Baking should be something fun, right? But everyone has their own definition of fun. In fact, some may think baking is such a hassle that they would rather pick up a prepared baked good from their nearest supermarket. It saves them the trouble and hassle of actually having to do everything themselves. I mean who doesn’t want things done for them.

But baking has actually shown to help relieve stress. Then again, why wouldn’t it? After all that baking you best believe you’re going to want to sit down with a plate full of fresh baked goods all to yourself. You deserve it!

Of course, before you can reward yourself with those goodies, you have to make them first. And that can be a bit challenging for some. Baking isn’t a talent that one is born with. It takes practice. Lots of practice and a good recipe. So think about everyone you know who is really good at baking, just think about how many times they probably messed up something, which is totally normal. We're humans, we make mistakes, we burn things, we mix up ingredients all the time. So instead of putting two cups of sugar, it just so happens that you put two cups of salt. But that’s okay! You’re learning, and the more you learn from your mistakes, the better you get.

It’s always good to start small, so that next time you think of baking something again, you won’t look back to the first time you baked in which not only did it take forever to make, but you also spent a good two hours cleaning your kitchen because you thought it would be better to speed up the mixing process by putting the Kitchen Aid mixer on high and flour covered your face and walls.

So let's start small, something simple and very enjoyable. Everyone loves chocolate chip cookies (if you don’t, then we’re going to have a BIG problem). So here’s a step by step guide on how to bake a delicious batch of chocolate chip cookies.

First start with a clear counter. It makes everything easier and neater. So this next step is optional, but if you’re a first-time baker or baker in training, then I highly suggest doing it. When you do find yourself a recipe for chocolate chip cookies (even though I am about to give you one right now), it’s always best to use one from those well-known sites. For example, Allrecipes, Delish, or FoodNetwork. Because anyone can Google something for a recipe, but a well-known, good website will have the recipes you really want to try. After having your recipe handy (printing it out is nice because then you can create a small portfolio of recipes and always have them to look back on), start with the ingredients you need.

For this cookie recipe you will need:

• 1 Cup of Butter softened
• 1 Cup of White Sugar
• 1 Cup of Brown Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 2 Teaspoons of Vanilla Extract
• 3 Cups of Flour (All- Purpose)
• 1 Teaspoon of Baking Soda
• 2 Teaspoons of Hot Water
• ½ Teaspoon of Salt
• 2 Cups of Chocolate Chips

To make things easier and the process faster have all your ingredients out. Set them all up on the kitchen table, so you have space on your counter. After setting your ingredients out, bring out your measuring tools. Baking tools include; measuring cups, and measuring spoons. Baking isn't something where you can toss ingredients in by eyeballing it. Your cookies are not going to be cookies. They’ll be a mess. You MUST be precise when it comes to baking. Measuring ingredients isn’t all that hard since all baking tools are labeled so that part shouldn’t be that bad. For those of you who are bad at math, 1 cup of butter is simply two sticks because 1 stick of butter is only half a cup. Set those sticks of butter on the table ten minutes before you get started. That way they'll be softened, just like the recipe says. Now you can measure out all your ingredients, measure them accordingly.

Once you have all your ingredients out and measured accordingly to the recipe, you are set to start. First thing, preheat your oven to 350 degrees, that's 175 celsius. Make sure your oven is empty as well, if you’re too young to touch the oven, I suggest you call an adult, wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt baking cookies (then again it happens to all us bakers).

After your oven is set, get yourself a bowl so you can mix all your ingredients together, or if you have a Kitchenaid mixer, then that makes your job ten times easier.

Okay, so this is where you really need to follow through, step by step. Because as I said before you CANNOT just throw in ingredients, even though you measured everything precisely, you must follow through. Don’t think that just because you’re going to be mixing everything in the same bowl it won’t matter. IT DOES MATTER. IT MATTERS ALOT!

So first, you’re going to take your two sticks of butter that are softened and place them into your mixing bowl. Then you are going to take your 1 cup of measured white sugar and add it to the bowl with the softened butter. After adding the white sugar, you will then add your 1 cup of brown sugar. If a recipe, like this, calls for creaming your butter and sugar together, I would highly recommend using your KitchenAid mixer, or if you don’t have that, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t because they are expensive, they do however last a very long time. If you take care of it. So using an electric mixture, or your fancy schmancy KitchenAid, cream together your butter and sugar until you see the mixture isn’t all clumpy. You want to see a very smooth texture.

Once your mixture is nice and smooth, crack in your eggs, one at a time. Be careful not to get any shells, these are supposed to be soft cookies, we don’t want any crunch to them. Once the eggs are added and mixed in well with your creamed butter and sugar mixture, stir in your vanilla extract. Set that aside just for a moment.

Now you’re going to take your 2 teaspoons of hot water and add in your 1 teaspoon of baking soda into it. Make sure you are really careful with the amount of baking soda you use. If you use too little, your cookies will be flat, if you use too much, you best believe your cookies are going to have a baking soda aftertaste. Once your baking soda has been dissolved in the hot water, add it to the batter along with your ½ teaspoon of salt.

Now comes the flour. I would highly recommend sifting the flour before placing it into the bowl, but you don’t have too. Add in your flour slowly, and make sure if you are using your KitchenAid mixer that you turn it off. Otherwise, you and your kitchen will be covered in flour, and we don’t want that now do we. Same goes for the electric mixture, have it off. Once all the flour is added to the bowl, turn on your mixer to the lowest power, which is one. And keep it on that power until most of the flour has been mixed it that way, the flour won’t poof all over you.

Now you can set your mixers aside because this last part doesn’t really need a mixer. Take your 2 cups of chocolate chips and fold them into the batter. What that means is, you take a spatula, you know that tool that has a flat plastic blade, it’s used for mixing and spreading things especially when you’re baking, take that tool you scrape around the edge, towards you and fold the batter on top of itself. And you just continue to fold the batter within itself until the chocolate chips are all over. Some people like to add chopped walnuts, it’s optional of course, I think it destroys the beauty of chocolate chip cookies. But if you like walnuts, almonds, peanuts, or whatever, then, by all means, go nuts and add it to your cookie dough.

So now your batter is done!

You could always just skip the whole baking part and eat the cookie dough itself, I wouldn’t blame you if you did because I’m sure it tastes amazing!

Now comes the hardest part. Waiting for these amazing cookies to bake. Since you already preheated your oven to 350 degrees (175 celsius), all you really have to do is set the dough on a baking tray.

Since your dough is full of butter (yum). You don’t have to grease your pan. Grab your baking pan, professionally called half sheet pans, they’re flat and fits perfectly into your oven.

There are two ways to do this last step. You can take a tablespoon, one that you would eat cereal or soup with and scoop some of the dough and drop it on the pan, or you can use a cookie scooper, which is much easier than a spoon because, with a spoon, you have to slide the dough off the spoon to get it on the tray, whereas with a cookie scooper, there a lever in which it pushes down the dough itself and it comes out in the perfect shape, and each of your cookies will come out in the same shape too. Then again you can always ball them in your hands, but that's just another mess you have to deal with.

So now your cookies are all placed in the tray, spaced out evenly of course, now they’re ready to bake. Take your tray or trays, and place them in the oven, bottom rack is always best. Close the oven and set your timer for ten minutes. You can always set a timer on your phone since you’ll probably be on it while you wait for the cookies to bake.

Once that timer goes off, remove your tray(s) and set the cookies to cool. I know they probably look tempting, but unless you are begging to burn your tongue, then I suggest you don’t shove one into your mouth just yet.

After your cookies have cooled, grab yourself a plate, place as many cookies as you want because I never said you had to share and enjoy. You deserved it, especially after all that work.

But don’t forget, you have to clean up after yourself. It’s only fair. You made the mess, you clean it.