Top tips for beginner bakers

Baking can be a difficult skill to master; and it can be annoying if a careless mistake ruins all the effort you put in. Even famous pastry chef Duff Goldman admitted that he forgot to add salt to his bread baked prepared for over 200 culinary experts one time and had to start all over again! Everyone makes mistakes from time to time. So, to help you out, our bakers have kindly come together to give you their top tips.

1. LESS IS MORE

Elizabeth from EK Bakery: ‘Buy a small amount of good quality equipment. Spend more on less! All you need is a couple of different tins and an electric hand-held mixer, don’t worry about the rest.

2. TEST YOUR INGREDIENTS

Alix from My Kitchen Drawer: ‘Try out new types of ingredients, such as different sugars and flours, so you get to know which types and brands you work best with. Yes, believe me, different brands can create completely different textures and it’s up to you to decide which is your favourite.’

3. YOU DON’T ALWAYS NEED TO FOLLOW THE RECIPE

Seema Latif from Seema’s signature bakes: ‘For example, to bake the perfect éclair you need to keep the temperature about 5 degrees lower and bake them about 7-8 mins longer than what any recipe says. If the moisture remains, even a little bit, the eclairs’ collapse as soon as they cool down.’

4. QUALITY NOT QUANTITY

Kat from Kat Bakes London: ‘Use the best quality ingredients you can…it’s really worth spending more on butter, eggs and sugar because you can really taste the difference. Oh, and chocolate too!’

5. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

Jilly Shah from Jilly’s Cupcake House: New bakers look at the baking world and think "wow" and "OMG" and "I'd never be able to do that", but remember these experienced bakers were new once too. They started out where you are now, and with practice and observation, they successfully established themselves into the baking community.