Baked potatoes are not only tasty and healthy, they are extremely easy to cook.
Firstly choose your potato (King Edwards and Maris Pipers make delicious fluffy baked potatoes). Next scrub the potato, ensuring any soil on the skin is completely removed. If you prefer the skin of a baked potato to be crispy and savoury, then lightly dust the wet potato with fine sea salt. If you prefer the skin to be soft then just pat the potato dry with kitchen paper.
Preheat the oven to around 230C / gas mark 8.
Prick the potato well with a fork, this stops the potato exploding in the oven. Place the potato on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for around 45 minutes to an hour.
A good way of checking if the potato is cooked is by applying a little pressure on the flesh of the potato, if it feels nice and soft then it is cooked, if it feels a little firm then give it another 15 minutes and check again.
