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Baking can be different things to different people. While as an experienced baker, I use baking to unwind and relax, it can provide the opposite stimulus to someone who has just started baking. While most of us can eat almost anything that we cook as long as it is not burnt, raw or over salted, the same cannot be said about baking. Unsuccessful baking experiments generally end up in the garbage bin sooner rather than later, instilling a fear of failure in beginners who are learning this cooking technique. Keeping this phenomenon in mind, we provide you here with a list of some online baking tips for beginners that will help you get better baking results and become friends with your oven.

• Always Start Simple: Baking is a skill that needs to be learned step by step. You can start out trying to make a three tiered cake as your first baking project, but it is a given that you will somehow mess up. Choose and try easy recipes in the beginning since this will not only result in success most of the time, it will also give you the required confidence to handle complicated recipes in the future. As a beginner, do not go for a recipe where the preparation time is more than thirty minutes or the number of ingredients is more than 10.

• Do Not Substitute: While cooking food, we often substitute one thing for the other and it still turns out to be tasty and edible. However, unless a sub is mentioned in your baking recipe, it is best to use all original ingredients. The key to do this is to check that you have all ingredients in your pantry and fridge before you start mixing them. If you do not have all the ingredients for a recipe, select a different recipe or do not start till you buy all of them.

• Get Everything Together Before You Start: Timing is quite crucial in baking, and therefore it is important that you have everything at one place before you start mixing your ingredients. Beginners often get confused and add things to the recipe before or after they are supposed to be added. This will definitely result in imperfect products. So have everything on hand before you take out the mixing bowls.

• Preheat The Oven: You might get so mixed up preparing your dough or batter that when the time comes to put it in the oven, you will find that you have forgotten to preheat it. Not preheating your oven, or letting your batter stand for long after it has been prepared does not make for good baking. Always ensure that your oven is preheated at the right temperature before you put your dough or batter in it. Otherwise be prepared for partially raw or burned cookies and cakes.

• Use The Correct Measures: Not mixing ingredients in the proper ratio when baking is a major cause of failed baking attempts. If you want your recipe to turn out properly, take care to mix everything in the exact amount that it is mentioned—no more, no less. Remember the main fundamentals of baking are proportion, temperatures (ingredients and ovens) and timing. Getting these right will take you long on the way to successful baking.

If there was one thing that a kitchen could easily be likened to, it would be a chemistry lab. We keep mixing different ingredients and generally end up creating dishes that are as perfect as they were in the cookbook. Other times however, things can prove to be a total disaster, just like an experiment gone wrong in a school chemistry lab. However, unlike chemistry lab disasters, most cooking mistakes can be tweaked and altered and edible food salvaged from the destruction. Even the best of cooks at times end up adding more salt or spices and overcooking and undercooking food. Given below are easy methods of undoing the most common cooking mistakes that should help you become a better person in the kitchen.

Too much salt in food: Putting in more than the required amount of salt in food is an extremely common mistake. At the same time, it is so noticeable that it can easily render your dish inedible. If you have added too much salt to a soup or gravy, then the best idea here is to add a little more water to balance the salt. However, if your gravy is already too watery, then you can peel and cut a raw potato into slices and drop these slices into your gravy. Once the potato slices become translucent, take them out and check the salt in your dish again. In most cases, this trick should be able to get your salt level to edible. You can also add a tomato or two if your recipe can take it, since unlike potato slices; these cannot to be taken out and thrown.

Gravy or soup is very thin: The easiest method of thickening a watery soup or gravy is to add corn flour or corn starch to it. Mix a little corn starch into water first and then add it to your hot gravy or soup, bring to a boil and you will find that your soup has turned miraculously thick. Use corn starch in very small portions, since this is quite a potent thickener. If you do not have corn starch, then use a couple or two tablespoons of all purpose flour. Dried potato flakes can also accomplish the same job.

Burnt vegetables and meat: There are various ways of tackling burnt food. If we are talking about solid veggies, stir fries or meat pieces here, then the first thing you should do when you notice that your food is burnt is to stop stirring, since this will mix the burnt food pieces everywhere. Take out the food that is not burnt from the top of the pan and in most cases you will find that this is still edible. If you’ve got food sticking to the bottom of the pan, then soak your pan in hot water with some dishwashing detergent overnight. You will be able to clean out your vessel easily the next day.
Burnt soups and custards: Custards and cream soups have an amazing tendency to catch the pan when you are not looking. If you find your custard sticking to the bottom of the pan, then stop stirring and pour out the good portion into another vessel. If this portion does not smell burnt, then you can easily cook it till it is done and serve.