Learning How to Bake

My grandmother used to host parties for ladies from the church where someone from LSU extension services would come and teach them food science related to baking. She could bake cookies with no recipe and if she didn't have the ingredients for a recipe, she knew what to substitute to make it right. It's really cool stuff if you know what you are doing.

I would just start with basic recipes and work your way up to the harder stuff. (ginger bread and other things that need to sit over night are beyond my ability.)

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She could bake cookies with no recipe and if she didn't have the ingredients for a recipe, she knew what to substitute to make it right. It's really cool stuff if you know what you are doing.

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That might work for cookies, but what I've always heard is that baking is very precise. You REALLY have to follow the recipe for cakes, pies, pastries and the like. Bread and pizza are probably are more forgiving.

It's better to add ingredients based on weight rather than volume when baking. This requires recipes to be weight based though.

It's much more precise.

- Alton Brown

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All i know is that i tried a recipe for basic rolls that someone posted on here a few days ago and they came out terrible. I followed the recipe to a T. They were way to dense and the flavor was off.

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Density could be affected by how much mixing or kneading you do. Flavor can be affected by fermentation time or measuring errors. And every ingredient must be exactly what is called for in the recipe.

Second the King Arthur book. Also Brother Juniper bread book has great info. Once you understand the science( or microbiology) behind baking, it's a lot of fun. Especially for bread, ingredients are cheap so do a lot of experimenting .

I teach noncredit baking classes a few times a year, mostly on yeast baking but also a little pastry. My favorite how-to baking books (not just for inspiration/ideas, but for real technique):
--Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhardt. Excellent explanation of yeasted wheat bread hows & whys, plus good photos of shaping, etc. Bake your way through this book and you'll become a better than average home bread baker.
--How to Bake by Nick Malgieri. Not many pics, but a good overview of yeast to pastry, cookies, cakes, fancier stuff. Very straightforward recipes that work, with clear instructions.
--all three of the King Arthur Flour cookbooks (Baker's companion, whole grains, and the cookie companion); the recipes are all solid, dependable, if a bit boring/conservative in their flavors.
--Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman (head baker at King Arthur Flour). This is a bridge betwee home baking and some professional level stuff, as all of the recipes are in weight, not volume, and are scalable/include baker's formula (percentage ratios of all ingredients, so you can easily scale up or down).

Shirley Corriher's two books--Cookwise and the sequel, Bakewise, offer beaucoup technical information related to baking....things like behavior of various kinds of chemical leavening, effects of pH on leavening, fat/flour interaction, effects of various sweeteners and so on. Read both of those thoroughly, and you'll be well on the road to a skill/knowledge set that will allow you to improvise in the baking realm as easily as in the savory/stovetop cooking realm.

Happy baking....it's a magical thing. Don't give up, as good baking requires craft skills developed only by doing. (Kind of like woodworking...)

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You REALLY have to follow the recipe for cakes, pies, pastries and the like. Bread and pizza are probably are more forgiving.

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Depends on the dish. Most pastries and pies are all about temp and minimizing water.