Let’s face it, few us can or even want to go to culinary school. I never wanted to make French style patisserie, or absolutely identical dozens of eclairs. What I DID want to do was learn to make delicious baked goods that my guests at the hotel, and later my customers, loved.

I had some strikes against me:

I have celiac disease, so I couldn’t taste 95% of what I made.

I started in Nicaragua, where it’s HOT, and had an open air kitchen. Keeping butter cold was a joke. Even BUYING butter was a joke sometimes, like the 3 weeks where no store in the country had any. (The fresh eggs were great, though!) Our small town markets didn’t carry a lot (any) variety, so I had to go 2+ hours to Managua to get things like powdered sugar and real vanilla. And power was, let’s just say, unreliable.

When I moved back to North Carolina, I got busy really quickly, and was learning on the fly. How things looked sometimes took a backseat to how they tasted!

I’m a visual learner, so for me, the first “university classes” were shows like The Great British Baking Show, the various baking championships on the Food Network, and YouTube videos by Cupcake Jemma. Baking specific special edition magazines were good, and I got some cookbooks that didn’t just have recipes but had (understandable) sections talking about the chemistry of baking. I spent, almost literally, all of my waking hours LEARNING. and when I knew how to do something well, I started teaching classes on it.

You probably don’t want to take orders or start a bakery, but you might just want to be able to make a great cake for your kid’s birthday, or a special holiday dessert. Maybe you just enjoy baking, and want to improve your skills just for the sake of personal growth. It’s a wonderful skill to have (everyone loves you, that’s for sure!), and it’s great to pass on to your kids and grandkids!

Here are my suggestions to improve without going back to school:

Figure out how you learn best, and then find tutorials, publications, shows, podcasts, YouTube videos and anything else that teaches you in your preferred learning style. Because baking is visual, you’ll definitely want to include video/tv, but you may not want to read cookbooks or magazines if you’re an auditory learner.

Trial and error! You will NOT make things perfectly the first, fifth, or even the tenth time. Some things I had a weird idiot savant knack for, but some things, like French macarons, took daily practice and months. In fact, on macarons, I tweaked them again just a few months ago and solved a problem I’d been struggling with off and on for more than a year!

If you can’t master something, search for troubleshooting lists. They’re available for most types of bakes (I can tell you there are many for macarons!), and can be really really helpful, especially if they have video and photographs showing you the various ways something can go wrong.

If decorating is your thing (there tend to be the “bakers'“ and the “artists'“ among us - if you dream up beautiful cakes and cookies, you’re the artist baker!), there are tons of tutorials and Instagram accounts you can follow on the technicalities of royal icing, design, fondant, edible paint, and more. Find them, watch them, follow them! It’s free and priceless.

PRACTICE. Your neighbors, coworkers, and church family will love you. Your family will thank you - or beg you to start being the cupcake/cookie fairy around your neighborhood so they can still fit into their clothes. Make some unflavored buttercream, buy piping tips and bags, spread out some parchment paper, and practice practice practice all the ways to pipe. Do the same with royal icing, or buy Styrofoam rounds and practice your fondant. If you’re like me and have pretty bad penmanship, practice writing in at least one style or font that you can reproduce well.

Just like anything, good baking and good decorating is a skill. There is science and chemistry, there is flavor and texture, there is artistry. While some people have more inherent talent for it than others, anyone can learn and enjoy the basics — and what could be more fun to learn?!

How To Become a Self-Taught Baker

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