A Letter to New Bakers
Welcome to the club! Our membership is billions strong and counting, with historical roots stretching back hundreds of thousands of years. I know you’re keen to learn, so let’s dig into the basics you’ll need to get started.
“Baking” is a catchall term. In reality, we could just as easily call our craft griddling, roasting, grilling, boiling, steaming, or frying. Each of these heating methods is an acceptable alternative for producing a “baked” good. Like a choose-your-own adventure, it’s really up to you!
At its core, baking appears simple. In reality, it is.
You begin by making a paste, dough or batter of desired consistency by using a mechanical, shear-flow step.
A paste, dough or batter need only consist of a few elements, including but not limited to:
a powdery, starchy material, mostly of plant origin;
a plasticiser;
a solvent;
and, just to fuck with you, charged solutes.
In many cases, the plasticiser and the solvent are one in the same, which you know by the name of water.
The texture and functional properties of your paste, dough or batter are primarily determined by the relationship between any network-forming macromolecular components and the remaining three, small molecular-weight constituents from above.
For example, the relative ratio of larger macromolecular components to smaller chemical constituents determines whether you are making a paste, dough or a batter.
Next, you decide if you want your final product to be aerated or not. With few exceptions, the majority of baked products contain some degree of aeration.
To aerate, you only need a source of gas, such as a liquid that easily vapourises or leavening agents. The latter can be of chemical or biological origin.
Degree of aeration is controlled by the concentration of gas created and retained during the heating step.
To produce a baked product, it’s best to start by defining your theoretical, desired end result. Factors to consider are texture, taste, shelf-life, and, most importantly, how the product will be used or eaten.
Next, you make a comprehensive list of any constraining factors, such as your raw material, production schedule, equipment, skill level, and so on.
Finally, you make a plan of action (choice of product, formulation and processing steps) based upon the means available to you to achieve your desired end result after factoring in your constraints.
That’s it.
In a way, it’s easy as pie, particularly if you frequently practice making the same product, in the same way, with the same timing.
Desirable results come faster as you consistently practice more. Consistency means you do not change anything, and, when you need to, only change one variable at a time.
A single variable can include a single raw material, or one processing parameter, or concentration of one ingredient in a formula.
These variables are commutative. That is, if you make a change to one (say, an ingredient) then you should not make changes to the others (e.g., formula or process).
Trade-offs exist between the three variables (ingredients, formula and process).
Generally, as formula complexity (quantified by quantity and type of ingredients) becomes sparser, process becomes the primary determinative factor in product outcome, followed by the quality of the raw material.
As formula complexity increases, formulation becomes the main determinant of outcome, followed by process.
The secondary factors above matter much less than the primary, with tertiary factors being even more distant, implying the distance between each is exponential.
Below is a practical example comparing a lean bread dough to a high-ratio cake batter.
Lean Bread Dough: Process > Ingredients > Formula
High-Ratio Cake Batter: Formula > Process > Ingredients
The best way to learn baking, like any craft, is by doing, emphasising hands-on repetition. The more you practice, both in frequency and in quantity, the faster you’ll approach mastery.
By mastery, I simply mean “at an expert level,” which is really saying you’ve done the same thing, in the same way, enough times that you’ve encountered nearly every major way of fucking up.
I’m not sure it takes 10,000 hours. My hunch (and personal experience) is it’s much, much longer.
Mastery also implies the accumulation of adequate experiential knowledge so that you can achieve your desired end result under most circumstances (say, after 48 hours of no sleep, or blind-folded, or without the right equipment in a foreign climate using unknown ingredients) using muscle memory alone.
Nothing about baking is particularly complicated. You don’t need to pay a “master” to achieve mastery. Nor should you.
I’ll leave you with one final thought.
The amateur stands in stark contrast to the professional, in knowledge, accrued experience, technique, and production environment. We see the same skill gap between recreational and professional sport players.
I’ll never be Lebron James, Katie Ledecky, Muhammad Ali, or Lionel Messi. Chances are you won’t be, either. This doesn’t stop us from daydreaming, or playing catch, because the stakes for the enthusiast are defined by joy.
That’s the only metric that should count when baking at home or in any non-professional setting. You should bake because it brings you and those you love joy.
When you mix a paste, dough or batter to be baked, whether for yourself or others, I hope you do so because it brings you or others joy.
If an ingredient, process or formula detracts from that joy, then it’s unnecessary. Simplify, keeping only those variables necessary to bring you or others joy.