Introduction For me and for lots of people, baking is the BEST! Everyone should learn how to bake. It’s fun, it helps you relax, and you feel good because you create something and learn something new every time you bake. I love playing music and dancing around the kitchen when I’m baking, and I hope your baking space becomes your happy place.
In this book you’ll discover recipes for cakes, delicious breads, cookies, pastries, and other yummy treats to enjoy with your friends and family. Whether you want bread rolls for your lunch, pies for a picnic, cookies for an after-school snack, or even a fancy showstopper cake, this baking book has the recipe, whatever the occasion.
Baking isn’t about making the perfect bakes; it’s about having fun, trying new things, and spending time together. Kneading bread, cutting out cookies, or icing a cake all take practice and require concentration, but with a little perseverance, and some help from your family, you’ll soon develop your baking skills.
So, together with someone you love, pick a recipe from this book, tie on your apron, and have fun!
David
The Art of BakingBaking is so much fun, and I’m especially interested in the science behind it. If you want your cakes to rise, your bread to be soft, or your cookies to snap, then you need to follow the recipe carefully! Here are a few handy tips, tricks, and facts to get your baking down to a fine art.
Raise your cake game
In order to rise, cakes need a raising agent like baking powder, which contains baking soda (an alkali) and cream of tartar (an acid). When the powder gets wet, the alkali reacts with the acid to make tiny bubbles, helping the cake to rise and giving it a light, spongy texture.
Liven up your bread
Yeast is added to dough to make it rise. When combined with water, flour,
and salt and left to proof (or rest) in a warm place, the yeast produces a gas that gets trapped in the dough, helping it to rise into a loaf of bread.
Spring into action!
Gluten acts like little springs that add elasticity to bread dough. Yeast helps bread rise, but if there isn’t enough gluten, your bread will fall flat. Gluten needs to be stretched out to work best, which is why you knead dough and stretch it with your hands.
Cold and crumbly
We want pastry to be flaky, not chewy, and the best way to ensure this is to use cold butter. If you rub cold butter into flour, it coats the tiny bits of flour, stopping liquid from sticking the flour together, which would make the pastry stretchy and chewy.
Sweet and snappy
Sugar makes a cookie snap! It melts when baking, then recrystallizes when cooling, which gives the cookie its crunch. This is why cookies are soft when they come out of the oven but harden as they cool. If your cookies are too soft, try leaving them in the oven for two more minutes.
Chill before baking
Because cookies contain fat, which melts during cooking, cookies spread out before they set into shape when fully cooked. If you chill the dough after you’ve cut out your shapes, they will take longer to melt in the oven and won’t spread out as much.
Before you get going
It takes time to learn how to be safe in the kitchen. All the recipes in this book will need adult supervision—work together and have fun!
If you have food allergies or are cooking for someone who does, you need to check the ingredients list carefully.
Finally, I am a nurse, so it is especially important for me to remind you to wash and dry your hands before cooking.
Baking Pantry Yeast is dried and becomes active once wet. In this book, we use fast-acting yeast. You can use fresh yeast, but you’ll need to double the amount. Always make sure yeast hasn’t expired.
Seeds add a fun texture to your bakes and also make them healthier. You can add a teaspoon of small seeds (such as poppy seeds or sesame seeds) to almost all types of bread, cakes, cookies, or pastries without having to change the recipe.
Dried fruits add sweetness to a bake, but they’re also full of vitamins, minerals, and fiber, which are so good for us. It is easy to add dried fruit to bread and cookies, but with cakes, it is best to follow a recipe that includes them in the ingredients—otherwise the weight of the fruit could make your cake collapse.
Food coloring is a great way to make a plain bake really special. I recommend using color gels or pastes since they don’t change the consistency of your mix. Look for natural food colors that are made from vegetables and fruits, and don’t use ones with artificial chemicals.
Root vegetables like carrots, parsnips, or sweet potatoes make breads and cakes soft, sweet, and, most importantly, healthier. You can experiment and switch parsnips for carrots, or sweet potato for rutabaga.
Butter and spreads are used in a lot of cakes, pastries, and cookies. Some bakes are known for their buttery flavor, but there are lots of really good alternatives made with sunflower oil, soy beans, or vegetable fats.
Milks and yogurts were traditionally made with cow’s milk. Nowadays you can buy all kinds of milks and yogurts made from plants, like oat milk or soy yogurt. For the recipes in this book, you can use whichever milks, yogurts, or spreads you like.
Weighing and measuring
All recipes are measured in ounces (oz) and cups.
Tsp = teaspoon. Tbsp = tablespoon.
The oven temperatures are in degrees Fahrenheit (°F).
Copyright © 2023 by David Atherton; Illustrated by Harry Woodgate. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
