Nadiya Hussain’s baking tips

We love all of the Great British Bake Off contestants, many of whom have gone on to write fantastic cookbooks and even star in other television shows. Nadiya Hussain, who won Bake Off five years ago, has done both with aplomb. She recently spoke to the BBC prior to the premiere of her BBC Two series Nadiya Bakes, and in the interview she provides several tips for budding bakers.

The first tip concerns the fear of failure that deters many people from even attempting to bake. Nadiya tells us to jump right in and make mistakes, as you will learn from them, improving as you go along. She recounts her first baking experience when she added too much food coloring to a cake she made for her husband, among other errors: “The oven temperature was really uneven, so the cake climbed up one side of the tin and was really thin on the other side, so it baked on one side but not the other. But my husband ate the whole thing,” she confessed.

Nadiya explained that her new program will have loads of baking tips, and rattled off a few concerning ingredients. These included remembering to toast nuts to bring out the flavors in their oil, and when you use spices, be sure to toast them prior to grinding. This tip applies to both sweet and savory bakes.