A Starter Kit for The Novice Baking Fan

There’s something comforting about home baking.  Apart from the obvious benefits of knowing what has gone into the item, the massive reduction in costs is a very great incentive.  The most basic cooking just needs a bag of plain flour, a tub of baking powder, caster or granulated sugar, a tub of cooking margarine and some eggs.  Extra refinements can be added to the baking cupboard as  you go along.  I suggest plain flour because you need it for yorkshire puddings and pastries but by addiing baking powder, it becomes ‘self raising’ and generally self raising flour is only used for cake and puddings.   For someone taking up baking for the first time, getting a couple of basic cake tins and pastry trays in a supermarket together with a mixing bowl,electronic weigh scale, sieve (very important!), mixing spoons, spatular and a cheap little hand held mixer is just about enough to start.  Better quality items can be bought as presents as you progress and start to really enjoy this new skill!