Step up your baking game with these 5 tips from the experts
'All I could bake was doorstops,' baker John Dale says of when he first started
Baking can result in impressive and delicious creations when it's done right — but can be discouraging when it doesn't work out.
From bread to pastries to cakes, we sought advice from bakers on P.E.I. on how to make sure your creations have a higher chance of succeeding.
1. Use good-quality ingredients
The right ingredients are the building blocks of what you're making, agree Island bakers.
"You don't need to add sugar and milk and all of these things," says John Dale, bakery manager of Receiver Breadworks, of making bread. "It needs to be allowed to ferment and create its good natural flavours."
Angelica McKann, also known as Angel, is the owner and head baker at True Loaf and sells sourdough breads and baked goods at the Charlottetown Farmer's Market.
The better you get at it, the more you enjoy it too. Just don't give up.— Chelsea Willis
Sourdough is made with a culture of naturally-occurring yeast and bacteria rather than dry yeast. McKann has several different kinds of culture, all of which originated from one that was started more than 100 years ago in Italy and was gifted to her by a travelling friend.
"A friend of mine was working in a biodynamic farm in Italy and she dried [the culture] and then brought it over to Canada," she explained.
"That's actually how I started making bread here, because I had this amazing culture that worked so much better than any one I had ever made before."
Angelika Reich, a pastry chef and the owner of Angelika's German Pastry, also stressed the importance of the right ingredients. She uses an imported cherry liqueur for her black forest torte — one of her most popular products.
"It's what gives the real flavour to a black forest cake or torte. It wouldn't be the same taste without that," she said.
2. Get a thermometer
Temperature is very important to baking — and with bread, you also want to check the temperature of your dough.
"You need to know the temperature of your ingredients plus the temperature of the air around it," said Dale. "If you can keep those things consistent, then the rest of it falls into place."
Reich added that oven temperature is very important for some sweet creations, like cheesecake.
"Cheesecake has to bake at a low temperature and it should be covered," she said, adding that 300 degrees Fahrenheit is usually a good temperature for cheesecake. She also recommends using a water bath around the cheesecake to ensure it stays moist.
"You have to have time when you bake a cheesecake, but it's worth it," she said.
Chelsea Willis, who runs Butter Bakery out of her home, said a thermometer is essential when making cakes and other sweets. She uses hers to make sure sugar or egg whites are cooking at the right temperature, or to check the centre of a pie to make sure it's cooked through.
3. Weigh and measure
Whether you need a scale or measuring cups depends on what you're making, say the bakers.
If you're baking bread, you'll want to get out a scale for your ingredients.
"You should weigh everything," said Dale. "Everybody's cupfuls of flour and cupfuls of water are different."
McKann also urges would-be-bakers to learn how to measure out ingredients on a scale.
"Your bread will come out perfect every time when you're using a scale," she said. "When you're using measuring cups, I always find it comes out slightly different and you always wonder why."
Willis uses a scale when she's making bread, but she uses measuring cups when baking cake.
"Really when you follow the recipes it shouldn't be too hard," added Reich.
4. Patience and practice
With practice and patience, Dale believes, anyone can become a successful baker.
He recalls abut 15 years ago when he was gifted a bread machine.
"All I could bake was doorstops with it," he laughed.
He said he honed his art through practice, adding "that means you have to eat a lot of bread or have friendly neighbours that don't mind eating your bread."
Willis said all that practice pays off.
"When I was going through culinary school I said I would never, ever do cakes for a living," she said. "[Cakes are] all I'm doing right now, so I think if you just practice it and the better you get at it, the more you enjoy it too. Just don't give up."
5. Embrace the challenge
Baking isn't easy, say those who make a career out of doing it, and for many the challenge is what they love most about it.
"It's structured. It's a very disciplined kind of thing so it keeps you interested," said Dale. "If you have a tendency to have your mind wander a bit, baking doesn't let you."
Willis said she loves doing "anything that takes a lot of time and precision" — which is what she likes about baking.
"With cooking you can throw something in and hope it turns out but with baking you have to follow everything so exact," she said. "I really like to plan things out."
McKann admits the process itself "can get fairly tedious" when making a large quantity of bread like she does, but she said trying new things keeps her interested.
"I've started to make different kinds of breads, like a brioche and a panettone that are really difficult to make with sourdough," she said. "It's taking that much more experience of learning how to take care of the culture to be able to make complicated breads from it."
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