Best Online Baking Classes (2026): Pastry, Bread & Cake Picks

Last updated: October 2026. Written by Josh Hutcheson, OnlineCourseing editor. See our review methodology.

Online baking classes range from a $32 single class on sourdough to a 16-month professional diploma. The right one depends on what you want to bake and how much structure you need. Below are the six we would choose between in October 2026, what each one actually teaches, what it costs, and who should skip it.

See MasterClass baking classes →

The best online baking classes at a glance

How we picked

We did not take every class on this page from start to finish. On 11 October 2026 we opened each platform’s own pages and checked that the classes are live, who teaches them, how many lessons and hours they contain, what the lessons cover, and what they cost. We then ranked them on three things that matter more in baking than in most subjects:

• Precision of instruction: exact ratios, temperatures and weights, and a written recipe you can follow after the video.
• Depth on one skill: a whole class on bread or pastry beats a single recipe inside a general cooking course.
• Feedback and structure: graded work or a peer group helps, especially for beginners who cannot yet tell what went wrong.

Two of our six picks, King Arthur and Craftsy, pay us nothing, and neither do the career diplomas. We list them because they are the best options for those goals. When you buy through a link marked with an arrow, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

1. MasterClass: best for pastry technique

MasterClass has the best-known bakers of the subscriptions on this page, and one membership includes all of them. Four classes matter for bakers:

Dominique Ansel Teaches French Pastry Fundamentals

• Length: 17 lessons, 3 hours 37 minutes
• Instructor: James Beard Award-winning pastry chef Dominique Ansel
• What you make: mini madeleines; a vanilla sable tart shell with pastry cream and strawberry jam, finished two ways; a chocolate cake built from a biscuit base, Swiss meringues and mousse; tempered-chocolate bonbons; and croissants

The class is built around components, which is how professional pastry works: each lesson makes one element, and later lessons assemble them. One lesson is a case study of the Cronut rather than a recipe. See Dominique Ansel’s class

Apollonia Poilane Teaches Bread Baking

• Length: 17 lessons, 3 hours 34 minutes
• Instructor: Apollonia Poilane, CEO of Paris’s Poilane bakery
• What you make: a sourdough starter, the Poilane-style wheat loaf (mixing, shaping, scoring and baking), rye, pain de mie, brioche and a savory corn flour bread, plus lessons on using dry and stale bread

This is the best bread class in the MasterClass catalog. It teaches rustic French sourdough patiently and finishes with a lesson on decorating loaves. See Apollonia Poilane’s class

Joanne Chang: Bake Like A Pro (MasterClass Sessions)

Joanne Chang, the James Beard Award-winning co-owner of Flour Bakery in Boston, teaches a Sessions class, MasterClass’s project-based format. You work through eight bakery recipes in short activities and can share results with other students for feedback. MasterClass says you finish with five of her bakes and three original recipes of your own. It suits beginners who want a structured project rather than a lecture. See Bake Like A Pro

Thomas Keller Teaches Cooking Techniques III

Keller’s third class is mostly seafood and sous vide, but it ends with three dessert lessons: pots de creme, a lemon tart with a pine nut crust and an apple pie with a lard crust. Worth watching if you already have the membership; not a reason to buy it. See the class

Price and the catch

MasterClass advertises plans starting at $10 a month, billed annually, with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and the membership also includes more than 200 classes outside baking. The catch is depth: each baking class runs about three and a half hours, and there is no instructor feedback except in Sessions. Treat MasterClass as inspiration and technique, then practice the recipes several times.

Try MasterClass with the 30-day guarantee →

More detail: our best MasterClass cooking classes ranking and MasterClass review.

2. King Arthur Baking School: best for serious bread bakers

King Arthur Baking School sells classes one at a time instead of a membership. Its newest on-demand classes in October 2026 were Sourdough Techniques: Seeds and Soakers ($40) and Gluten-Free Brunch Bakes ($32, reduced from $40). Each comes with a packet of recipes from King Arthur’s test kitchen, and you can rewatch a class as many times as you like. The school also runs live online classes over Zoom and in-person classes in Norwich, Vermont, and Skagit Valley, Washington.

Pick King Arthur if you want one excellent class on one subject, such as sourdough, pie or pizza, without a subscription. The recipes are written for home kitchens and give ingredient weights, which removes a common reason home bread fails. The trade-off is breadth: a $40 class covers one topic, while a MasterClass membership covers dozens.

King Arthur has an affiliate program, but we have not joined it, so this is an unpaid recommendation.

3. Rouxbe: best for a structured certificate

Rouxbe is an online cooking school rather than a video library, and it is the only membership here with graded work. Its Introduction to Baking and Pastry is a 40-hour course in 20 units that moves from kitchen setup and basic skills through cookies, quick breads and pound cake, loaf-pan and French and Italian breads, yeasted and laminated breakfast pastries, fruit pies and almond cream tarts, crepes and chouquettes, macarons, chocolate mousse, creme brulee, ice cream and confections, and ends with a final assessment.

• Buy the course alone: $399 one-time, with chef-instructor grading and feedback, a Certificate of Completion and lifetime access
• Or take it in the membership: $30 for the first month, then $15 a month, or $129 a year; the membership includes 11 courses, 75 lessons, live events and questions answered by chef-instructors
• Try first: 7-day free trial with no credit card
• Plant-based option: Essential Vegan Desserts, a 90-day course based on Fran Costigan’s Vegan Baking Boot Camp (cakes, pies, tarts, cookies, aquafaba, mousse)

Rouxbe is the most work of the subscription picks and the least glamorous to watch. If you want to be measurably better at baking in three months rather than entertained for three hours, it is the best value here.

See Rouxbe’s baking and pastry course →

Our full Rouxbe review covers the rest of the school.

4. Udemy: best on a budget

Udemy runs a baking category of single courses from independent instructors. You buy one course at a time, often at a heavy discount, and keep it without a subscription.

Quality varies more than on any other platform here, because anyone can publish a course. Before you buy, check three things on the course page: the rating and the number of ratings, the “last updated” date, and the preview lessons. A 4.6 from a few thousand reviews is a much safer bet than a 4.9 from twenty. Udemy’s refund rules differ between single courses and its subscription; our Udemy refund guide explains both.

Browse Udemy baking courses →

5. Craftsy: best for cake decorating

Craftsy lists 111 baking classes and is strongest on cakes: buttercream, fondant, piping, sculpted and wedding cakes, and French macarons. Its instructors include Peter Reinhart on bread, Rose Levy Beranbaum, Nick Malgieri, Jacques Torres, Colette Christian (whose class covers classic croissants) and Joanne Chang.

Craftsy membership covers more than 2,000 classes across crafts and cooking, and you can share it with up to three people. In October 2026 Craftsy offered new members the first year for $1.79; check the renewal price before you sign up. Some baking classes are marked free. We found no Craftsy affiliate program on the networks we work with, so this is an unpaid recommendation. More in our Craftsy review.

6. ICE or Escoffier: best for a career in pastry

If you want to work in a bakery or restaurant, a hobby class is not enough. Two established culinary schools teach baking and pastry online:

• Institute of Culinary Education: the online Baking and Pastry Arts and Food Operations diploma is a 900-hour, 16-month program with weekly labs in your own kitchen, chef feedback on photo and video submissions, classes you can join live or watch later, and an in-person industry externship.
• Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts: an online Diploma in Professional Pastry Arts and an online Associate of Occupational Studies degree in Baking and Pastry, each listed at 60 weeks.

Tuition for both is far higher than any class here, so ask each school for a total cost and its financial aid options. Neither pays us. For more programs, see our guide to the best online culinary schools.

Other online baking classes worth knowing

• YesChef: a cinematic cooking membership with eight chefs, including Nancy Silverton, Erez Komarovsky and Jamie Oliver. Baking is a small part of it (Silverton’s apple pie, Komarovsky’s challah and a rustic summer cake, Oliver’s bread), so choose it if you want cooking first and some baking. Plans list at $20 a month billed yearly, $32 a month for three months or $549.99 for lifetime access, with a 30-day guarantee; a 30% fall sale was running on 11 October 2026. See our YesChef review and YesChef vs MasterClass.
• Milk Bar classes with Christina Tosi: two cohort-style classes run with a peer group over a month: a snackable-desserts class (5 hours 32 minutes of video) and a layer-cake class (16 hours 30 minutes) built around Milk Bar’s Birthday Layer Cake, in which you develop your own recipe.
• Rouxbe Essential Vegan Desserts: a structured plant-based dessert course with graded projects and a final showcase.

Free online baking classes

Free classes exist, but most are single recipes rather than courses. The best free and nearly free options:

• Craftsy’s free baking classes, such as Decorative Jelly Roll Cake and Caramelized Apple Upside-Down Cake by Rachael Teufel.
• Rouxbe’s 7-day free trial, which needs no credit card and opens its baking and pastry course. Start the Rouxbe trial.
• King Arthur’s free recipes and baking guides, which are not classes but are carefully tested and written for home kitchens.
• MasterClass is not free, but its 30-day money-back guarantee lets you watch Ansel’s and Poilane’s classes and get a refund if they are not for you.

Online baking classes for beginners: where to start

1. Learn the basics in one structured place. Rouxbe’s baking and pastry course or Joanne Chang’s Bake Like A Pro session teaches measuring, mixing and oven control before anything fancy.
2. Bake one category until it works. Cookies and quick breads first, then a yeasted loaf, then pastry. Repeat each recipe until the result is consistent.
3. Add a specialist class. Sourdough from King Arthur or Poilane, pastry from Ansel, cakes from Craftsy.
4. Buy a scale. Every serious class weighs ingredients. A kitchen scale costs less than any class here and fixes more problems.

How to choose

Match the platform to your goal. Want pastry technique and a lot for your money? MasterClass. Want to master bread or sourdough without a subscription? King Arthur, or Poilane on MasterClass. Want structure, graded work and a certificate? Rouxbe. Want to spend as little as possible? Udemy or Craftsy’s free classes. Focused on cake decorating? Craftsy. Planning a career? ICE or Escoffier.

Most of these have a free trial, a refund window or a low first price, so try the teaching style before you commit to a year.

Start with MasterClass →

Frequently asked questions

What is the best online baking class for beginners?

For most beginners, a MasterClass membership is the easiest start: Dominique Ansel’s pastry class and Joanne Chang’s Bake Like A Pro session both begin with fundamentals, and the membership costs from $10 a month billed annually. If you would rather pay once for one subject, a single King Arthur on-demand class ($32 to $40 for its newest classes) or a well-reviewed Udemy course costs less. If you want structure and feedback, Rouxbe’s Introduction to Baking and Pastry is the most complete beginner course on this list.

Are there free online baking classes?

Yes, a few. Craftsy marks some baking classes as free, such as Rachael Teufel’s Decorative Jelly Roll Cake and Caramelized Apple Upside-Down Cake. Rouxbe offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card, which covers its baking and pastry course. MasterClass has no free tier but offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. Free YouTube channels and King Arthur’s free recipes and baking guides are good supplements, but they are not structured classes.

Which online class is best for learning bread?

Apollonia Poilane’s MasterClass is the best single bread class here: 17 lessons covering a sourdough starter, the Poilane wheat loaf, rye, pain de mie and brioche. King Arthur’s on-demand sourdough classes are the best choice for a home baker who wants one focused class with tested recipes. Craftsy’s catalog includes bread classes from instructors such as Peter Reinhart.

Can you get a baking certificate online?

Yes, at three levels. Rouxbe gives a Certificate of Completion for its courses, including the 40-hour Introduction to Baking and Pastry. For a career, the Institute of Culinary Education and Escoffier offer online pastry diplomas (ICE’s runs 16 months with an in-person externship; Escoffier’s online programs run 60 weeks). MasterClass, Craftsy, King Arthur and Udemy classes are for learning, not professional credentials.

Are online baking classes worth it?

Usually, if you bake along. Baking depends on ratios, temperatures and technique that are easier to learn by watching a professional and repeating the recipe. A class you only watch teaches far less. Start with a short or refundable option and bake every recipe at least twice before buying more.

Are there live online baking classes?

Yes. King Arthur Baking School runs live online classes over Zoom alongside its on-demand library and in-person classes. Milk Bar’s classes with Christina Tosi run over 30 days with a peer group, and Rouxbe’s membership includes live sessions with its chef-instructors. MasterClass and Craftsy are mostly on demand.

Are there online baking classes for kids?

King Arthur Baking School lists a Kids and Camps category; check each listing to see whether it is online or in person. Most of the platforms on this page are aimed at adults, so younger bakers will need a parent alongside.

Can I become a professional baker through an online class?

Not through a hobby class alone. Bakeries and restaurants look for practical experience, which is why the online pastry diplomas from ICE and Escoffier include externships or hands-on requirements. A hobby class is a good, cheap way to find out whether you enjoy the work before paying for a diploma.