Baking is as much an art as it is a science and whether you are a beginner who has just started experimenting, or an expert looking for a new challenge in baking; there are certain rules of baking to follow which will guarantee that you produce a truly scrumptious dish every time you enter the kitchen! The ingredients you choose, to the temperature you cook at; following rules like this will turn a standard cake or cookie from tasty to a moreish, crumbly and moist mixture that you’ll want to share with all your friends and family.

Understanding The Ingredients

Ingredients, the ‘building blocks’ for anything you decide to bake, are an essential part of cooking and for the majority of cakes and cookies; the ingredients are flour, sugar, butter, eggs and a raising agent such as baking powder or soda. They are essential for what you are cooking as they are for flavor; the flour gives cake or cookies it’s structure, the sugar provides the sweetness, butter gives it’s moistness, eggs hold it together and baking soda or powder causes it to rise perfectly when put into the oven. Always use the best and freshest ingredients you can buy, and try to be precise when measuring out what you need; just a small difference could mean the difference between producing perfectly cooked or a burnt cake or cookie! 

Tips for Baking Perfect Cakes

• Ingredients should always be at room temperature; lumpy cakes may be produced with a room temperature butter and egg, as these can make your batter too lumpy or cause you to overmix it, and therefore the cake may turn out flat rather than light and fluffy. 
• Do not overmix: Ingredients must be mixed well enough so that they have all just been combined, and when the batter is nearly mixed take care not to mix it too much or it will turn out tough and flat; handle the batter very delicately. 
• Make sure that the oven is pre-heated properly; this should never be skipped as it has been proven that a cake put into an oven not properly heated, will end up cooked on the outside with an under-cooked gooey center, which will appear to have cooked but this is just where the butter has burned! 
• The choice of tin: The size of the baking tin you use is just as important as the material you use; darker metals produce an evenly cooked cake than light ones, and it’s advised to grease or line your tin with baking paper. 
• Checking when the cake is cooked: To test if the cake is cooked, simply insert a skewer or toothpick into the center of the cake; if it comes out with nothing on it then the cake is ready. Do not do this too many times, however; the opening and closing of the oven door will decrease the temperature causing your cake to fall in the middle. 

How to Bake Delicious Cookies

• Cookies are just as easy to bake as any complicated cake, and are also delicious to eat. The recipe may also be changed very easily, with the changing of just one or two ingredients, or varying the cooking time: 

• Ingredients should always be at room temperature; lumpy cakes may be produced with a room temperature butter and egg, as these can make your batter too lumpy or cause you to overmix it, and therefore the cake may turn out flat rather than light and fluffy. 
• Do not overmix: Ingredients must be mixed well enough so that they have all just been combined, and when the batter is nearly mixed take care not to mix it too much or it will turn out tough and flat; handle the batter very delicately. 
• Make sure that the oven is pre-heated properly; this should never be skipped as it has been proven that a cake put into an oven not properly heated, will end up cooked on the outside with an under-cooked gooey center, which will appear to have cooked but this is just where the butter has burned! 
• The choice of tin: The size of the baking tin you use is just as important as the material you use; darker metals produce an evenly cooked cake than light ones, and it’s advised to grease or line your tin with baking paper. 
• Checking when the cake is cooked: To test if the cake is cooked, simply insert a skewer or toothpick into the center of the cake; if it comes out with nothing on it then the cake is ready. Do not do this too many times, however; the opening and closing of the oven door will decrease the temperature causing your cake to fall in the middle. 

Mistakes To Avoid While Baking

Like any baking process, you may encounter some mistakes but this doesn’t matter as long as you learn to recognize them and try to avoid: overmixing ingredients, oven not preheated, expired raising agents, room temperature ingredients not used, wrong oven temperature and not cooling the cake or cookies before decorating. 

Tools Needed for Baking 

Measuring cup, measuring spoons, mixing bowls, whisk or electric mixer, baking sheets or tins, a cooling rack, a spatula, and baking paper. 

Decorating Cakes and Cookies

It’s believed that image as much as taste is just as important, therefore decorating your cake or cookies really brings it to life. With a cake, the simple but very effective decorating method is to use butter cream or ganache or fruits and cream, whereas a cookie can have icing piped onto it or be dunked in chocolate and have sprinkles added to it. Always start with simple decorations and move on. 

Conclusion

Becoming the perfect cake and cookie baker will be an art that will take a while to master, however; after lots of practice you will be able to create cakes that you feel very proud of and in reality, we can all produce a perfect cake or cookie if we try! It isn’t just the final outcome of eating a perfect cake or cookie that makes baking such an enjoyable activity, but the whole experience of making them; a cake is perfect for giving to a friend or family member.