So much of learning how to bake seems to come through trial and error. Meringues fell flat? Must not have whipped them enough. Burnt cookies? Better check the oven temperature. Let us help take some of the guess work out of your baking so you can concentrate on...well, baking. Here are our top 10 tips for avoiding the most common mistakes in baking.
1. Adjust the Oven Temperature - One of the best things you can do for yourself is buy an oven thermometer so you know exactly how hot your oven is, no matter what the dial says. If the temperature is very off, adjusting the oven dial or calling in a professional can help.
2. How to Whip Egg Whites - Here's how to tell the difference between soft peaks, firm peaks, stiff peaks, over-whipped white. Same scenario applies to making whipped cream.
3. How to Separate Eggs - No more headaches over broken yolks!
4. How to Quickly Soften Butter - Because we don't always have the foresight to set out a stick of butter to soften ahead of time.
5. How to Tell When a Cake is Finished Baking - Cakes can be such fussy things. The last thing you want to worry about is whether it's finished baking.
6. Baking Soda vs. Baking Powder - For anyone who's ever run out of one and been tempted to substitute the other. (Also, here's how to tell if baking soda has expired.)
7. How to Keep Brown Sugar Soft - And what to do if it hardens up.
8. How to Transfer Pie Crust - You go to all the trouble of making a pie crust from scratch, but how do you get it in the darn pan?!
9. How to Toast Nuts - Not only does this make your house smell amazing, but you'll be surprised at how much better your baked goods taste.
10. How to Fold Batters - This is how you get the fluffy baked goods instead of door stops.
What baking tips have you learned over the years?
Related: 29 Tips, Ingredients, and Recipes for Gluten-Free Baking
(Images: Emma Christensen and Flickr member foodies at home licensed under Creative Commons)
Soda Recipe: Homemade Ginger Ale
Recipe: Spring Fruit and Nut Tabouli
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
TW Salt Mill by Wil...
Which Wall Color Gives the Best Sleep?
Ana Creates a Community at Home
I think how to measure accurately and consistently is really key in baking.
I use a digital scale now and have for years but when I first started getting serious about baking I also got obsessive about fluffing up flours, spooning into measuring cups, leveling off, and sifting. I still think you have to pay attention to those steps for best results if you're going by volume but now, I'm all about weighing in metric and I can't recommend it enough!
Also, read the recipe all the way through before proceeding.
Ditto on the scale - makes a world of difference in the fussier recipes! Who knew 1 cup of flour could vary so much in the actual amount of flour?!
With more complicated things or when I'm also busy making other items, I set up a mise en place - measuring out various ingredients so they're ready to throw in the bowl and mix together! Also protects against accidentally pouring too much of something into the batter.
Everyone experience the struggle to get that little piece of egg shell that fell in the bowl out of there. The best way to do this is to actually use a big piece of egg shell to fish it out, somehow it's attracted to each other, the little piece will just get in there easely.
I agree with both posts above, reading the recipe first, measuring right and be organised works best.
I find obsessively keeping butter chilled makes a big difference in recipes that require chilled butter.
This means, if I get interrupted and need to put the bowl down, I put the bowl in the fridge. If I find I'm taking too long to cut it in the butter, I put the bowl in the fridge and go back to it when it's chilled. If I don't quite understand what I'm doing next and need to refer to the recipe, I put the bowl in the fridge. You get the idea. It makes all the difference in pastry, biscuits, etc.
I bake quite a lot and I rarely weigh ingredients and my stuff always turns out great. Of course, I meticulously avoid recipes that call for separating eggs (except coconut macaroons) or making a meringue. I know how to separate eggs just fine (I use the shells to separate), I just hate whipping egg whites because I don't have a stand mixer and I hate to dirty my electric hand mixer just for egg whites and whipping them by hand is HARD. Lol.
I also don't like making layer cakes or frosting, but that's mostly because I'd rather have cake with milk or liquid cream than frosting.
AA (or AAA if you can find them) eggs for anything with beaten egg whites, double the volume of A. And a copper bowl, I have one for my 25 yr old Kitchenaid.
Crack your eggs into a small bowl or cup, then dump that into the recipe. If you have a bad egg, it hasn't contaminated the rest of the recipe. Also, if you get a bit of shell in the egg it's now much easier to get out than if you cracked the egg directly into the other ingredients.
To separate eggs I crack the egg into my hand, letting the egg white ooze between my fingers into a bowl. It works better than using an egg shell, which can pierce the yolk with its sharp edges.
I think it is also extremely important to know that dry and liquid measuring cups DO make a difference! Dry measure is different than liquid measure. So if for example, you want to make rice - its one dry measure cup of rice to 1 3/4 or 2 liquid measure cups. When that was finally pointed out to me, my cooking changed for the better.
I've learned so much from all my mistakes!
Here are a few lessons learned the hard way:
1. recipes most likely call for large eggs at room temperature. A speedy way to 'warm' them up is to put them in a container with warm water for 10 mins.
room temperature eggs = soft cake
2. Whip egg whites in glass or stainless steel or copper containers. Plastic containers often have a bit of greasy residue, prohibiting the eggs from whipping properly.
3. to roll out pie dough: after the dough has chilled in the fridge, I let the dough rest at room temperature for 20 mins before rolling it out. If not, the dough is super hard like a rock and rolling takes forever. it took me months to realize that.
4. Mise en place! or measure out all your ingredients and prepare materials before you actually start. I know, it's so hard to do when you suddenly have the urge to bake...and I still make that mistake. Mise en place makes everything flow faster once you actually bake and allows you to quickly realize if you are missing some ingredients.
5. If you decrease the sugar amount in a recipe, the cake will get dry. sugar melts at high heat and becomes a liquid. less liquid in a cake = dry cake.
6. just have fun! it's through errors that you'll become a great baker and there's always someone willing to eat the 'experimental' cakes.
I use shot glasses to separate eggs. My mother stopped by my apartment and asked why I had so many (while poking her head into my cabinets), and I showed her. It works, I swear!