Being a star baker? It's so simple: Sarah Rainey, author of a new book of recipes that use just THREE ingredients, on how easy it is to make showstopping dishes with no fuss

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How many ingredients are there in your favourite dish? That warming winter stew you rustle up mid-week… your trademark spaghetti Bolognese… the roast chicken the whole family tucks into for Sunday lunch?

The joy of these nourishing, nostalgic dishes lies in their simplicity. Though delicious, they're quick, easy recipes you know off by heart – and typically require only a few basic ingredients.

In recent years, baking has gone in a very different direction. The popularity of TV series such as The Great British Bake Off and MasterChef and the ready availability of gadgets and obscure ingredients in supermarkets have turned us into a nation of ambitious home bakers, and taught us that the sky's the limit when it comes to cakes, biscuits and buns.

Victoria sponges, scones and shortbread have been replaced by towering croquembouches, multicoloured macaroons and 12-tiered meringue masterpieces. Market stalls and charity bake sales have become catwalks for the most extravagant sugary wares, while the internet brims with images of mouth-watering creations baked by home chefs around the world.

Sarah Rainey (pictured) has released a book of recipes to create showstopping baked foods using three ingredients

On one hand, this is wonderful. Why shouldn't we conjure up professional-standard sponges from the comfort of our own kitchens? Britain is baking its way into the record books, with around 1 million households churning out homemade cakes every week – and that should be applauded.

But I'm worried it's gone too far. Baking has changed, from a homely hobby to something of an elite art form, making it often intimidating to those who've never tried it before.

I actually sat and totted up the number of ingredients in the recipes in my favourite baking books at home: Delia Smith, Mary Berry, Nigella Lawson and the rest. Astonishingly, the average per recipe was 14. And this is where my new book Three Ingredient Baking, which is being featured in Weekend today with a special 12-page pull-out in the centre pages, comes in.

My aim with these recipes is to help you whip up brilliant, showstopping cakes, biscuits, breads, traybakes and savoury snacks that will look just as good as the ones on Bake Off using three simple ingredients you already have at home. These can be anything, from an open jar of peanut butter to a handful of flour, a few digestive biscuits or a can of lemonade.

As you'll find if you try my recipes, they're speedy, easy-to-follow and there are no hidden extras or fiddly decorations – what you see is exactly what you get. This means they're great for children, first-timers, old-timers, experts, amateurs – anyone, really, who's curious about this unique way of baking.

I came across the concept back in 2013, when a Japanese recipe for a three-ingredient cheesecake quietly took the baking world by storm. An unknown food blogger had uploaded a video of the dessert, made from eggs, white chocolate and cream cheese, to her YouTube channel. 

Without any of the conventional ingredients (there was no butter, sugar or flour in the recipe), it didn't sound like it would work. But viewers who tried it for themselves were flabbergasted – it looked impressive, tasted sweet and was as fluffy as a cloud. Three-ingredient baking became a sensation almost overnight.

Normally, I don't go in for faddy food trends. I prefer traditional, old-fashioned recipes made with ingredients I understand. I've been baking since I was a toddler, flour-caked hands tugging on apron strings in my grandmother's tiny kitchen in Northern Ireland, where I grew up. She taught me and most of my extended family to bake.

Sarah (pictured aged four, with her mother Susan) began baking as a toddler. She says her grandmother taught most of her extended family to bake

I don't know what my dear late Grandma would make of three-ingredient baking, but from the moment I came across it, I was obsessed. If you could make a cheesecake from three ingredients, what could you whip up from a few odds and ends at the back of the fridge? For the next two years, I lived, breathed and ate three-ingredient baking. I scoured old recipe books, rummaged in my attic and investigated the internet for every three-ingredient idea I could find.

The concept, it turns out, dates back to rationing in 1940s Britain, and spans as far afield as Africa, Asia and Australia. Ingenious home chefs have been looking for shortcuts for decades, swapping standard ingredients for clever substitutes that taste even better than the originals.

I learned how to magic muffins out of ginger beer and whip up crêpes with cauliflower. One of the recipes here in Weekend is for delicious smoked salmon soufflés – based on fresh custard! Another is for an indulgent chocolate mousse made with water. I found old family recipes for shortbread and potato farls, which are like potato cakes, and soda bread, all of which you can find in today's magazine.

You may be sceptical, as I once was. But once you've tried three-ingredient baking, you won't want to go back. It's effective, addictive and ideal for busy people and families on a budget who want to save time while eating well.

What I love most is the alchemy involved, which harks back to the reason I fell for baking in the first place. Take three raw ingredients, combine them, put the mixture in the oven – and what comes out is so amazing, so unlike what went in, that it can surely only be magic. And they do say three is a magic number, after all.

A caveat: the recipes in Three Ingredient Baking are perhaps not for the health-conscious. Some are low-sugar or gluten-free, but this is more a happy accident than deliberate choice. Most are indulgent goodies which should be eaten in moderation – especially two of those you can discover today, my zesty ginger lemon freezer cake and my chocolate praline brownies which, I'm almost ashamed to admit, contain a whole tub of Nutella.

With so much emphasis today on 'clean, green' food, calorie counting and restrictive diets, I wanted to produce an antidote; something that strips baking right back to what I believe it should be – a gooey, sticky, stodgy luxury that's designed to put a smile on your face.