Baking Basics for first timers

I am trying to learn baking these days. Now that I have oven at my home, I couldnt resist trying it out!! Also note the fact that baking is one of the healthy forms of cooking. I would like to prepare many of the roasts and fries that we make regularly at our homes through baking :). I have already tried Bitter gourd Fry / Pavakka Fry through baking and have posted the recipe here. Do try it out guys.

I have been trying to bake various cakes these days. Some of them turned out great, some of them did not. I will post the recipes of sponge cake, butter cake and banana cake very soon. But before that, I thought of noting down many of the points that I have learned during baking cakes. 

If you are planning to bake cakes, the following steps will help you immensely.

Step 1: Recipe

You need to have a recipe for baking the cake. Identify the best recipe that you like. And since you are doing it first time, it is better to try something very simple or basic like a sponge cake or butter cake. 

Step 2: Ingredients

From the recipe, you will get to know the ingredients that you will need to bake a cake. Some of them like baking powder, baking soda and essence or extract may not be easily available at our home on a regular basis. So you need to stock upon all the ingredients. You can replace ingredients with their appropiate substitutions that is available as well. 

Step 3: Utensils

I am taking for granted that oven is available at your homes before deciding to bake a cake. Sorry, I cannot advise on the best ovens available in the market as I didnt have to buy one so far. 

Next you need is a cake pan or tin on which you pour the batter and keep in the oven for baking. Do not buy a random baking pan. Usually the recipes will mention the size of cake pans needed for baking that particular cake. For your first recipe, buy the one from your selected recipe. Suppose the recipe calls for a 9 inch round pan and you got a 8 inch round pan with out noticing, then its possible that the cake may over flow out of the pan during baking. 

Most of the recipes calls for an electric mixer to mix your butter, sugar, eggs and flour. Other wise you may need to whisk everything by hand which requires quite a huge effort from your side.

Hope this has been useful to you. I will post tips later.