Maybe that sodium lignosulphate reminds you of cocoa powder and you think of baking a chocolate cake or cookies. If you weren’t hungry before, you would be now in a few seconds as you rush home to start baking. 

Now apply those brakes, chum. Before you get right into the batter, you better be already prepared so what is supposed to be a slightly messy session wouldn’t be spilled further to a total mess as you have no idea what you are doing and you are struggling to put the ingredients in order. You might even waste further time by things such as a broken whisk machine or a missing ingredient. In other words, a disorganized recipe.

Follow these few tips and you will at least be able to smoothly go along the chocolate rails as you phase through the steps of baking your pastries.

Prepare all ingredients and tools

The first step you should ever do is to gather and prepare all ingredients and tools first. Do not wait until an ingredient is called for, then you take it out of the drawers, fridge or packaging and deploy. Preparation can not only save you time, it also allows you to accurately measure certain ingredients such as flour or butter.

Read whatever ingredients that your recipe requires first, then place your ingredients on your counter, table or so. If you want to be more organized, you can separate the ingredients from wet to dry. The same goes to your tools where you can put your bowls and weight scale on one side, and your baking spoons on the other.

If you have a bunch of measuring cups or similar, any measurable ingredients can be prepared in them rather than using straight from a packet. Be sure to label or use different colored or size cups in case you forget which powder is the flour or baking powder.

Preheating the oven

Preheating your oven early is another important step to take prior to baking. It allows your oven to be heated up long enough that by the time you have finished making the batter and it is ready to be baked, the oven is already hot. The temperature varies on your recipe, so set accordingly.

Do not give in to the temptation of peeking into the oven while your food is baking until the recommended cooking time is up. Otherwise you are letting cool air in to interrupt the baking process. There are ovens with panels that you can see through to see the doughs rising in real time.

Memorize the recipe

Although you can follow the recipe on the spot while you are baking, it is better if you actually read the recipe before you do this, and memorize. You don’t have to be so detailed in memory if you want, like the exact measurements of ingredients, but at least know the entire order of ingredients.

Videos make better references than texts and images as you can see how the recipes are made, as well as the ingredients used. If you want a less distracting instruction video, just search for videos with no music or narration so you could focus more.