baking novice advice please :-)

[ALovelyBunchOfCoconuts]

I have just started to dip my toe into the world of baking and made my first batch of raspberry muffins last week. They were divine and I would love to make something each week.

obviously as i have only just begun i haven't got a massive range of tins/accessories so i want to try different things each week so i can buy a new tin or or some cutters each week.

can anyone recommend a good all round baking book? and any words of wisdom?

Mmm I love raspberry muffins.

Try the pound shop for tins. They won't be the best but good for starting off.

Words of wisdom would be practice lots!

I'd go on the BBC good food website and just see what takes your fancy to try every week! There's an amazing array of all different types of muffins, tray bakes, big cakes, cupcakes etc on there so you can really experiment, and there are reviews too which will give you an idea of how other people found the recipe or tweaked it. i use it all the time, print the recipes out and put them in a folder. Agree re pound shop for trays etc, if you find you use a particular tin etc lots, you can then splash out. Good luck!

A basic white dough. If you perfect this you can make bread, rolls, pizza base.

I'd second the BBC good food sugestion.

Good all round baking book - Dan Lepard's Short and Sweet. Just brilliant. I'm also quite a fan of Nigella'Domestic Goddess book. Leith's Baking Bible worth having, as is Mary Berry's cake bible, if that's what it's called.

Second for nigella. Highly recommend her feast book. Easiest pavlova ever and some great chocolate cakes.

thanks everyone... best get me to poundland

mike im well jel of your baking skillz ill have to practise for years to get as good as you

i bought a really cheap piping bag last week which was my first rookie move... i was piping my fresh cream stuff on top of the cupcakes and it was coming through onto my hand i was covered and im really shite at piping so i need to practise that loads!

i was going to make banana bread tonight but dh used all my eggs

I made Nigella's chocolate Malteser cake from feast tonight for ds2's birthday tomorrow.

I use the Internet loads for recipe ideas now, and would agree that the bbc good food site seems to have great and well tested recipes.

Also, ask friends who you know love baking to recommend some individual recipes. That way you've got someone to ask if it doesn't look right or you need to swap an ingredient etc.

Also, it's probably an obvious point but its only in the last year that I twigged that I should scribble notes in my recipe books. It's made such a difference to remembering what did and didn't work but it had felt like defacing the books until I realised they were my books anyway

I find scones very therapeutic to bake. my family love the mocca chocca caramel cake on bbc goodfood website and Annabel Karmel's sticky toffee pudding.

Ah thanks. You are too kind.

I use the disposable bags. Usually lakeland. I would also get some nice big nozzles. The little ones are rubbish.

I have only been baking for about year seriously. Did bits and bobs before.

I don't have a Lakeland near me. Not sure if that's a bad thing or not.

I did wonder about disposable ones. Im sure I've heard people say just use food bags or something but how do nozzle fit in?

If I start to really enjoy it I'll invest in an electric mixer. Im doing everything by hand atm. Whisking the whipping cream was a task and a half ... thought my arm was going to drop off

off shopping in the morning so going to get a few bits to add to my cupboard.

For a normal round cake I use the poundshop tins as my expensive ones went all horrible when I was skint and have used then since, I use greaseproof paper on the bottom, also use the disposable bags, the blue ones that are quite thick are good and I usually wash them out a couple of times, the fabric ones tend to bleed through.

I'd second Dan Lepard's 'Short and Sweet'. I made bread the other day (without needing a bread maker). 'Twas a revelation! Simple pleasures an' all that ...

Alovely, have a look on amazon too you'll find alot of things on there and not too expensive, i buy so much from there,every week i have something or other,also Wilkinsons have a good range of inexpensive tins, sandwich tins, muffin, square round etc, i bake alot, but usually use the same tins time and time again.
For cheap books try, The Works book shop it has cheap books great for cakes, cupcakes.

Ah yes I walked past the works today and forgot to go in!

Have wishlisted a few books. its my bday soon so hopefully dh gets the hint

Going to Wilkinson tomorrow too. going to get a nice notebook to write down my recipes. something nice for me and also if this becomes a nice hobby i can hand it down to the dc when they get older

anything Mary Berry - avoid Rachel Allen like the plague - her books tend to have misprints (or she has very weird taste buds)
Delia Smith is fairly reliable too but M Berry is really the Queen of Cakes.

Rachel Allen annoys the hell out of me!

who's that other one who used to be a super model? i like her stuff on tv.

Mary berry's baking bible will be with me soon

GBBO is back soon

You mean Lorraine Pascal, her stuff always looks lovely too.

Alovely, i love baking but my passion really is cake decorating, and with more practise i get better every week( well i think i do anyhow thats just my opinion, ha ha) i tend to make and decorate 1 maybe 2 cakes aweek, i'd love to do more but guess thats enough, so once you've mastered the baking have a go at covering a cake with fondant.

I like lorraine pascale, she has an amazing cake on her website called Graffitti cake, bought everything for it including the liquid glucose but haven't made it yet.

yes Lorraine pascal, that's her. her food always looks lovely. just bunged banana cake in the oven. was lovely and simple

the decorating of a cake looks so difficult! and i really don't like the royal icing stuff so will probably only ever do cream topping. i also hate chocolate cake (yes im weird!).

fancy doing some scones and i love rock cakes, carrot cake, coffee cake. i also love battenberg but that looks so hard!

I started a couple of years ago and started off with easy stuff like loaf cakes with no decoration but do a bit more decorating these days - mainly buttercream though on cupcakes or birthday cakes, although did a Christmas cake with royal icing, but only on the top, could not attempt the sides! Yes try rock cakes and scones before attempting battenburg, I have never tried it but would like to - looks a bit tricky. Have fun, it's great to try new stuff and some things will work, some not so much but you will soon get to know what you like to make, what everyone else likes you to make and what works for you. I am still yet to make pastry - scares the life out of me!

It's funny because at school I was great at it. I've made choux pastry, flaky and shortcrust, I've made pasta from scratch and all sorts of bread.

Don't know what happened over the years but I just didn't do any cooking and lost all confidence in it so it's great to get back into it.

You're not a novice then, just a bit rusty!