Baking is an essential life skill—but it can feel incredibly intimidating to start learning. If you’ve never baked before, it’s as if you’re immersing yourself in a completely new language. Folding? Sifting? Ounces and grams? Help! It’s a lot to deal with when you’re just hoping to bake scones for your kids on the weekends, or show your love for your friends with a homemade birthday cake.

You’ve got to start somewhere, but that doesn’t mean you need to do it alone. And that starts with your cookware. You need something to bake in, after all! GreenPan’s healthy ceramic nonstick cookware will help your cakes to turn out perfect every time. They’ve been revolutionizing the cookware industry since 2007, so they know what they’re talking about. Let’s learn to bake with GreenPan! It’s time for baking 101. 

Your bakeware matters

Investing in good quality baking pans and cookie sheets is the first step in baking for beginners. You can’t bake at all if you don’t have anything to bake in or on!

With such a wide variety of baking dishes and pans out there, it can be tough to know what’s right for you as a first-time baker. As a general rule, it’s a good idea to have a sheet pan or two, two cake pans, a loaf pan, a muffin pan, and a cooling rack. This covers pretty much all of the eventualities of beginner baking, such as cookies, loaf and layer cakes, and muffins, and will mean you can get started on cooking up your favorite varieties of baked goods right away. 

Rather than slogging through online reviews to buy all of the necessary equipment separately, we recommend simply choosing GreenPan’s seven-piece set of beautifully resilient bakeware. 

Cheap bakeware can warp in the heat of an oven, and could well be layered with unsafe coatings that aren’t safe for humans to ingest. GreenPan’s Reserve bakeware set, by contrast, is made of solid, heavy-gauge aluminized steel that heats and cooks evenly and performs well every time, so you won’t need to replace it in just a few months like you will low-quality cookware. Plus, all of GreenPan’s products are made of PFAS-free nonstick, meaning they’re free of harmful forever chemicals, so you can bake with peace of mind that you’re keeping you and family safe whilst simultaneously ensuring you’ll never have to spend time chiselling away at stuck-on brownies. These pans are designed to deliver perfect results every time!

Available in three colors (a dreamy cream, an evocative dark blue twilight and a fresh sage green), it brings instant style to any kitchen, and means you’ll be ready to get baking from the second it’s unwrapped. Frankly, this set makes your kitchen look so professional your friends might think you’ve turned pro baker!

Stock your pantry

Before you get stuck into your baking extravaganza, you need to stock your kitchen with the right ingredients. Most recipes use very similar base ingredients, so keeping these staples on hand will enable you to bake many different kinds of goods. On the other hand, you may need more specific ingredients if you’re making something that requires a rarer spice or particular flavor enhancer, or are looking to fulfil dietary requirements such as gluten or dairy-free.   

These common ingredients will help you get started with baking:

• ​​Sugar (white, brown, honey, or other alternatives)
• Flour
• Leavening agents including baking soda and baking powder
• Eggs
• Butter
• Yeast
• Flavorings and spices such as vanilla extract and cinnamon
• Salt

You might be surprised that what you already have in your cupboards may well be enough to start baking your favorite treats. As you start out, though, it can feel tempting to swap or substitute ingredients. Don’t experiment until you have the basics down and understand the role a specific ingredient plays in a recipe, and the effect moving or changing it will have.  

Make sure to weigh and measure

Baking is a science, and it requires precision. For cakes to rise and cookies to spread, you need to adhere to the precise ratios and proven techniques that well-tested recipes provide. One of the most essential baking tips is weighing and measuring your ingredients properly. 

You can weigh and measure ingredients by weight, with a scale, or by volume, with cups or spoons. Both work well, although measuring something like flour is more accurate by weight as the ingredient itself can change volume depending on how aerated it is, for example.

Temperature is key

Anyone who’s looked sadly at a burned, inedible cookie knows how important temperature is for baking. Under- and overcooking can ruin all your hard work. Set your oven (like one of GreenPan’s countertop ovens) to the temperature each recipe recommends, and consider investing in an oven thermometer to be absolutely sure it’s correct.

It’s important to preheat your oven for 10-15 minutes before you start to ensure the temperature stays consistent. Putting raw baked goods into a cold oven will mean they cook unevenly, as the mixture will take longer to heat up. No-one wants a tough cookie!

Avoiding opening your oven door is also a great tip for beginner bakers. This causes heat and steam to escape, which can cause baked goods to stop rising. Peek through your oven door to check the progress, instead. 

Before you get to putting anything into an oven, it helps enormously if all ingredients are at room temperature before you start mixing them up. If eggs or butter are cold, they may not combine properly with other ingredients, or cause baked goods to collapse while in the oven. Room temperature ingredients emulsify nicely to create a pleasant, uniform texture. 

Practice makes perfect

There’s no way around the fact that the best way to get better at baking is by practicing. Here’s our advice for getting into a learn to bake with GreenPan routine:

• Start with easy recipes, such as whipping up a batch of breakfast muffins or some simple cookies. This is much more achievable than diving head first into a multi-page recipe for a complicated layer cake with two kinds of frosting. 
• Allow yourself to become familiar with different ingredients and techniques, and then build on that knowledge by trying again (and again, and again. The great thing about baking is that you can just eat your mistakes!). 
• It’s important not to rush. Before you start, read and reread the recipe, double-check and measure all your ingredients, get the correct bakeware out ahead of time, and preheat the oven. If you’re in a hurry, steps are skipped, elements are improperly measured, and results are sub-par.
• Ask for feedback! Almost everyone loves free baked goods and proferring their opinion. Ask loved ones for their thoughts on your creations. 

Have patience with yourself while learning. Baking is, at the end of the day, low-stakes. In the long run, it doesn’t matter if your banana bread comes out dense or if your cookies flatten instead of puffing up. They’ll almost certainly still taste delicious! Don’t be discouraged and baking from scratch will start to feel natural, and you’ll be creating picture-perfect goodies that your family and friends clamor for.