Anyone else just a really appalling baker?

[HarrySnotter]

Or is it just me?

I'm a pretty good cook but bloody hell, I really can't bake.

Oven temp is right, ingredients always at right temperature (eggs etc), I always try to buy decent ingredients where possible but nothing ever comes out nice. At all. Family started off trying to save my feelings but when your 16 year old DS tells you 'mum, sometimes you have to just accept that you're not very good at something and you really are a crap baker', with a sympathetic head tilt, perhaps it's time to give up. But I love it and I continue in the vain hope that I will produce one of those lovely creations that everyone else seems to be able to make.

I made biscuits today and they sank in the middle. How is that even possible? Ddog, who is a labrador ergo a greedy bastard, was hanging around waiting for a treat. Did he want one of my sunken biscuits? No. He did not.

Me too! I can cook, but I've given up baking. It's always a disaster.

Humble pie. A stray apostrophe. The shame

Everything I bake come out on the dense side. Still edible but I do not understand how to get things to rise. I see pictures of towering sponge cakes (which I need to make 4 cakes to achieve), huge loafs of bread and large muffins. Mine are always half the height and just not quite right.... Family still eat them at least and claim they're not too bad.

I guess maybe if I had the patience to do the same recipe several times in a row making small changes each time like a science experiment I might crack it but I'm too lazy for that! I want to follow a recipe and it work. And nope Mary Berry all in one sponge doesn't rise much for me!

I think it's all to do with the oven personally.

I'm not a bad baker usually- if not a patch on my late grandma's towering scones and feather light sponges.

I am currently using a mini fan oven (until I decide whether to repair or replace the ancient but awesome gas cooker that was here when I moved in!). it is good enough for cooking but won't let any baking rise or cook evenly.

A lot have said the same to me about fan ovens, they don't allow baking to rise.

If you're doing everything right, it's probably the cooker!

muckycat there might be something in that. We have a fan oven and a cheap one at that - bought when we just desperately needed an oven of a particular size and didn't have much money or time to shop around. (I shall blame the oven from now on!)

I can make lovely Welsh cakes but that's it. I managed to invent hot cross rock cakes last week. Nearly broke a tooth!

Yep. Me too. Can do all sorts of stuff on TOP of the stove but as soon as it's out of sight, in the oven.... forget it.

I too have a fan oven - but my daughter can make great cakes in it while I just turn out leaden lumps.

A lot have said the same to me about fan ovens, they don't allow baking to rise

I've baked with a fan oven all my life though and never had a problem.

Yep me too. Couldn’t bake a decent cake if my life depended on it. I can cook pretty much anything else and get compliments (even from my cordon bleu trained best friend). I’m also really creative with icing etc and have decorated appropriate cakes over the last nearly twenty years for all the family’s birthdays, anniversaries etc. After the first couple of years though I, much to everyone’s relief, started buying the sponge or fruit cake to base them on (ps that’s not one of mine 😂)

I’m rubbish at baking and I don’t enjoy it

I’m a good cook and enjoy cooking give me a few ingredients and I shall make something good without a recipe (have lots of books I just gets ideas)

Baking I am absolutely useless at. I can’t resist adding something and well then it goes wrong and even when I follow a recipe it just never tastes that good

I once made a chocolate cake as my friend was have a group of us round when I gave it to her she thanked me for the big chocolate brownie (it was horrible)

🙋🏼‍♀️

I shouldn’t be a rubbish baker as my grandmother had a patisserie/cafe in a European city in the 1920’s (it should be in my genes).
My cooking is amazing and I shock myself, but my friends and family are always complimenting and talking about the food I cook. Notably, I don’t bake for them
I’ve made rolls whilst we’ve been in lockdown, but they’ve been too hard or crumbly, I just can’t get it right. Dh is going to invest in a bread-maker at some point.

Another rubbish baker here 🥴

Honestly, it may well be your oven.

Neither me nor my daughter can bake anything half decent in her oven. Everything turns out great in mine.

It makes a huge difference.

I can't make anything look pretty but baking always tastes really good. For instance I made bread for the first time today and accidentally grilled it (don't ask) and it still turned out lovely
My dad is useless at baking yet he makes the most amazing soufflés, omelettes, roast dinners

Pastry. It’s my nemesis. I cannot make pastry to save my life.

I used to be better. I haven’t baked really for years until now. Now I’m baking every day. All the cakes and scones come out heavy and not great. They never rise as they should . I think it’s ancient scales and an oven thats too hot.

Pastry. It’s my nemesis. I cannot make pastry to save my life

Read Delia on pastry; it's all about going in with the right attitude, it can sense when you're expecting defeat before you even start.

Ree Drummond white sandwich loaf is the only successful bread I've ever made.
It's so good.

I'm crap at baking. A fair cook for other stuff but terrible at cakes especially sponges. I occasionally get it right but so rarely that I have stopped trying. It's been the same across different ovens and dd can turn out a decent bit of baking in the same ovens so it's definitely me.

I didn't learn to cook until my 20's and quite frankly, I'm pretty bloody good at it. I don't need to stick to recipes and my offerings are always well received.
Baking (however hard I try) is just a war zone. Everything normally tastes ok but the presentation is atrocious. And I long to be a good baker

I'm willing to bet some people's ingredients are past their best - raising agents, etc. and that they don't weigh and measure things accurately, eg a teaspoon means a level teaspoon and measuring spoons are more accurate than your cutlery, or use a cake tin that's too small or too big then the cooking time is different.

If you're making a basic sponge cake, weigh the eggs in their shells then weigh out the same amount in the other ingredients - fat, sugar and flour.

Also there are lots of recipes that haven't been thoroughly tested by a home economist available online in blogs, etc. Often there's an ingredient missing or a bit of the method. I made a cake a few weeks ago which said you could cream the butter and sugar or use the all in one method. Whenever I do the all in one method I add a teaspoon of baking powder as well as using self raising flour as I was taught years ago so I did this time although the recipe didn't state it. It lovely but the blogger hadn't said to do that. Baking is all about science and reactions between ingredients in a way that cooking isn't. Also, lots of people use butter in cakes which relies on it being the right temperature and consistency. If you use margarine it's soft from the fridge and often gives a lighter result.

One thing is overbeating the mix. Remember people used to use a wooden spoon only, don't razz with an electric mixer thinking you are making it lighter. If using an electric mixer stop once the mix is mixed or when the fat butter mix is paled slightly.

fat sugar mix - should be

Me too. My cakes always come out dry. I've got a fan oven so I'm going to blame my oven!