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AIBU?

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Original poster

Have people just got a lot better at baking?

156 replies

Sunflowering · 05/07/2023 15:22

Or is it just me?

When I was little (born late 70s) home baking was a popular pastime but generally the things people made weren't that brilliant- homemade bread was always like a brick, homemade cake was generally an overcooked sponge that had gone a bit wrong or rock cakes. Or chocolate cake made by swapping a spoonful of flour for cocoa. All gratefully eaten by me obviously but pretty hit and miss.

Now everyone I know who bakes (including myself) makes things which are pretty much as good as you'd get from a professional baker. Homemade bread is a treat. Cakes are almost always perfect and far more elaborate than anyone would have attempted at home in the 70s-80s.

Just wondered if other people had found this? I can think of various reasons- the popularity of baking shows as inspiration, the internet as a source of knowledge, people maybe spending more on ingredients, more reliable ovens etc. But I wondered whether other people had noticed the phenomenon. Maybe my mum and her friends were just shit cooks, but even my mum has upped her game now.

OP posts:
PermanentTemporary · 05/07/2023 18:02

ChessieFL · 05/07/2023 15:33

I wonder if it’s more that nowadays those that are shit at baking don’t have to because it’s so much easier to buy nice cakes, bread etc in the shops. Those that are still baking are those that are good at it (or are keen to practice until they get good).

I do think there are more food magazines/websites/programmes to encourage people now though so it’s much easier to find out where you might be going wrong to improve.

I think this.

One of the many things I have come to dislike about GBBO is it makes baking into a specialist skill. Cakes when I was a kid were fairly regular - we had one most weeks with small slices for afternoon tea - and they tasted pretty good but they were simple. Vicky sponge with jam, airy cakes, bara brith, gingerbread, madeira cake. I'm not a great cook but as a kid i could sling a basic cake together without a recipe by the time i was 9. We only got icing on birthdays. My mum always made sponges with 2 eggs, they were fine, but when I did the same for ds/bake sales, mine looked very thin compared to the huge, iced and filled offerings of others. I still like a simple small slice of a sponge rather than getting covered in buttercream and feeling sick.

woodhill · 05/07/2023 18:05

I prefer fairy cakes to cup cakes or little muffins or a drizzle cake

Never overly keen on buttercream tbh

Leftbutcameback · 05/07/2023 18:09

yep, definitely. Growing up brownies made at home were basically chocolate sponge tray bake. Now they are awesome, with all sorts of toppings and fillings and I could eat them all day.

Leftbutcameback · 05/07/2023 18:11

If I’m buying cake at a bakery or cafe I’d rather have a pastry or donut which I (personally) can’t make at home. I do make great cookies so I wouldn’t buy those.

KimberleyClark · 05/07/2023 18:13

Thingamebobwotsit · 05/07/2023 15:38

This. One of the Mum's at DCs school confessed that she always buys cake mix and then ices herself.

Show quote history

Wouldn’t it be better if she iced the cake?

(sorry, couldn’t resist!)

massiveclamps · 05/07/2023 18:14

People nowadays have a shitload more money to spend, that's the reality of it.

tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz · 05/07/2023 18:14

BellaTheDarkOverlord · 05/07/2023 17:10

The only times I've ever had to bake something for school I always made cornflake buns. Cheap chocolate, cheap cornflakes and bun cases. Maybe a mini egg on top if lucky. According to DC these were the first things snapped up by the kids at school 😂Why go to all that trouble if all the kids want are cornflake buns.

God I still love chocolate rice crispie cakes. You can feel the sugar as you eat them Grin

elodiedie · 05/07/2023 18:14

My grandma’s sponge cakes were amazing, but very plain. Just a thin spread of jam in the middle and sugar sprinkled on top. You have to be skilful to make that taste good.

Agree that tons of buttercream hides many sins.

TrishTrix · 05/07/2023 18:15

I think people make more effort than they used to.

But as a 70s child I grew up with some fab home bakes but they weren't triple layered sponge cakes with complicated frosting. It was scones, millionaires shortbread, traybakes, lemon drizzle cake and my absolute fave which I make when I'm missing my Mum - coffee walnut cake that barely has a relationship with coffee!

My own homebaking is of the tasty but not flash school. It always goes down well at work (and my brownies absolutely vanish) but my French colleague who makes pretty things gets his talked about more!

Lacucuracha · 05/07/2023 18:16

Thingamebobwotsit · 05/07/2023 15:38

This. One of the Mum's at DCs school confessed that she always buys cake mix and then ices herself.

Show quote history

Why is that something to confess? Cake mix is mainly just flour, sugar, salt and baking order.

KimberleyClark · 05/07/2023 18:17

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 05/07/2023 16:35

I think decorating has got better because of the cheap piping/moulding/decorating equipment and endless step by step tutorials available.

Have the cakes underneath all that bumf improved? I'd say the opposite. Everything is style over substance and often tastes crap, but it's perfect for taking a picture and posting on social media.

Completely agree. I don't like lots of icing and I hate dry cake. If I'm going to eat something calorific, I want it to taste good and be a real treat. Sweet, sickly icing does nothing for me.

As an aside, one of the many reasons so many people are now overweight must surely be the huge size of muffins and cookies (US imports in both cases) and the enormous amount of icing sugar and fat used to decorate them, often washed down with sugary drinks. Bring back the small fairy cakes with a blob of glace icing and half a glace cherry!

Also, I was born in the early 1960s and I can confirm:

  1. We had cake mix in shops back in the 60s and 70s.
  2. We had electric hand whisks. It's a mystery to me why anybody needs an expensive machine on a stand when a cheap hand whisk and a big mixing bowl do a perfectly good job and are much easier to store.
  3. We had decent recipe books. Delia Smith got going in the 1970s and is still my favourite because her recipes always work.
  4. Many, many children (probably mostly girls) learned to bake at home. I did. All the women in my family were excellent plain cooks and bakers.
  5. Most girls (not many boys, to be fair) learned how to do simple baking at school. My mum didn't make shortcrust pastry but I learned that in Home Economics lessons.

I still use old fashioned balance scales with weights when baking. The cakes turn out fine.

KimberleyClark · 05/07/2023 18:18

tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz · 05/07/2023 18:14

God I still love chocolate rice crispie cakes. You can feel the sugar as you eat them Grin

Show quote history

I love the toffee marshmallow ones too.

Tambora · 05/07/2023 18:19

I remember when cupcakes were small, flat on top, had a thin layer of chocolate or lemon-orange icing, and came from Sainsburys.

They were absolutely nothing like the calorie-fest sickly monstrosities of today.

Tessisme · 05/07/2023 18:25

InceyWinceySpidy · 05/07/2023 16:06

I think decorating has got better because of the cheap piping/moulding/decorating equipment and endless step by step tutorials available.

Have the cakes underneath all that bumf improved? I'd say the opposite. Everything is style over substance and often tastes crap, but it's perfect for taking a picture and posting on social media.

I have copies of all my DNan's recipes from the 40s, 50s and 60s, and whilst I substitute some original ingredients with modern day upgrades, there is no denying that they produce excellent tasting cakes and biscuits.

I agree with this! My mum was really good at baking. Consistently good cakes, scones, apple pies, tray bakes, fruit squares etc. She and her friends swapped recipes scribbled down on scraps of paper (I have them now). Most of my friends had mums (always mums or grannies) who baked and generally everything was of a really high standard. But the decoration of cakes was practically non existent! Maybe a bit of icing and a few sprinkles or chocolate buttons if they were feeling decadent. Now nobody seems to care about the actual cake. It's all about how magnificent and impressive it looks. A cake version of the Taj Mahal or some such thing. Amazing talent required admittedly. But the ratio of butter cream to sponge is waaaay off😆

Sugarfree23 · 05/07/2023 18:31

I definitely think mixers being cheaper makes a difference. The best bakers I knew as a child both owned Kenwood Chefs.

Fannieannie63 · 05/07/2023 18:33

My mum was a wonderful home baker and cook . I remember Janet a bake off contestant from years ago saying that her mum would bring out ‘an apple pie that looked like The Himalayas’ and it’s true my mum lacked finesse but everything was wonderful. She cooked, baked, made my clothes, knitted and made my dolls clothes. She really was amazing. She started as a child knitting socks for soldiers. She made beautiful things for everyone’s baby. She was amazing.

MustBeThursday · 05/07/2023 18:34

I agree OP. My DM had a good housekeeping book of children's party cakes when I was a child (early 90s). I bought a copy off eBay a few years ago for the memories - the photos of what would have been considered a home made cake very well done then looks so amateur compared to the cakes people churn out now.

Fannieannie63 · 05/07/2023 18:34

I’m forgot to say I was born in 1960

Meeting · 05/07/2023 18:35

It definitely helps that there is more access to recipes which have reviews so you know whether they're any good. Oh and ovens are a lot better.

Anyotherdude · 05/07/2023 18:36

One of the reasons is that the ingredients available now are much cheaper in comparison with then, I think. My DM would have had a fit if I had made a cake using real butter, rather than margarine for starters!
Then there is the greater availability of decent mixers: a good stand mixer wasn’t available back then as it cost half as much as a twin tub, so we made do with flimsy hand mixers or a wooden spoon. Better tools produce much better results, and most of my peers now have a decent set of kitchen gadgets that they rely on…

BoohooWoohoo · 05/07/2023 18:40

I learned to cook from tv and the internet. Technology means that previously laborious tasks like whipping cream and making butter cream is very easy and we can buy professional standard ingredients like colouring to make high quality bakes. If things go wrong I can get help too.

Oblahbla · 05/07/2023 18:41

Agree with the style over substance comments - the icing to cake ratio has got completely out of hand. Both DMum and DGran were excellent bakers - pastry, scones, cakes.

I especially love a good, plain cake like a madeira or a rice cake (Bero recipe), maids of honour, rock cakes, tea breads, ginger cake or parkin and a really rich fruit cake.

American muffins with 3 inches of icing piled on the top, not so much. The cakes you see in supermarkets which have loads of icing then practically a box of chocolates scattered over the top make me feel a bit queasy.

Blanketpolicy · 05/07/2023 18:43

my baking skills were restricted to home ec at school, my mum (who had a narrow repertoire) and the bero recipe book!

Internet is the big difference!

KimberleyClark · 05/07/2023 18:49

Does a stand mixer really produce that much better results than a hand held electric mixer?

Sugarfree23 · 05/07/2023 18:53

KimberleyClark · 05/07/2023 18:49

Does a stand mixer really produce that much better results than a hand held electric mixer?

Maybe / maybe not, could be the people who owned them baked more often so became better at it.

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