Where to start?

I am a virgin baker, pretty much. I made a batch of brownies last year which turned out well and have made fairy cakes, but otherwise, stayed away from baking. I'm really keen to start but not sure where to start...I don't want to try something too ambitious and get demotivated early on.

I'd love to try making my own bread/soda bread, apple pie and savoury pies as well as different types of cakes (chocolate fudge cake especially!). Are these hard to do? What equipment do I need?

Any advice appreciated...I really have no idea what I'm doing!

Mr. CooL ICE

I'm not much of a baker myself, but here are some tips that have served me well.

Invest in decent measuring instruments. Measuring jug, weighing scales, etc etc. Unlike cooking, amounts and proportions of ingredients can make or break a good recipe. In cooking, you can play around with spices to your desire, but in baking, it rarely works that way.

Use proper technique when it comes to making anything floury, e.g. kneading dough or pastry. For example, when creaming flour/butter and butter, use your fingertips only and make sure nothing touches your palms. Youtube is great for this.

If following recipes online, try using Irish/English sites to avoid any mistakes in terminology/product use. I love The Cooking Club forum as most ingredients can be commonly found in Irish shops. None of your 'crisco', 'broiling', 'quarts' and other weird words

huskerdu

Good advice LordC.

Soda bread is very easy and a great place to start.

Have a look at the Odlums website, the recipes are generally easy to follow. Pick a different recipe each week and get started. Soda bread and scones are easy and great crowd pleasers.

When you pick a recipe, buy what you need for that recipe. As you go along, you'll get more and more ingredients and equipment, and you will get to know what it useful.

As for ingredients, use real butter, make sure your butter and eggs are out of the fridge for a few hours before you start.

Have fun, and don't worry about the odd disaster, that how you learn.

Thanks for the advice. I've got some of the equipment together, but have realised that my oven is pretty rubbish. It seems to get hotter than the temp it says it is, and stuff seems to go from barely cooked to burned in just a few minutes. Is this a massive disaster when it comes to baking or should it be possible to get used to it? We've got the hang of it now for cooking shepherd's pies and so on but I know baking usually requires more precision?

dee_mc

You could pick up an oven thermometer and make a note of the temperature it reaches as opposed to what it says on the dial; this should make things a bit clearer!

murphym7

I am a virgin baler too. Just started last weekend. Baked a brown soda from the Odlums website, very easy and worked out great.

I also tried a choclate cake from here: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/694633/double-chocolate-loaf-cake

Worked out great as well, did it twice and was perfect both times. Baking time was longer than in the recipe, must be my oven. I am going to try this again next week and try making a choclate fudge icing for it.

Going to try Ecliars next week too, but am preparing myself for disaster.