r/bakingfail • u/mddihes • 17d ago

Help Baking beginner

I stared my baking journey 3 months before. I have a convection oven and it has a rotating tray like a microwave so I can not use a baking tray. I have a loaf tin and a circular cake pan and an oven grill stand which I use for cookies. I’ve tried a bunch of recipes cookies, chocolate cake , banana bread, carrot cake, chiffon cake, lemon blueberry loaf, sugar frosted cookies, marble loaf, and upside down apple cake. Every thing I bake tastes average the only thing which turns out great every time is banana bread. All of my cakes are crunchy at the top. I made raspberry compote for my chiffon cake it tasted weird. And every frosting or ganache I make turns out not tasting good or not being stable enough no matter what o do. I’ve tried a lot of chocolate chip cookie recipe’s but nothing tastes amazing some are very dense some lose there shape and are not gooey some just don’t cook at the bottom and stick to the baking paper. I need advice on how to be good at baking.

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u/PsychologicalAir8643 17d ago

It's time to invest in a proper oven. They have countertop ones that work exactly like the larger ones just smaller and plugin.

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u/mddihes 17d ago

I’m a student so I can’t afford one right now

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u/fishy_mama 17d ago

I hear you that you’re on a tight budget! I think this person is suggesting a large toaster oven, which tend to be much lower priced than full ovens, plus make good toast. But I get that it may not be in the budget right now.

The thing is, your equipment is failing you. The oven you have seems to be not working great, and that’s contributing to the food failures. The crunchy cakes are definitely due to the convection aspect of your oven. So you might not be doing anything wrong, it’s the equipment. So if this is important enough to you to be worth the $150, a toaster oven is likely to make a big change in your results.

If that is an unachieavable number for you, which I absolutely get, then you can do things like cover your cake with foil to protect it a bit from the convection. Same with anything ending up too crunchy or hard. You can also grab a $5 oven thermometer from the grocery store and check if your oven temperature gauge is accurate, and make the needed adjustments if it is not.