine if you threw every ingredient in a bowl at once, whisked to combine and baked it off. No one would be mad at it, even if it was dense... It’s a cake. But, whip the egg whites and fold them into the batter, as you should with chiffon and you’re left with a cake that’s light and airy with a delicate crumb. Technique will transform things from just okay to incredible.

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Use your intuition (or visual cues)

Yeah, yeah baking is like 98% science- the rest is intuition. If a recipe says bake for 18 minutes, but you check and your cake is still wet and raw ( (-; ) in the center, it’s safe to say… add more time. Benjamin the Baker, has tons of super helpful videos that show common baked good as different stages: under baked, perfectly baked and over baked. By learning the visual cues you grow your intuition of what baked goods should look like. Recipes only get you so far and should be used as starting points because in reality, there are so many variables at play.

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For the love of cake, invest in a kitchen scale

Baking in cups is wildly inaccurate. You could not convince me otherwise. Using a scale ensures consistency in everything you bake. Same amount of flour, every. single. time. You may want to make the shift from home baker to professional baker someday, which entails larger batch sizes. Could you imagine measuring out a 200x batch of cookies with cups. Literally, picture it with me, because you’d be scooping like 31 cups of flour when you can just- oop weigh out 3685 grams of flour. Be real with yourself.. which is quicker and easier?

They’re also affordable, most ranging from $20-$30. I love me my little pink escali <333

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Embrace all mistakes

We all start somewhere, along the way we stumble, burn things (and ourselves), over bake cookies, forget the eggs in muffin batter. Mistakes are inevitable, learn to roll with the punches. There is nary a failed baked good that can’t be resurrected in one way or another. At the end of the day, it’s just a cake- not the end of the world. Your friends will still eat it, flaws and all, and with every bite appreciate you a little more- flaws and all. ♡

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