I'm a full-time mummy

Thanks for stopping by my site! I'm so glad that you'll be venturing into the world of baking. My son adores helping me out in the kitchen. He's my adorable sous chef. I hope you and your son have as much fun as we do!

Hello Lisa!

Thanks for the follow! I hope I'll be able to make some nice baked foods for the family once I learned the skills... (and of course get ready all the equipments and ingredients! )

I love baking too, but hardly do it and have lots to learn. My boy's first birthday cake was a joint effort between hubby and I; luckily it turn out well.

Hubby's birthday cake was a flop and he told me to use 1/4 of all ingredients in future to reduce wastage. Hmmph!!!

Hi MieVee!
Oh another sifu I found! Muahahah.... you must share your recipes!! But I'm taking it slow cos I want to be ready before we go and buy the oven, equipments and stuff! Any suggestions or tips?

I am not a situ at all; my good friend is but she's in Singapore. I use the recipes from Allrecipes.com; Carrot Cake is easy to bake and yummy. That's my boy's birthday cake.

We happen to have an Electrolux oven, my friend said it's a good one.

I bought the baking accessories from Isetan KLCC and Jusco out of convenience. The best is go to a specialized shop selling these kachangs. Let me know if you find a good one.

Have fun!

Baking is so much fun! I hope you enjoy it!  If you are going to buy a new oven, might I suggest a convection oven?  They have a fan in the back that helps distribute the heat which makes for more even baking!  I can't wait to read about your adventure!

~ Busy Buzzer
<a href="http://www.buzzingthedayaway.com">Buzzing the Day Away</a>

Hi MieVee,
Anybody who can cooks better than me is a sifu to me hehehheh. Thanks for the tips on what oven brand to look out for!

Hello Busy Buzzer!
I'm already getting excited reading the books and looking at the awesome yummylicious baked food pictures! Thanks for your tips on getting the convection oven!

Good luck! Baking is one of those things I wish I was good at...the simple recipes are ok by me, but getting past those or trying anything fancy is more like a recipe for disaster in our house! Have a great time learning!

Hello lumpsonablog!
Thanks! Keeping my fingers crossed! I want to make this work!

G'Day Darl! Dropping by from SITS wanted to show u some comment love (: i love baking! Well cooking in general really i make 80% of what i cook myself from scratch, im sure you will love it! Hoping you will stop by and have a looksee at what i get up too! Im off to check out more of your posts!

Hi full-time mummy,

Welcome to the world of baking!

The starting journey is probably the most difficult. When I started I had no idea on what the books are talking about. Finding appropriate resources online and in the library is important. Some books/websites are alot more detailed than others. Pictures do help alot.

Some useful websites would be:
1) http://www.joyofbaking.com/
2) http://www.baking911.com/ (my favourite helpline)

Just my 2 cents worth of tips:
1) Start out with the easiest recipes. Most cookies and butter cakes are considered friendly for beginners.

2) Try to bake using weight measurements rather than cup measurements (except for leavening agents which are measured in teaspoons or tablespoons rather than by weight). For cup measurements, the amount vary depending on the type of cup used. For example, there is the australian cup, japanese cup, US cup etc. All these cups have different capacities. Different authors use different cups depending on their country of origin.

3) I always use unsalted butter for baking, rather than using shortening and margarine. Up to individual's preference.

4) Most recipes use large eggs, each weighing 55-60g including weight of shell.

5) Basic equipment and materials will include :
- electric beater (either stand beater or handheld beater will do
- fine) flexible rubber spatula
- balloon whisk
- flour sieve
- baking/parchment paper
- common used baking pans: 7-inch(18cm), 8-inch(20cm) and 9-inch(23cm) round pans are most commonly used. 8-inch square pan. cookie trays (depending on your oven size). cupcake pans.
- Food grade brush for oiling pans
- a set of measuring spoons
- mixing bowls. preferably have at least a metal mixing bowl.
- wire rack for allowing bake goods to cool
- weighing scale if using weight measurements. can be analog or digital. Digital scale preferred.
- rolling pin for cookies and tarts

6) Always read up the recipe carefully and understand it before starting out to bake.

7) When in doubt, do not attempt to bake.

8) Most recipes use castor sugar or superfine sugar.

9) Bring all ingredients to room temperature (unless otherwise stated), eg milk, eggs, butter. Most of the time, the butter required should be adequately softened but not overly soft and greasy.

10) Follow recipes exactly when starting to bake. After gaining some experience and confidence, you may then attempt to tweak the recipes or substitute ingredients.  

Cheers and happy baking!

Bakertan (www.bakinglibrary.blogspot.com)
Zhuoyuan

Hello Zhuoyuan!

Thank you so much for your long feedback! Totally and absolutely appreciate it!

I've actually bookmarked the 2 sites you gave and yes, I love them too! Am going to read through the books, then check out what oven to get, equipments and so on.

FYI, the reason you can't leave a comment is bcos' most likely u're using IE8 when you browse my blog, I'm still waiting for the miracle solution to rectify this bug! Until then, my IE8 users can leave their comments at the comment box on top right sidebar of my blog

Hi full-time mummy,

For fan-forced ovens aka convection ovens, the temperature to set is usually lower than what is stated in the recipe. For example, if the recipes states 180 degrees C, set it to 160 degrees C on the fan-forced oven. I do not have this issue as I am using a conventional oven (w/o fan)

Some things you may want to read up first:

1) Preparation of pans, how to line pans etc.

2) How to cream butter. I covered this on my blog. bakinglibrary.blogspot.com/.../...ream-butter.html

3) Understand the roles of sugar, butter, flour and eggs. How these work in baking.

4) Types of flour: cake flour, bread flour, all purpose flour, self-raising flour etc. Read on the gluten content too.

5) Beating whole eggs with sugar (just eggs and sugar alone). Usually if recipes state beat until thick and fluffy, it means beat untill the 'ribbon' stage. Meaning that when the beater is lifted, the batter that is returning back to the main bulk will not level immediately. Instead, it will stay for about 20seconds or more. This is usually used for whole egg sponge cakes.

6) Beating egg whites with sugar (known as meringue). Stages of beating egg whites. Soft peak and stiff peak etc. Meringue has a lot of uses.

7) Difference between baking powder and baking soda (aka bicarbonate of soda).

8) Substituting one pan size for another.

9) Read up a on chocolate since it is common flavour. How to melt chocolate. Different types of chocolate. Storing chocolate.

10) Difference between vanilla extract (natural) and vanilla essence(artificial),the most common flavouring. For a start you might want to try using vanilla essence. I used it when I first started out and it works fine. Vanilla extract is expensive.

11) Storing different types of baked goods. Length of storage.

Sorry if I sounded long winded. There will be a lot of readup to do. I still do alot of read-up after having baked for some-time, but I do enjoy the reading process.

Feel free to drop me a mail if you have any queries. cheers =]

(Luckily I have 3 browswers, IE8, Firefox and google chrome)

Oh wow Bakertan!

Don't worry about being long winded. I love getting long feedback, makes me feel happy that there is someone out there who is willing to help me! If you write a book, I'll buy it!

I particularly go for books and blogs which actually shows step by step on how to bake and prepare food. The 2 books I bought covers some of the things you listed here but not much mentioned on oven - maybe they assume the reader already knows what oven to get. Sigh...

Hey. Thanks for stopping by my site. I really like your design, did you do it yourself??

There's a lot of amazing info given to you in the comments, stuff I wish I knew when I started out. However, what I have to say is, if you go deep into researching all of this, you might just lose it! Just pick a recipe, make it, and then try researching why something happened/didn't happen. And feel free to ask questions, people are usually super helpful

Happy Baking Jenny!

I am only so so in cooking, but baking is definitely a NoNo for me, for now.

So if bake any extra, dont forget to call!

Free pick-up service ;)

Hi Avanika!
I love your site, in fact I've already bookmarked it! As for mine, thanks for the compliments! I did the blog design and images myself ;) just to save money from hiring a web designer to design a nice website for me, better I just DIY myself!

And for the feedback on my adventure into baking world, yeah, this is so totally awesome! There are so many wonderful people out there who's ever so willing to share their experience and advice! Thanks for your feedback and advice too! I'm so thankful!

Hey Catheryn!

You are good in cooking that's enough. I'm not good in cooking at all (except for Ben) so have to look for other avenues... which is why baking is the option! Sure, once I get ready all the equipment and starts baking, I'll let you be my guinea pig!