Part 1 : Baking Basics
1 - Find a heat source. When a food is baked, it is heated from its outside to its center, resulting in a toasted, crusty exterior,or soft interior. To bake, you need a heat source that can heat your food sufficiently for it to cook all the way through (for meat dishes, this is especially important, as undercooked meat can contain disease-containing pathogens.) By far the most common appliance used in baking is the oven. Modern ovens allow you to set precise, controlled temperatures for cooking and offer easy access to your food without leaking heat into the surrounding environment. Though less common, it's possible to bake with a variety of alternative methods, including:
- Traditional outdoor ovens such as the Tandoor
- Dutch ovens
- Microwave ovens (technically, this is not baking - microwave radiation is used to warm the food. Still, "microwave baking" recipes exist for replicating traditional baked goods like brownies in the microwave.)
2 - Choose a sensible recipe. Baking projects can range from the simple (staple dishes like bread or chicken breasts) to massive undertakings (like the intricately-decorated desserts you might see on specialty cooking shows like Cake Boss. If you're a beginner baker, it's best to stick to something simple - a simple cookie recipe or some easy chicken thighs. Make sure you have all the ingredients in the recipe before beginning - rushing to the store while you're cooking is aggravating and can even tank certain time-sensitive recipes.
- If you can, measure your ingredients out before beginning. It's not essential, but it makes the baking process much quicker.
- Practice good food safety. Wash your hands before beginning any cooking project and after touching any uncooked ingredients which can harbor disease-causing bacteria (especially meat, poultry, and eggs.)
- Wear clothes you don't mind getting dirty or try wearing an apron.
- Helpful?
3 - Preheat your oven. By their nature, all baking recipes require high heats. Set your oven to the temperature called for in your recipe. Then, proceed to the next step! Leave your oven alone while it heats - ovens take time to reach the temperatures required for baking. In the time your oven takes to heat up, you can complete the other steps in your recipe. By the time your recipe calls for you to put your food in the oven, it should be at the correct heat. The oven will mostly make a noise once the oven has preheated.
- It's tempting, but don't open the oven's door before you're ready to put your food in. Doing so will release heat trapped in the oven, lowering the temperature and increasing the time it will take to reach baking temperature.
4 - Follow your recipe. Every recipe is different - there's no set of rules that will guide you through every baking process perfectly. Most baking recipes, however, contain some or all of the following general steps:
- Preparing your food (for meat, poultry, and vegetables.) Food placed directly in the oven without any preparation will taste dry and bland at best and will cook improperly at worst. Meats like chicken breasts often need to be marinated, stuffed, and/or browned in a frying pan before baking. Vegetables like potatoes need to be pricked with a fork before baking to allow moisture to escape. Almost every recipe contains some sort of preparatory process for the food.
- Mixing your ingredients (for pastries, desserts, etc.) Often, the wet and dry ingredients are combined in separate bowls, then mixed together to form a dough or batter.
- Preparing baking utensils. Pots and pans aren't always immediately suitable for baking. Sometimes, they need special preparation before baking - many baking recipes, for instance, require you to grease your pan.
- Placing the food in or on a baking vessel. Your batter or prepared meat or vegetable won't cook properly if you set it at the bottom of the oven. Usually, your uncooked food is poured or placed into a heat-resistant metal, glass, or ceramic vessel which can easily be removed from the oven (with oven mitts.)
- Cooking in the oven at a high heat. This is what defines baking. All baking recipes need to be baked in an oven (or suitable alternative.) Pay attention to instructions about how far the food should be from the heat source.
5 - Place your food in the oven. Once you have prepared your food using the recipe's instructions and made sure the oven is preheated, add the food (in its baking vessel) to the oven. Close the oven's door and set a timer for the amount of time your recipe specifies for baking. Now, wait for your food to cook and enjoy the delicious aromas that (hopefully) fill your kitchen.
- Take this opportunity to clean the utensils you used to prepare your food.
- It's OK to check on your food while it cooks by using an oven light or by opening the oven's door briefly. If you open the door, close it as quickly as possible so that the oven doesn't lose its heat. If you're worried that your dish may burn, check on it halfway through the baking process, then after the halfway point as needed.
6 - Remove your food from the oven. When your food's time is up and you've checked it to make sure it looks done, remove it from the oven. Make sure to use some form of hand protection - oven mitts are handy because they allow you to retain some of your hand's dexterity when holding your food, but bunched-up towels held carefully between your hands and the cooking vessel work in a pinch.
- Be careful! Pay attention to your food as you remove it from the oven, taking special care not to spill any hot liquids. Baking can be a fun, relaxing process, but if care isn't taken during this step, it can result in painful injury.
- Set your creation somewhere where it won't burn the surface it's sitting on or any nearby objects. Use a sturdy rag, an oven mitt, or a cooling rack to protect your counter tops.
7 - Let your food cool. Food is usually far too hot to eat when it comes out of the oven. It also may not have its "final" texture - cookies are almost too soft to hold when they come out of the oven. Finally, some recipes use the heat of the pan to continue to cook the food after it is taken out of the oven. Allow your food to cool before eating it - if your recipe calls for it, carefully transfer your food to a cooling rack, which allows the cool air to reach every surface of your food.
8 - Garnish or decorate your food. For some foods, external decorations can be primarily used to improve the food's visual presentation, for others, decorations are a vital part of the food's flavor. For instance, a parsley garnish is hardly essential for a baked pasta dish, but a plain, dry cake without frosting is incredibly bland. Your recipe may have specific instructions for decoration or even contain a separate list of ingredients for the decorative elements of your recipe (as is often the case with frostings and sauces.) Give your dish some finishing touches, serve, and enjoy!
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