Frequently on different baking shows bakers will be surprised with the challenge they have to create. Now baking isn’t like cooking where you can eyeball measurements, and i doubt they have every single recipe they know completely memorized, so how is it they know measurements for things like baking powder?
In: Other
They have a great understanding of ratios. Dough, for example, is a very simple recipe: flour, water, sugar, salt, oil, and something like yeast or baking soda. They know what having too much/too little of something does to the process.
They have a general idea of how much it takes to make a certain amount already, so either they are making an educated guess or they’ve made the dish a few times.
Most baking recipes come with a basic version – eg basic butter cake, basic chiffon, basic sponge etc. The ratio of flour, water (+egg), fat is generally the most important to preserve when scaling up and down. Baking powder isn’t generally a critical measure – getting it a bit high or a bit low generally won’t make a huge difference.
For breads, the ratio of flour to water is critical generally with not so much fat.
Each cook will have their own feel for the sugar and salt needed.
Most recipes are easily thought of as a base + changes for a particular type of dish. This is actually true for nearly every major type of cooking – ie in French cooking, the learner will start with the 4-5 mother sauces.
Also some of that stuff is fake. Things like mystery ingredient challenges on Master Chef or whatever aren’t actually a “mystery” to the contestants. They already know what the ingredient is, so they have SOME semblance of an idea of what to do.
It may be possible, though probably less likely with a surprise end goal than a surprise ingredient, that they also already know what they will have to bake. I can’t say for sure though, I’m not familiar with those kind of shows.
When I was young, my sister and I would make pancakes from a pre-made mix every Saturday. By this point, I just dump a bunch of mix into the bowl and eyeball the milk. Now scale that up for someone who is actually good at cooking, with knowledge of how each ingredient will affect the result.
Latest Answers