The Essentials of Home Baking

Rebecca Brayton: There’s nothing better than the smell of baked goods. Hi. I’m Rebecca Brayton and welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re speaking with the queen of Canadian cooking, Elizabeth Baird. Firstly, tell us how important our ingredients and the freshness of ingredients? Elizabeth Baird: In baking, it is particularly important to have the fresh eggs, really good butter. Brown sugar, white sugar and flour are pretty standard in Canada but the fresh eggs and fresh butter are really crucial and fresh spices because a lot of baking has some cinnamon or some nutmeg and if your spices have been hanging out on the counter by the stove, chances are of the tasting delicious are poor, I would say. Rebecca Brayton: And what are the ingredients that we should always have in our pantry? Elizabeth Baird: I think we should always have some all-purpose flour. You should always have granulated and brown sugar. You should have eggs in the refrigerator and milk, keen baker, you could also have butter milk. I would like to also have some nuts and I like the walnuts that come from California. Sometimes there are ones that are already chopped up and they sell in little bags to stay out of it. They will make spoil your thing. I always like to have lemons and oranges because you often use them, a vanilla and some chocolate as well. Rebecca Brayton: Do you have any tips for first time bakers, you know so we can avoid a horror story? Elizabeth Baird: I think there are a couple of things that are really important and one is of course you’ve mention and the freshness of your ingredients and the second thing is to measure accurately. What you do is to measure the things like flour and granulated sugar is you take your dry measuring cups and hold them over your bag of flour and just spoon the flour and then you sweep it off with a knife. That way you’re going to get the same amount of flour every time. Rebecca Brayton: Do you have any horror stories from where you started up? Elizabeth Baird: I tend to be trying to do too many things at once so I have burned more than my share of cookies. One of the reasons why I suggest the people to use the center of the oven and do one baking sheet at a time is from my experience because people want to be a little bit speedier. They put the cookie sheets just above and below the middle of the oven and then you take them off halfway to the baking time and I’ve already take the pans and switch their location but I find that enough for me, I really have to focus and you can’t take any phone calls and that kind of stuff. Rebecca Brayton: So what’s one of your favorite recipes in this book? Elizabeth Baird: There was one recipe that I really wanted to include in the book and that was called the Queen Elizabeth Cake. Now it’s not because my name is Elizabeth but this particular cake, what everybody loves about it is that when it comes out of the oven you put a mixture of butter, sugar and coconut on the top, put it under the boiler, it’s like having candy on your cake. Rebecca Brayton: Thank you very much. Elizabeth Baird: It’s been my pleasure. Thank you very much, keep baking.