Originally, this post was written in year 2011 where I posted classes of a baking supply store that was offering baking classes. I have rewritten this article in 2021 as so much has changed.
In the past, we rely on attending physical classes, trying out recipes in books/newspapers/magazines or learning by helping our parents or having friends to teach us.
My mom had attended many cooking and baking classes as part of her hobby (after we grew up) but she always said that the instructors or column writers often held something back. This means that while the food or cuisine turned up successful and delicious during the demonstration, when she or others went back, the finished product often taste very different.
One positive thing that came about the Covid pandemic is the exponential growth of baking channels in social media and YouTube. Competition is very fierce. The only way a channel has any hope of getting views, long watch hours, positive comments and likes is if cake, cookies, dishes turns up tasty, as viewers have hoped. Then they would recommend the video and channel, and more and more people would watch the videos.
That means if the video is recently uploaded and already bring in a lot of views with lots of positive feedback in the comments, you can attempt to give the recipe a try.
Therefore in my opinion, if you wish to learn cooking or baking, you really do not need to attend classes anymore. There are so many free resources for you to make use off. You can source for cooking channels where the creators are in the same country as you are so it is easy for you to obtain the ingredients required.
I have friends who literally could not bake or cook. During the pandemic, when they got stuck at home, they turned to YouTube channel, searching out their favourite recipes. And they STARTED.
The first few tries, the cake was not sweet and the bread was so hard that you could knock someone unconscious with it. We are all going to fail at first. But once we give it a few tries, we will get better with EACH try. For some, I have the good fortune to be the guinea pig to taste the cake or food. And without fail, so long as they continue trying, they would master the taste and texture.
My mom was an excellent baker. She was so good at baking that she need not measure the quantity of the ingredients she put in. All she did was to slap stuff together and mix them. And her cakes and cookies always turned out delicious. She always made a lot to distribute to others and received a lot of praise for being very delicious. My friends always have a soft spot for because she always love to give them food. When my mom was unwell and in the hospital, they would come and visit her. And till today, they always ask me how my mom is when they contact me (my mom has dementia now and I have resigned from my corporate job to take care of her full time since 2017).
So START. That is the most important thing of all. If we want to do something, most important is to start. For me, I love blogging and content creation. I have started my hand at making YouTube videos. If you watch the beginning of my videos, they really sucked but at least I have tried. With every single video that I did, I felt a small improvement each time. I learned to design my videos better and put in better music.
If you have interest in cooking or baking, after doing a few times you figure some things out and would know how to do things better. Once you build your foundation and understanding in cooking, whenever you watch any video, even if they held something back, and when you try the recipe and it did not turn out, you would kind of figure out what is missing. A number of my friends have become good cooks and baker thanks to YouTube. I know that you could do it too. So, go to YouTube, type in the query of how to bake/cook your favourite cake, cookies, dish and start from there. Enjoy!
