I can cook but I can't bake - help?

Tink_04

I can't bake at all, I can cook anything from nothing, produce a meal out of what I can find, but I can't bake.

It always goes wrong and gets overly complicated and so messy? I want something simple I can use for kids snacks, DH lunch boxes or just something easy that is a good dessert, without all the million ingredients and mess!

Thanks

Linda32

For what its worth I do agree that baking is a science rather than cooking.
You can't just add ingredients as you fancy.


I do have a sugestion for a very quick fruit cake, but I promise it doesn't take long.

You do need to pre-heat your oven gas mk 2, 300 deg.F or 150 deg.C using a 1lb loaf tin.

In your biggest mixing bowl put:-

4oz (100g) SR Flour
3oz (75g) Light soft brown sugar or any sugar you have but not granulated
3oz (75g) butter or marg
2 eggs
2oz (50g) glace cherries
6oz (175g) mixed dried fruit

Mix with an electric whisk until all blended.

Tip into the loaf tin and cook for 1.5 hrs.

If you have two loaf tins you can make two at a time just make sure they are both side by side and on the same shelf in the oven.

You can freeze half although it will keep for a week.

I have made this time after time and got it down to 20 minutes including washing up! :rotfl:

HTH

trailingspouse

A dozen cupcakes -

6oz butter creamed with 6oz sugar. Add 3 eggs and beat. Add 6oz self-raising flour. Bake at 180 C for 15 - 20 minutes.

Decoration can be as easy (2 tablespoons of icing sugar mixed with a very small amount of water) or as complicated as you want.

I struggle to make sponge cakes (which basically use the same mix as cupcakes), but I've never failed with cupcakes. No idea why.

melanzana

I'm joining the "can't bake" club... reluctantly.

But I think it's because I haven't the patience to weigh everything to a T.

I can throw things together and make a lovely meal, but I don't need to weigh everything on a scale beforehand. Eye and taste, ingredients and aroma are all that is necessary! And often being experimental can produce the nicest of meals.

So, yes, I think baking requires patience and precision, which I don't have! Yet...

kerri_gt

few easy baking recipes, chocolate cornflake cakes, rocky road, chocolate brownies. Baking like cooking takes practise, you know what will happen if you put too much chilli in something, it's the same with baking in a way, but just learning what does and doesn't make a difference.

I can make a sponge ok but it's not my fav bake, current fav is date and walnut loaf. http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/23932/delicious-date-and-walnut-loaf-cake.aspx You can use guinness warmed up instead of boiling water too, even non guinness drinkers love it.

Anoneemoose

I started making cakes and cupcakes for friends and family last year and my basic sponge recipe is "everything the same weight".

So I weigh 2 eggs (makes about 12 cupcakes) and if large it is usually about 120g. I then use the same amount of caster sugar, sr flour and baking marg (I use stork or aldi equivalent).

Preheat oven to gas 3/4

Next, beat the sugar and marg, add and egg and a bit of flour and mix, continue until all the eggs and flour are mixed in. I usually add a bit of vanilla essence at this point.

Spoon into cases and pop in the oven for 15-18 mins.

If you want to do a choc version, you can substitute a bit of the flour with cocoa powder (approx 1/5). Then instead of the vanilla, use a a couple of tablespoons of strong coffee - this helps to keep the choc sponge moist.

Toppings: I do make fancy cupcake toppers when I feel like being artistic but I often let the kids help.

We use large chocolate buttons - pop one on top of each cake when they come out of the oven and they will melt and cool. Kids can put sprinkles/decorations on them.

We also get some ready to roll fondant from the supermarket and I let the kids roll and cut out shapes which will then go on the top. Again, these can be decorated with sprinkles, glitter, balls, icing pens etc.

Basic buttercream: icing sugar, butter (spreadable is ok but I don't like marg for this but everyone is difference) and a touch of vanilla. You can also add colour. My recipe for buttercream is 1.6 times the amount of icing sugar to butter. Mix. I tend to find it is better to soften the butter first and add the icing a bit at a time.

Good luck!

mandragora_2

The only thing you need for baking is

time.

Enough time to put some aside, follow a recipe and enjoy it. The thing with cooking is, you need to do it, because otherwise you'll go hungry. Baking? You don't actually *need* cakes, breads, pies, pastries. They're nice, but you can live without them.

The point in my life where I got good at baking was when everyone who might eat and enjoy it had pretty much left home! I realised tonight as the Only Child Left was praising up and polishing off some Paul Hollywood recipe ciabatta was that when he was a sprog, everything was done in a rush, but now I can spend a Sunday morning fiddle-arsing around with it because nobody needs to be taken to football practice/uniform washed or bed linen washed.

Ilona

I don't bake, don't want to bake, simply because most cakes, pastries, puddings, tarts, flans etc have sugar in them, and that's not good. Only bake for small children if they can join in and help in the kitchen.

Try flapjacks with oats and dried fruit. Or fresh fruit, frozen banana.
Ilona

Floozie

I second kerrie gt on the no bake tray bake items. I made some rocky road slices yesterday to use up some ingredients that had been lurking in my cupboard. I used some value range digestive biscuits, some cheap chocolate, condensed milk and butter as the base of the recipe. For the extras I used some marshmallows which I chopped up with a pair of scissors, some leftover dried cranberries and some cashew nuts which had been lurking in the cupboards. You can vary the dried fruit and nuts in the recipe, I have sometimes used value range shortbread biscuits instead of digestives or vary the chocolate you use-plain, milk or white. Children seem to like anything with chocolate and it the rocky road slices are also lovely served as a desert with icecream.

lostinrates

melanzana wrote: »

I'm joining the "can't bake" club... reluctantly.

But I think it's because I haven't the patience to weigh everything to a T.

I can throw things together and make a lovely meal, but I don't need to weigh everything on a scale beforehand. Eye and taste, ingredients and aroma are all that is necessary! And often being experimental can produce the nicest of meals.

So, yes, I think baking requires patience and precision, which I don't have! Yet...

Why not try American recipes or measures with cups? Although still a precise measure its less 'slow' and often I prefer to follow this ( though some recipes I only know in grams, some on oz and some in cups, depending when, where and how I learned them :rotfl:)

natlie

I love baking sweet and savoury, I tend to use my mixer to make it and I remove the bowl to weigh ingredients - I take it off the machine as I need to and I bought an electronic scale as I can measure cups, liquids, g/oz etc on one machine.


The key is to always follow the recipe I find but even this doesn't work - I mad some naan bread in the mixer yesterday but they tasted just like scones - they were actually lighter and tastier than my usual scone recipe lol


You can do microwave baking too I make lovely peanut butter flapjacks in the microwave


Nat