How I learned to bake from YouTube videos during the year 2020

I remember watching collation of amazing cake decoration videos in the end of year 2019 and I made myself a new year resolution for the year of 2020. I decided to learn how to bake and I wanted to try to bake a Barbie cake! I started to watch youtube baking tutorials and started to learn how to bake simple things through YouTube videos. Then in March 2019 we learned about covid-19 and we got stacked at home during the first lockdown.

My family (like many others) got really scared and we didn't let our feet outside our home for three long months. What made me going was baking over the weekends. With full time job, now working from home and my kids e-learning from home too, we were lucky to have an amazing husband/dad who enjoyed making us amazing lunches during the week.

But when it came to the weekends, I put on my baking cup on and from boring training officer I became a baking Queen 👑. I started with simple baking recipes as cupcakes, Victorian sponge cake, chocolate sponge cake, buttercream frostings of different types, carrot cake and so on. I even mastered the Swiss meringue buttercream!

As working full time and a mum of two, there wasn't too much of spare time to bake over the weekends, but I learned the basics this year: I learned that it is important that ingredients must be of the same temperature to mix well, that there is big difference between margarine and butter, that all ingredients have specific function in baking: flour gives structure, baking powder air bubbles, eggs works as glue, sugar as preservation, fat adds softness and milk adds moisture, that baking is science and that in baking person needs load and loads of patience and that you need different tools to decorate a cake! That bowl needs to be fat free for meringue to mix well and much more.

What's most important is that I made my first Barbie cake, which I was quite proud of. I proved to myself and hopefully to others, that one can learn and achieve in their life at any stage and age, when they decide, put their mind to it and persist even when things don't work exactly as they want for the first time. I turned 40 this year and hopefully that will mean something to someone out there.

My cakes and videos are not perfect, and they were not meant to be. I decided to share my journey with all mothers/fathers out there! Young or old. Everyone who wants to bake, but didn't go to baking school! I believe now that baking is for everybody, no matter of gender or age or experience. I wanted to share my baking journey with you to show everyone who dream of baking, but are scared to try. My journey should show them that baking is for everyone and all of us can bake a cake for our friends, kids, family members. We just need to get to that kitchen, switch that mixer on, break some eggs and beat that cream! They don't need to look perfect, they only need to make us happy 😉.

I hope my journey can inspire at least one soul to baking. And it already did. When I received a message on my Facebook page, saying that my video made that person to try to bake and that they though: if she can, I can: That made my day! That was why I filmed my first cupcakes and shared my first piping skills. They were not amazing, I knew, but my videos were not meant to be about showing off amazing cakes. There are enough videos like that on YouTube and social media. They were about learning how to make one.

There were times and evening, when I felt exhausted and though of giving up, and each morning I would wake up to an amazing message from a follower thanking me for sharing my video, my tip I learned. And I baked the next cake again 😉.

By coincidence I baked my Barbie cake on the day when they announced at my husband work to bring a cake on Friday to work to share with their colleagues, so my Barbie cake together with my carrot cake made it all the way there. What an honour!

So, my journey continues. I completed my last year resolution and guess what! I made my new next year resolution already: to learn how to make few interesting cake filling creams and mirror glazing cake. Who is going to join me on my journey this year? I hope few of you will ♥️

Happy New Prosperous Year 2021. Don't let covid-19 to stop us enjoy life, learn new things and enjoy family time with few cakes 🍰🎂.

Would you like to teach me interesting cake filling, cream? Get in touch with me. Thank you!

Silvia Zeroual

@cookingwithsilviaz

Youtube channel: Silvia Zeroual