With a stint on The Great British Bake Off and two cookbooks under her belt, it’s safe to say Benjamina Ebuehi knows a thing or two about baking.

While her new book, A Good Day To Bake, has some adventurous flavours in there, everyone has to start somewhere.

If you’re a baking novice and want to know what core recipes you should have in your repertoire, these are Ebuehi’s suggestions…

1. A bread

The first bake that springs to Ebuehi’s mind? “Definitely a simple bread,” she says – and she suggets soda bread.

“When people hear bread, they get really scared of all the kneading and the proofing and the yeast. So I think soda bread is a really good intro bread, because you don’t need to knead it – the less kneading, the better.

“You’ve not got yeast to work with – it’s really rustic and it comes together really quickly.”

2. Carrot cake

Cake is a must – but the question is, which one?

“I think a carrot cake is a really good one to have in your repertoire,” says Ebuehi. “People hear it and they think it sounds really technical, really difficult – but it’s much easier than a Victoria sponge. It’s all in the bowl, mixed together – bake.”

3. Shortcrust pastry

When it comes to pastry, Ebuehi recommends nailing a “simple sweet shortcrust pastry, because you can fill that or top that with absolutely anything. Once you’ve got the pastry down, that’s good.”

4. A loaf cake

The baker is a big fan of having “a good solid loaf cake recipe” under your belt. “Whether that’s a pound cake, a banana loaf or a lemon drizzle cake,” she says – it always makes for “a good weekday bake”.

5. A custard

Custard is “not really a bake”, admits Ebuehi, but she wants to include it because “it goes with a lot of bakes”. Having a custard you can “whip up very quickly”, she says, is “a good one to have in your repertoire”.

A Good Day To Bake: Simple Baking Recipes For Every Mood by Benjamina Ebuehi is published by Quadrille, priced £22. Photography by Laura Edwards. Available now