Honestly this fear is overblown. Unless you’re making pastries, baking is relatively straightforward and forgiving. Breads, cakes and flatbreads love you and want you to have fun. Experimenting with vegan substitutions, gluten free baking and scaling batch sizes helped me feel much less intimidated by recipes, you learn what role the ingredients are playing and how to adjust if you add too much, too little, or too not the right thing.
Baking is pretty forgiving, so many old baking recipes are written with add flour until it looks right as part of the recipe. If your baking sucks it’s most likely super old ingredients or you did something stupid like substitute strawberries for butter.
IDK, I’ve been having a hell of time trying to make my pizza doughs rise. On the other hand, cookies have been piss-easy, hardest part is that cookie dough is sticky af.
I always use water straight from the tap (unheated) and I’ve tried several brands of soft and dry yeast. And it’s not like it doesn’t rise at all, but it’s rising much more timidly than what I’ve seen elsewhere and after baking it’s definitely too flat.
And which is the right water temp? I’ve always used water straight from the (cold) tap. I don’t think it’s overly chlorinated, but it’s very hard water if that’s relevant.
110-120 F. I also have hard water in my area and I’ve successfully made yeast doughs. I recommend “blooming” your yeast first even if you’re using instant yeast, which just means mixing your yeast, a bit of sugar (like a tsp per 1 packet of yeast) and the water together and letting it sit for about 10 minutes.
Yeah, there’s just more things to understand with baking. Yeast doing biology, acid/base chemistry, plus the whole “do everything at the start and hope you balanced things right because you can’t tweak as you go if it starts getting dry or the flavour balance is off”.
Or maybe I’ve just gotten lucky with my close enough measurements and substitutions so far.
Yeah I regularly bake stupid crap, just throw some ingredients together and make some cookies or pie or some eldritch monstrosity. In my experience it’s difficult to actually make something inedible unless you add something that’s already gross
Honestly this fear is overblown. Unless you’re making pastries, baking is relatively straightforward and forgiving. Breads, cakes and flatbreads love you and want you to have fun. Experimenting with vegan substitutions, gluten free baking and scaling batch sizes helped me feel much less intimidated by recipes, you learn what role the ingredients are playing and how to adjust if you add too much, too little, or too not the right thing.
Baking is pretty forgiving, so many old baking recipes are written with add flour until it looks right as part of the recipe. If your baking sucks it’s most likely super old ingredients or you did something stupid like substitute strawberries for butter.
Wait, so I shouldn’t be greasing my pans with strawberries?
Brownies are forgiving. Sourdough bread will smack you in the face if you talk smart.
I think people forget that bread and pasteries used to be cooked in wood fired ovens with no temp control.
IDK, I’ve been having a hell of time trying to make my pizza doughs rise. On the other hand, cookies have been piss-easy, hardest part is that cookie dough is sticky af.
either your yeast is dead or you’re killing it with water that’s too hot, hard to see why else it wouldn’t rise
I always use water straight from the tap (unheated) and I’ve tried several brands of soft and dry yeast. And it’s not like it doesn’t rise at all, but it’s rising much more timidly than what I’ve seen elsewhere and after baking it’s definitely too flat.
Yeast likes to be warm, cold water will result in slower rising.
Water could be overly chlorinated as well. They could try bottled water or let their municipal water sit out in a mixing bowl for 24 hours.
Use a thermometer to measure the water temp.
And which is the right water temp? I’ve always used water straight from the (cold) tap. I don’t think it’s overly chlorinated, but it’s very hard water if that’s relevant.
110-120 F. I also have hard water in my area and I’ve successfully made yeast doughs. I recommend “blooming” your yeast first even if you’re using instant yeast, which just means mixing your yeast, a bit of sugar (like a tsp per 1 packet of yeast) and the water together and letting it sit for about 10 minutes.
Cookies can be really finicky, though.
Yeah, there’s just more things to understand with baking. Yeast doing biology, acid/base chemistry, plus the whole “do everything at the start and hope you balanced things right because you can’t tweak as you go if it starts getting dry or the flavour balance is off”.
Or maybe I’ve just gotten lucky with my close enough measurements and substitutions so far.
Yeah I regularly bake stupid crap, just throw some ingredients together and make some cookies or pie or some eldritch monstrosity. In my experience it’s difficult to actually make something inedible unless you add something that’s already gross