Resolved to become amazing at baking-where do I start?

[DarthNigel]

One of my New Years resolutions was to get very good at baking . I am a good cook but haven't done much baking (aside from basic fairy cakes when the DD's were little), and I'm rubbish at cakes.
Please share your best tips/fool proof recipes with me...I have So far made some passable ginger bread...

Decent scales and an oven thermometer. Follow the recipes. Not much can for wrong if you have these three nailed down.

*go wrong

I always use Mary Berrys cake recipes and they come out brilliantly.

I have the scales. Will get the thermometer. Good idea as we have just moved and have a range thingy and it seems to cook ferociously!
What if cakes tins and things? Do I need a selection of sizes or what would you recommend?

Have a look at Mary Berry's Baking Bible OP. It has loads and loads of recipes, I agree with PP, they always work. At the front, there is a section on what tins/equipment you'll need/likely to use most.
Also: stork is great.

Thanks all-mary B it is!!

I'd just buy equipment as and when you need it depending on the recipe you want to try! It's easy to get carried away buying stuff (for me anyway!) an easy cake to make is a Victoria sponge, this always goes down well in our house. I bake several times a week and this is the most requested. Another good starting place is crumble, nice and easy but very warming especially this time of the year. Good luck! I love baking and I'm sure you will to!

Buy betty crockers cake kits and ready made icing

No don't buy Betty Crocker!!

The sainted Mary Berry is all you need. This book taught me to bake, and I bake a lot.

Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book (Second Edition): Over 200 Classic Recipes https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0563487518/ref=cmswwrcppapi_cUnwAbNZY8198

Get some anodised aluminium cake tins. They are easy to get along with.

Alan Silverwood cake tins are great.

Another vote for Mary Berry Baking Bible - the title says it all

I got it! I'm still not very good at baking however, but I'm only 3 months in to my resolution so I've time to come good

Get. 6 inch cake tin (at least 3 inches deep so you get a good rise) and go from there. Just keep adding bits as you need them.
Shewhobakes is also great for recipes. Mary berry cupcakes are amazing!!

I used to make dreadful cakes. I was bought the primrose baking book. It was great and now my cakes are lovely. I also find the Hummingbird books are good.

The trick is to read the recipe through before you start and follow the recipe carefully.

With regard to equipment, you will need:

A stand mixer or an electric hand mixer.
20cm cake tins x 2
2lb loaf tin
Cupcake tray
Cupcakes liners
Lakeland baking liners
Electric scales

With those you will be able to make Victoria sponges of various flavours, any loaf cake and cupcakes and muffins. Then if you develop your repertoire you can buy more equipment.

If you want to make big cakes get two of whichever tin you buy. I ended up with slightly differently sized ones as I’d bought them separately, which made sandwiching them together tricky. Buy one or two sizes/shapes in pairs!

Choose one cake and perfect it before moving onto another. I’d start with ‘the perfect chocolate cake’.

Also - personal preference - make more layers rather than fewer thick layers. Deep cakes take longer to cook through so can be dry, as the outside has had so long. Making more layers of regular depth cakes means more filling too

I’d get: silicon muffin tray, 2 x 18cm cake tins with loose bottoms, 1lb loaf tin. A square or rectangular tin for traybakes. Possibly a springform tin. I basically do about 80% of my baking in those!

Then choose recipes to cook which you really love to eat. So for me that’s: muffins (all kinds, very easy), banana loaf, brownies, cinnamon buns, bakewell tart. Oh, and biscuits (all kinds!). And flapjack (look up Spupdragon’s recipe on here - perfect flapjack. Omit the Demerara as too sweet with that). But your list might well be different. BBC Good Food online is excellent for v good recipes for pretty much anything you can think of.

Good luck! It’s lots of fun.

When the first stage of a recipe says bear sugar and butter together til light and fluffy, beat it for much longer than you expect to.

It’s old school but the BeRo cook book has been a cheap kitchen staple for years.

A cake tester (or BBQ skewers) for checking your cake is baked!
My cakes are distinctly average and it's so annoying, I'm trying really hard to improve so I don't really have much advice. I do a good banana loaf though (and a chocolate banana loaf which is divine). I like the recipes from the blog Smitten Kitchen, I've used her recipe for Best Cococa Brownies which have always come out perfectly

Equipment lists already posted are fairly comprehensive. I would add a loose bottomed/ springform square pan though.

Go for decent gel colours rather than liquid colouring- a tiny bit goes a very long way!

Make sure all your ingredients are room temperature before starting though- refrigerated eggs don't tend to whisk quite as well, I've found.

I decided I was going to bake a dry elaborate birthday cake for my DS when he was 4. This was after not having baked since being kicked out of Home Ec at school.

I plunged myself in and just carefully followed the recipes and have become very competent. I'm now the 'go to' baker for my family, friends and colleagues and do small commissions when I have time.

I have learned to live by the mantra WWMBD - What Would Mary Berry Do.

Her recipes are far and away the most reliable. Me once you become competent and confident you'll be able to start adapting and developing your own.

Good luck! Baking is my therapy.

My baking improved a lot after I started to use a kenwood chef stand mixer. It makes things much lighter. Excellent for creaming and making icing

What Panda said. Practise the same thing over and over.

I’m rubbish at cooking but I decided to make a quiche every week until I became a quiche expert.

3 months later, with some experiments and disasters in between, and I’d be happy to serve Mary one of my Quiche Lorraines!