Becoming a seasoned baker does not happen overnight. Learning how to bake is ultimately an exercise of trial and error, requiring patience and consistent practice. Understanding the different baking techniques and which tools you’ll need for these recipes, however, is always a good place to start.
Our complete guide to baking will equip you for success, helping you prepare delicious desserts for the whole family, ranging from cookies and cakes, to pies, bars and breads. While mastering each dessert will take time, familiarizing yourself with the most common baking techniques will undoubtedly help you next time you are in the kitchen.
Le Creuset’s bakeware has been carefully crafted with premium materials, ensuring both their durability and top-quality performance for years to come. Featuring both stoneware and metal bakeware, our bakeware catalogue is sure to meet all your baking needs in style.
Here is Le Creuset’s complete guide to baking along with a few bakeware essentials you might need next time you bake!
Le Creuset Essential Bakeware
Baked Goods
Baking Techniques: creaming butter, portioning and shaping dough
Do you want the aroma of freshly baked cookies to envelop your home? Keep reading. The first step to making delicious cookies whether it is a tender shortbread, a chewy snickerdoodle or a crispy chocolate chip is often creaming the butter and sugar. Accomplish this step with both comfort and ease with the help of the balloon whisk.
Once that is done, you will often be introducing try ingredients and any additional mix-ins (walnuts, chocolate chips, etc.). Your whisk will come in handy for this step too as you can whisk dry ingredients to make sure they are evenly distributed and to get rid of any lumps. Once you add the dry ingredients, you will want to move to a silicone spatula - something that can handle a heavier dough and easily scrape the sides of your bowl.
After shaping the dough into even portions, line them up on your cookie sheet a few inches apart. Finish by baking the cookies until they are slightly sticky in the middle and brown on the edges. The cookie sheet is designed for evenly baked (and never burned) cookies with a pocket of air in between the two pieces of carbon steel to lower the surface temperature.
Common Le Creuset bakeware essentials you’ll need to prepare cookies are an Insulated Cookie Sheet or a Large Sheet Pan, as well as Mixing Bowls. Our Insulated Cookie Sheet and our Large Sheet Pan are designed to maintain even heat distribution to prevent hot spots and scorching. Crafted with two layers of heavy gauge carbon steel, these pieces of bakeware ensure even baking all the way through.
Recipes
Our Spiced Cookies and Italian Holiday Cookies recipes are extremely easy to put together, highlighting the versatility of Le Creuset’s bakeware catalogue.
Spiced Cookies
Our Spiced Cookies recipe is sure to become a favourite in your household, providing a delicious snack after a meal or to bring to school or work.
Begin by sifting flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt and sugar before rubbing in the butter and the egg to form a dough. Once it has rested in the fridge for approximately 30 minutes, measure one tablespoon of dough and roll them into balls.
Place the dough balls on Le Creuset’s Insulated Cookie Sheet and sprinkle the spice sugar on top of the biscuits. Bake these cookies for approximately 10 minutes or until golden brown.
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Italian Holiday Cookies
Our Italian Holiday Cookies inject some much-needed colour to your dinner table, offering a delicious treat to serve with coffee or tea after a meal.
Begin by sifting the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl to combine. Next, place the sugar shortening in another large mixing bowl, and cream together until light and fluffy before adding salt, eggs, vanilla extract, almond extract and milk. Roll your dough into 1’’ balls and bake for approximately 10 minutes.
The icing can be easily prepared, combining powdered sugar, water, almond and vanilla extract, and sprinkles. Our Italian Holiday Cookies take just under an hour to prepare, serving up to four dozen delicious cookies.
Recipe created for Le Creuset by Dan Pelosi (@grossypelosi)
Get the recipeBaking Techniques: whisking, creaming icing
Baking a cake for the first time may seem overwhelming, however, if you follow these simple steps, you can prepare delicious desserts in no time. Begin by greasing and preheating your bakeware as directed in the recipe. Next, prepare all the ingredients you’ll need for the recipe and let them reach room temperature. Letting ingredients like eggs and butter reach room temperature prior to cooking is important so that they mix evenly within the cake batter.
Once that is complete, begin mixing the dry ingredients completely so that the batter will be smooth. Le Creuset’s Balloon Whisk is recommended for this step and can be used to mix ingredients with precision. After your dry mix has been incorporated appropriately, cream the sugar and butter and add in the eggs.
When that is done, combine all your ingredients with the batter and mix well until it is smooth and uniform. Next, pour the batter in your preheated pan and bake! If required, finish by icing or frosting your cake.
Our vast bakeware catalogue has you covered with all the essentials you’ll need to bake a cake, ranging from the Fluted Cake Pan, and the Rectangular Casserole to the Springform Round Cake Tin, and Flan/Quiche Tin. Additional bakeware accessories you may need include a large spatula and a balloon whisk.
Recipe
Our Orange Almond Cake recipe is a great place to start with baking your very own cakes, incorporating delicious ingredients and age-old baking techniques.
Orange Almond Cake
Our Orange Almond Cake is perfectly suited for our Heritage Square Dish, preparing a delicious cake for friends and family in under two hours.
Begin by adding whole oranges in a pre-heated pot and let them simmer for approximately one hour, or until they are soft. With that complete, slice them into wedges and purée the oranges.
Preparing the batter for this recipe can be tricky, combining ground almonds, baking powder, turmeric, and salt. Once you get the appropriate texture for your batter, bake it along the orange purée for approximately one hour.
Finish by combining orange juice, sugar, honey and orange liqueur or vanilla extract to create a delicious orange syrup and brush the cake with half of it while it is still hot. Our Orange Almond Cake recipe accommodates between six and eight servings.
Get the recipeBaking Techniques: cutting butter into flour, shaping the crust
Although not the most traditional, you can achieve delicious flakey pies and crumbles thanks to our Heritage Collection. Crafted with durable stoneware, this collection is made to deliver superior heat retention and simplify baking.
Ultimately, there are three main elements when baking a pie: the crust, the filling, and the topping. For a more traditional pie with a crust on the bottom and the top, you could opt for an Oval Au Gratin dish that is shallower and whose flared sides resemble that of a traditional pie dish.
For something like a crumble that does not require a pie crust you could use a square or rectangular dish depending on the number of people you are looking to serve. In either case, you can make the desserts ahead and store them in the freezer until you are ready to bake them.
Though typical pie dishes are often used to bake traditional round pies, Le Creuset's Heritage Dishes, including the Oval Au Gratin Dish are perfectly suited for baking pies, exposing your dough to a consistent heat source until it has been cooked all the way through. Alternatively, our Rectangular Cake Tin is ideal for these types of recipes.
Recipe
Knowing how to prepare homemade pies can make a world of difference when baking, allowing you to experiment with different ingredients and baking techniques. Here is how to prepare a delicious apple pie.
Apple Pie
Our Apple Pie recipe is the perfect dessert to serve, whether you are hosting friends and family, or simply want a delicious dish after dinner.
Begin by pulsing the flour, salt, and butter together and then add water and vinegar. Next, turn the dough into discs and refrigerate for approximately 30 minutes. For the apple filling, cook the apples along with cinnamon, sugar, and butter on high heat in a nonstick pan. Getting the apple filling right can take your pie to the next level.
Finish by rolling the dough and arranging a lattice with six strips diagonally across the pie. Our Apple Pie recipe takes just over an hour to prepare, accommodating up to eight servings.
Get the recipeBaking Techniques: melting (for the base)
Preparing homemade bars can make for a nutritious snack perfect for in-between meals, or a fun dessert to share at work or school. One key part to a successful bar is ensuring they hold together once they are cut. Many granola or breakfast bars do not even have to be baked and are simply pushed into the dish and cut once cooled. The smooth, non-porous material of the baking dish makes it easy to lift baked goods.
Le Creuset’s baking dishes, including the Rectangular Casserole and Rectangular Dish, are perfectly suited for baked bar recipes, offering superior heat retention and even heat distribution. The stoneware construction of our Heritage bakeware will ensure your bars are baked completely through, delivering a delicious final product. Alternatively, our Square Dish and can be used if you're looking to achieve perfect squares like for brownies or cornbread.
Recipes
Looking to prepare your very own bars? Le Creuset’s recipes are a great place to start, including our Baked Fully-Loaded Granola Bars and our No-Bake Chocolate-Peanut Date Bars. Here’s how to prepare them!
Baked Fully-Loaded Granola Bars
Our Baked Fully-Loaded Granola Bars is everything you want in a dessert: decadent, healthy, and easy to prepare. Combining oats, coconut, and nuts, these bars make for a delicious treat for the whole family.
Whether you opt for dried apricots, strawberries, or mango, the addition of the fruit is there to offer a softer contrast to the crunch granola bar. Once your hot mixture has been blended, pour it over the dry ingredients and add in the vanilla and the egg white.
Finish by spreading the mixture in a rectangular roaster and baking it for approximately 40 minutes until it is golden and firm.
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No-Bake Chocolate-Peanut Date Bars
Our No-Bake Chocolate-Peanut Date Bars are equally delicious as they are healthy and can be prepared in five simple steps. The combination of dark chocolate and the Medjool dates delivers some much-needed flavor contrast, while the pumpkin seeds inject texture on these no-bake bars.
Begin by blending the dates, pumpkin seeds, nut butters and honey until smooth and spread it out evenly on the Rectangular Casserole. Finally, refrigerate it for approximately 30 minutes to cool and firm up.
Our No-Bake Chocolate-Peanut Date Bars take just under two hours to prepare and make for a great snack in-between or after meals and at work.
Get the recipeBaking Techniques: kneading
Baking homemade bread has risen to the forefront over the past year with home cooks experimenting with their very own recipes. A simple loaf of bread requires only four ingredients: warm water, salt, yeast and flour. Once your ingredients have been mixed, start kneading the dough and you are on your way to a delicious loaf.
Kneading is an extremely crucial step in the process of bread making, ensuring the dough rises better and remains fluffier. Next, let the dough rise in a bowl and cover it with a plastic wrap. When the dough has risen to your liking, it is time to bake.
Cast Iron is a great material for baking bread in and Le Creuset offers many options based on what you are looking for. If baking bread is a regular thing, then you may want to consider the products specifically made to achieve the best loaf. The Bread Oven is a new product designed to lock in moisture and produce a fluffy inside and crunchy exterior. Other pieces like the classic Round Dutch Oven, the Oblong Casserole and even the skillet can be used for baking different style loaves, focaccias and pizza.
Recipes
These are just a few bread recipes you can get started with and begin preparing delicious homemade loaves for the whole family.
Batard Bread
Our Batard Bread is a good introductory recipe to bread-making, and can be prepared in six simple steps. Begin by adding flour, instant yeast, lukewarm water, and salt to the bowl and knead until smooth.
Once that is complete, turn the dough out on a flat surface and fold it into thirds. Let the dough rise for approximately one hour before repeating the folding process. The Round Dutch Oven is the only piece of cookware you will need for this recipe, locking in heat and moisture thanks to its tight-fitting lid, creating the ideal environment for the dough to rise.
Our Batard Bread recipe takes a little over three hours to prepare from start to finish but makes for a great addition to any dinner table.
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No Knead French Oven Bread
Our No Knead French Oven Bread recipe is just as simple to prepare, requiring four simple ingredients: flour, salt, instant yeast, and water.
This recipe will help you serve bakery-worthy bread in no time and can quickly become a staple in your household. Ultimately, the texture of the dough is crucial to this recipe and should be rested overnight. The Dutch Oven will take care of much of the rest, delivering a perfectly browned exterior and soft, fluffy interior.
Our No Knead French Oven Bread may take time to prepare and get the dough right, but is well worth the wait, serving up to eight people with ease.
Get the recipeLe Creuset Bakeware Accessories
These essentials can help simplify baking, ensuring you can mix, measure, and maneuver your baked dishes with ease.
Measuring Cups
Our Set of 4 Measuring Cups are a must in any kitchen when baking, allowing you to measure ingredients precisely. Becoming an expert baker is all about getting your portions right, and this Set of 4 Measuring Cups helps you do exactly that.
Each measuring cup is engraved with its size, eliminating confusion while baking. The set includes: ¼, 1⁄3, ½, and 1 cup sizes.
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Measuring Spoons
Our Set of 5 Measuring Spoons are yet another Le Creuset bakeware essential, equipping your kitchen for success when baking or for everyday meal preparation. Easy to clean and built to last, this bakeware accessory ensures inch-perfect measurements for years to come.
Much like our measuring cups, each measuring spoon is crafted with high-quality stainless steel and has its size clearly engraved on it. The set includes 1⁄8 tsp, ¼ tsp, ½ tsp, 1 tsp and 1 tbsp measuring spoons.
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Mixing Bowls
When baking, it is important to maintain order in the kitchen as multi-step recipes can quickly get messy. Our Set of 3 Stainless Steel Mixing Bowls serve a variety of crucial purposes when baking, helping you organize your mixtures with ease.
Whether mixing a smooth cake batter or whisking eggs to stiff peaks, these stainless steel bowls are the ultimate bakeware accessory. Plus, they come with silicone lids which are perfect if you need to refrigerate or store something overnight.
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Cooling Rack
Our Cooling Rack makes for a great addition to any Le Creuset bakeware collection, helping you cool down pastries without softening them. Its sturdy construction is designed to slightly elevate your pastries, ensuring they cool down after moulding.
When it is not being used to cool down baked goods, our Cooling Rack can be used to glaze cookies, cupcakes and cakes with ease.
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Oven Mitt
No bakeware collection is complete without the age-old Oven Mitt. Our Oven Mitt has been carefully designed to protect from baker’s burn, featuring a long sleeve that covers the forearm.
Reaching the forearm when worn, this bakeware accessory provides excellent coverage when transferring hot pots and pans. Our Oven Mitt is made with cotton terry cloth, offering bakers a confident, yet comfortable grip for years to come.
Shop Oven MittsPractice Makes Perfect
Ultimately, if you want to become an expert baker it will require lots of practice. Once you familiarize yourself with the classic baking techniques, ranging from kneading and creaming to portioning and shaping, no baking recipe will be off-limits.
If you want to start baking, Le Creuset’s baking recipes are a great way to experiment with new recipes and cooking techniques. Simply equip your kitchen with a few bakeware essentials such as our Heritage Collection and start practicing! It is easier than you think.