Improve your baking in ten weeks

I love to bake and usually have a baking project going at any given time. To keep this habit from further expanding my waistline, I give away most of the cakes, cookies, pastries, pies and tarts that I make. My friends and coworkers gratefully receive these goodies, with many of them saying that they do not themselves bake because they are intimidated by the process. While they may be great cooks, there is a fear factor when it comes to baking, which is seen as much more precise and unforgiving. I am lucky that my mother was an avid baker and I was able to learn at her elbow, which instilled a level of basic competence. This served as a springboard to learning new and more advanced skills. But if you did not have a mother or grandmother to learn from, what can you do? Head over to Bon Appétit – they have a ten-week program to guide you to better baking.

The program is part of their “basically” series, which features recipes that require no more than 10 ingredients. Each recipe will teach a basic skill or two that you will build upon in the subsequent ones. According to the site, the “recipes start out easy and get progressively more challenging, but take a deep breath: We’ll give you all of the tips, techniques, and hand-holding you need to execute them successfully.” Just like Mom, only without the exasperated sigh (what can I say, I don’t listen well to directions).

They begin the baking series with a recipe that is dear to most people’s heart: chocolate chip cookies. But they up the ante a little by adding buckwheat flour to the mix, plus chopped chocolate instead of chocolate chips. Bon Appétit explains why they prefer chopped chocolate over chips and provides an explanation of the “whys”, such as the reason behind letting the dough rest, and how changes in the amount of sugar can ruin a recipe. Follow this ten-week program and you’ll be on firm footing to tackle any baking project.

Photo of Salty chocolate chunk cookies from Bon Appétit Magazine