My Five Tips for Perfect Baked Goods

Today I am sharing five tips for perfect baked goods! I know I am only thirteen, but I assure you, these tips I have used in my everyday baking, and I know they work well. When asking a lot of people why they do/don’t like baking, the most common answer for those who don’t is “because I am not good at it.” I despise hearing those words. As long as you follow a recipe, and have some knowledge, you are a great baker. If you make a mistake, those are fine! To be a food blogger, you have to make mistakes over and over again to perfect a recipe. Of course this blog is just for fun, so I don’t develop all my recipes from scratch. They are either adapted from another recipe (with credits), or sometimes I do make my baked goods over and over for perfect them. Okay, enough with me talking. Here are some tips that can prevent you from making mistakes :).

Use room temperature ingredients

Have you ever experienced an oily cake, or crumbly cookies? This is probably because your butter was not at room temperature. I normally leave my butter out on the island for about one hour before using it. This makes it perfectly soft to cream, but not hot or cold. If you microwave your butter, first it isn’t always accurate, but also it may be hot and melt the sugar. This may result in an oily cookie. If the cookie is dry, you either didn’t properly measure your flour, or the butter was cold (cold butter is used for scones and biscuits).

2. Properly measure your flour

I would use dry measuring cups instead of liquid measuring cups to measure flour. Also, do not pack your flour. Spoon the flour into the cup, then scrape off the excess. If you packed it before, that may be why a cake is dry. Other ingredients, like brown and white sugar can be packed 🙂

3. Always set the oven timer for one minute less than the recipe says

Sometimes my cookies get burnt, or a cake has the texture of bread. This may be because you over baked your good. When I make a cake, I don’t even look at the recipe time sometimes. I set the timer for 15 minutes, check it, then gradually add on time.

4. Don’t use ingredient substitutes, unless the recipe says a certain one works

Some people like to substitute eggs for applesauce, or flour for whole wheat flour. I would not do this unless the blogger says you can, or it says in the recipe. The applesauce substitute would not be suitable in cakes, and other certain recipes. For example, Sally (the baking queen), from Sally’s Baking Addiction always writes in her notes the substitutions that work. I would only follow what the recipe says. There are also plenty of healthier recipes that you could find instead, that have the proper substitutions.

5. Don’t let a mistake take you down

The 2nd thing I ever baked was a boxed strawberry cake. I forgot to add the eggs (I’m weird, right?) so I mixed them in when the ‘batter’ was in the pan. It tasted gross (how did I mess up a box mix??). I didn’t bake for a while after that. Then in 5th grade, I picked it up again and I sometimes bake everyday now! Do not let a mistake take you down. Everyone makes them. I’m not trying to sound like an encouraging mom or anything, I just want everyone to love baking. Check out my funny baking fail post to read about more people’s mistakes. At the end we all look back and laugh at them. Everyone is a great baker ❤ :).

Thank you for reading! Also thank you for those following me, I just scrolled through the list in my stats and couldn’t be more grateful <3.