Consistency in baking comes from repeating the same process until each step becomes predictable, not from constantly searching for something new to try. It’s tempting to keep trying new things because you feel like you’re getting somewhere, except you’re not getting anywhere. Consistency in baking doesn’t happen because you’re always trying new things, it happens because you’ve done the same thing so many times you know exactly what to expect.
Pick one simple recipe and use it for a while. Just one. Maybe it’s a simple batter recipe or a simple cupcake recipe. Try it a few times, and each time you try it, try to pay attention to just one thing. This time, maybe you try to pay attention to how long it takes to get to the right consistency. The next time, maybe you pay attention to how it fills the pan. Each time you try to pay attention to one thing, you’ll start to develop an understanding of what’s happening that will carry over into your next attempt.
One of the things that holds people back is that they try to fix everything at once when it doesn’t work. When something goes wrong in your kitchen and you change three things at once (maybe you turn the oven down and mix for a shorter amount of time and add a little more sugar) you have no idea which thing actually worked. So just change one thing at a time and see what happens. Every time you make something, you’ll learn one thing new that will inform your next attempt. The way you use your oven can wreak havoc on consistency. Maybe when you rotate your pans a little too soon, one of them is just a touch closer to the back of the oven.
Maybe when you move one pan to the top rack, it’s a little too close to the top of the oven. Instead of moving things around and rotating them, just leave them alone and observe what happens. If one of them always seems to brown just a little bit on one side, make a mental note of which direction it’s facing and adjust it next time instead of moving it part way through. Do this enough, and you’ll start to develop a sense of what’s happening in your oven.
A fifteen-minute practice session is easy to fit into a daily routine. Use those fifteen minutes to mix up the same batter you mixed up yesterday, and bake it. Change one thing. Maybe you mixed it for thirty seconds longer. Then bake it and don’t worry too much about the results. Just pop it in the oven. Instead of trying to get a whole lot out of it, try to learn just one thing. Maybe you want to observe how evenly it rises. Or maybe you just want to see if the edges are a little bit firmer than they were yesterday.
So you bake it, you observe it, and you write down one thing you learned. Do this a few days in a row, and you’ll start to see a pattern emerge. If you’re finding you’re not improving, it may be because you’re making your changes too big. Dial it back a notch and your progress will return. As you get into a groove, the same actions will start to feel repetitive and normal to you and you’ll begin to feel more confident in what you’re doing because you’ll actually know what you’re doing. Consistency isn’t about executing everything perfectly, it’s about understanding how all the little things you do affect the final product. And once you have a good understanding of the little things, even the more complicated recipes will feel easy.