
Back to All News
9 Tips From the Stars of Bake Squad and Nailed It to Help Avoid the Most Common Baking Fails
Netflix Staff
Entertainment
16 August 2021
Global
This fall, Netflix is heading back to the kitchen and satisfying viewers' cravings for all things sweet and funny with the return of fan-favorite disasterpiece Nailed It! (Sept. 15) and The Great British Baking Show, as well as a slate of new baking series' that include Bake Squad (streaming now), Baking Impossible (premiering Oct. 6), and School of Chocolate (launching this fall).
Bake Squad is hosted by Milk Bar founder Christina Tosi and features four expert bakers and pastry chefs - Maya-Camille Broussard, Ashley Holt, Gonzo Jimenez, and Christophe Rull - as they engage in a friendly competition against one another for the opportunity to make dessert dreams come true for a special guest.
With so many taking up baking this past year, we asked the stars of Bake Squad and Nailed It!'s Jacques Torres for tips and recommendations to avoid the most common baking mistakes, because if there's one thing we do know about baking, it's that there isn't much room for error.
1. Plan ahead: Before you bake, Torres recommends figuring out the steps. If you do that, you dont get surprised and its a lot easier to go from one task to another, he says. It also means you're less likely to forget something.
2. Use the freshest and best ingredients: This is true for everything you do in the kitchen. The best ingredients are going to make you look better, because they just taste better, explains Torres, who stresses using foods when they're in season. If you use strawberries in February, whatever youre going to do to them, it isnt going to be good. So if you use strawberries, use the best strawberries you can buy. Use them in season. Same for any kind of food.
3. Don't mix up the salt and sugar: This seems rather obvious, but it can (and does!) happen to even the most experienced bakers if they're not paying attention in the kitchen. Making sure your items are properly labeled is an easy way to avoid it.
4. Combine ingredients fully: Stand mixers are an incredible invention that cuts down on work in the kitchen, but they can't do everything. If youre working with a KitchenAid mixer or any other standing mixing bowl, please dont forget to scrape the bottom of the bowl, says Broussard. Whether youre making cookies or a cake, every time you add a new ingredient, take that silicone spatula and get to scraping. You want to make sure that your ingredients are well combined.
5. Don't use a double boiler for heating chocolate: A lot of recipes call for using melted chocolate, and even if you've been baking for a long time, there's still a chance you've been doing this part wrong. People use the double boiler quite a lot, says Jimenez, who is known for creating extraordinary works of art out of chocolate, but that creates a lot of steam in the kitchen and that could contaminate your chocolate with more water. Thats not ideal, so the easiest way to do it is just to simply use a microwave.
6. Get to know your oven: Everyones oven is different, notes Broussard. Somebody's oven can have an attitude and someone else's oven can be sweet as pie. Just because a recipe may say to bake for 35 minutes, you might have to bake for 45 minutes. So just get to know your oven and see how your oven likes a particular recipe.
7. Be prepared to start over...: Not everything is going to come out the way you planned it, so be ready to adapt. If you burn something or break something, you've just got to do it again, says Jimenez. In one of the episodes I burned a big batch of candied hazelnuts, and you just hustle and make another batch. Then you also have to adapt the rest of your creation as far as time goes.
8 but know when to embrace your mistakes: Sometimes a flub in the kitchen can turn into something great, says Tosi, who estimates that half the items on the menu at Milk Bar, including the popular Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookie, started out as something else. I was trying to hide something that someone had over-toasted that was to be used for a different dessert, she explains, and what I got were these super-ultra caramelized, super-crunchy notes that were a total sneak attack thing in this cookie that I didnt expect, I didnt plan for, I didnt intend. And yet this magic came out of it.
She recommends keeping your eyes open, keeping your ears open, and keeping your taste buds sharp. You just never know when inspiration will strike, she says.
9. Practice, practice, practice: Baking is like a muscle. The more you do it, the stronger youll be at it, says Tosi. Thats everything from measuring your ingredients, mixing, tasting your batter, knowing your oven, and having confidence, etc. It comes the more you do it.
Bake Squad is now streaming on Netflix. Season 6 of Nailed It! launches Sept. 15.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
01/04/2026
January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION
Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...
28/02/2026
With two features seen in Formula 1 coverage, the broadcaster aims to bring view...
28/02/2026
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth addresses a crowd of approximately 1,500 L3Harris employees in Camden, Arkansas, as part of his Arsenal of Freedom tour....
28/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/02/2026
Berklee Presents Mambo Mania: Eguie Castrillo and the Berklee All-Stars Big Band...
28/02/2026
Berklee Announces Two New Summer Programs in Los Angeles The Berklee Music Business Program and Electronic Music Production and Sound Design Workshop bring imme...
28/02/2026
AI-RAN is moving from lab to field, showing that a software-defined approach is ...
28/02/2026
Autonomous networks - intelligent, self-managing telecommunications operations -...
28/02/2026
Back to All News
Final Trailer for BEASTARS Final Season Part 2' Roars Tow...
28/02/2026
New way to intentionally discover molecular glues could expand drug discovery Scripps Research scientists and colleagues show how drugs that eliminate certain d...
27/02/2026
The E.W. Scripps Company names Oliver Gray as Vice President, Network Sports and...
27/02/2026
The Gotham Sports App, the exclusive direct-to-consumer streaming home of MSG Networks and the YES Network, is now available for purchase through Prime Video fo...
27/02/2026
ESPN and the Horizon League announce a new multi-year, multi-platform media rights agreement, continuing a 38-year collaboration that began with the 1988 Midwes...
27/02/2026
At the 2026 NAB Show in Las Vegas, NETGEAR will highlight its new switch models and major updates to its Engage Controller software. The company's network d...
27/02/2026
Riedel Communications announces that Fondazione Teatro alla Scala has deployed a...
27/02/2026
Lyuno specializes in media localization, including translation, dubbing, subtitling, and voice-over services for a wide array of entertainment content. The comp...
27/02/2026
Chyron Weather 2.3, the latest edition of Chyron's weather visualization suite for broadcasters and meteorologists, recently launched.
The release includes...
27/02/2026
Telestream, which concentrates in media workflow technologies, announces expanded practical AI enhancements across its Vantage, Vantage Cloud, EDC, Stanza, and ...
27/02/2026
Horizon Sports & Experiences (HS&E), a global sports marketing, media, and live ...
27/02/2026
Legendary sports broadcasters Bob Costas, Doug Collins, Mike Czar of the Telest...
27/02/2026
Beginning on March 1st, IndyCar will be kicking off their 31st season on the str...
27/02/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
27/02/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
27/02/2026
Owl AI a pioneer in artificial intelligence for professional sports, announces a...
27/02/2026
With over 447 million fans in APAC, Formula 1 and beIN will continue to innovate...
27/02/2026
12-year-old Noelle Taylor will be the Kid Reporter when the Brooklyn Nets host t...
27/02/2026
Entire CapCam system - including camera unit, RF transmitter, and battery - is h...
27/02/2026
Since its inception, Gorillaz has been known for blending art with genre-bending...
27/02/2026
This week, Spotify introduced Audiobook Charts for the U.S. and U.K. The charts make it easy to discover your next favorite book by showing what's popular a...
27/02/2026
Rohde & Schwarz and Viasat to collaborate on NB-NTN IoT test plan for connectivi...
27/02/2026
In media technology, big features often steal the spotlight - AI integrations, cloud transformations, automation frameworks. But for the people who use these to...
27/02/2026
Digital Asset Management systems sit at the heart of most marcoms operations. They centralise content, organise it, and make it discoverable. Integrated with th...
27/02/2026
The AI Wild West comes to NAB 2026 and Blue Lucy is bringing the Sheriff
The AI Wild West is here, and media organisations are feeling the heat. On Booth W23...
27/02/2026
NEW YORK - February 26, 2026 - An estimated 32.6 million people watched President Donald J. Trump deliver the 2026 State of the Union address on Tuesday, Februa...
27/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
27/02/2026
Video is one of the lawyer's most powerful storytelling tools in civil litigation today, whether used to transport jurors to an incident scene or challenge ...
27/02/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today released Nuke 17.0, the latest version of its powerful compositing tool for visual effects and animation. Marking one ...