Course description

If you'd like to bake cakes, biscuits, scones and traybakes from scratch, and understand why they work, this course takes you from weighing your first ingredients to planning and baking for a whole bake sale.

You get to know your oven, line tins and weigh everything, then learn what each ingredient does and the five mixing methods every home baker uses. You bake sponges and loaf cakes, cupcakes, muffins and scones, biscuits and cookies, and traybakes, brownies, flapjacks and no-bake bars, then finish them with simple icings, fruit and spice. Every recipe is original to the course, in metric weights, with conventional, fan and gas mark settings, timings, what it should look and feel like, problems and fixes, and allergen notes. You also learn to bake for people who need gluten-free, egg-free or dairy-free bakes, scale recipes for different tins, store and freeze your bakes, and troubleshoot when things go wrong.

There are 10 sections and 50 written lessons, each with a worked example, common slips, questions people often ask and a short exercise to try, and each section ends with a short quiz. You follow Breesha, a school office manager in Congleton, through her first year of baking from scratch, from January to October 2026. Every section has a practice pack with a worksheet, an answer key and a cheat sheet, plus printable recipe cards, an oven temperature chart, a conversion and tin-size chart, troubleshooting cards, a baking planner and timeline, an allergen labelling template and a costing spreadsheet, with simple line drawings.

What you'll learn

• Kit, ovens and measuring: the kit you need and what can wait, conventional, fan and gas ovens, lining tins, weighing everything on digital scales, and a safe, organised kitchen.
• Ingredients and what they do: flour and gluten, raising agents, fats, sugars and syrups, eggs and dairy, and simple swaps.
• The five mixing methods: creaming, all-in-one, rubbing in, melting and whisking, each with its own bake, from jam thumbprints to a lemon Swiss roll.
• Sponges and loaf cakes: a classic sandwich sponge, flavoured sponges, a lemon drizzle loaf, banana loaf and a marble loaf, and how to tell a cake is baked.
• Cupcakes, muffins and scones: even cupcakes with a buttercream swirl, the muffin method, scones that rise tall and straight, fruit scones and a cream tea.
• Biscuits and cookies: rolled biscuits, shortbread, chewy chocolate chip cookies, golden syrup oat crunchies and crackly ginger biscuits, and fixing biscuit problems.
• Traybakes, brownies, flapjacks and no-bake bars: a lemon traybake, fudgy brownies, chewy flapjacks, chocolate fridge cake and caramel shortbread, and cutting neat portions.
• Simple icings, finishes, fruit and spice: buttercream, whipped cream, glacé icing, cream cheese frosting and ganache, simple finishes, a carrot and orange cake and a fruit tea loaf.
• Dietary needs, scaling and storing: gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free and lower-sugar bakes, keeping allergens out, scaling recipes for different tins, and storing, freezing and gifting.
• Troubleshooting, bake sales and your final project: fixing cakes, biscuits, scones and traybakes, allergen labels and bake sale guidance, and planning, costing and baking for a bake sale or afternoon tea.

Who it's for

Adults who would like to bake sweet bakes at home, whether you've never baked or you've only used packet mixes. You need an oven, some basic kit and digital scales. Decorating, pastry and bread have their own Rootlet courses.

What this course is, and isn't

This is a home baking course. The food safety, burns, allergy and bake sale lines in the lessons are based on official guidance from the Food Standards Agency on GOV.UK, GOV.UK itself and the NHS website, but the course isn't a food hygiene qualification or legal advice. Breesha and every other person in the course are fictional.

What will I learn?

• Get to know your oven, line tins and weigh ingredients accurately on digital scales
• Understand what flour, raising agents, fats, sugars and eggs do in a bake
• Use the creaming, all-in-one, rubbing-in, melting and whisking methods with confidence
• Bake a classic sandwich sponge, flavoured sponges and loaf cakes, and tell when a cake is baked
• Make even cupcakes, tall muffins and scones that rise straight, and serve a cream tea
• Bake rolled biscuits, shortbread, chewy cookies, oat biscuits and ginger biscuits
• Make traybakes, fudgy brownies, flapjacks, no-bake bars and caramel shortbread, and cut neat portions
• Finish bakes with buttercream, glacé icing, cream cheese frosting, ganache and simple decorations
• Adapt bakes for gluten-free, egg-free and dairy-free diets, scale recipes and store and freeze your bakes
• Troubleshoot common problems, label allergens and plan, cost and bake for a bake sale or afternoon tea

Frequently asked questions