Meanwhile swap them to get normal baking and cooking without a predefined recipe. Anyone can cook and have it turn out well. If you do not have at least a masters in chemistry and you try to bake, it will fucking explode, burn, still be frozen in the center (even if it wasn't before), be too salty, need a little bit more salt, implode, and make the entire house smell like it's on fire until the heat death of the universe 5 seconds after you put it in the oven.
If you have a recipe they're fairly similar, but baking is more precise while cooking usually requires more direct attention.
People over complicate baking. It's mostly just managing the ratio of wet and dry ingredients. The more you bake the more you recognize what looks right. Many older recipes are written, to just add flour until it's right.
Honestly the biggest problem people have with baking is probably not having a properly heated oven, and cooking too long or short.
That's why bakers are so chill. You learn the hard way that nothing matters and you have so very little control over the universe. Consequently you deal or go mad.
Nah, the reason we're chill is because the sole reason for you burning/not baking enough/having random issues is that you don't control a lot of variables.
Do you even check moisture content of your flour? Do you know its gluten content, amount of ash and mineral impurities, titratable acidity? Do you have farinograms, alveograms, falling number for doughs made with it? Do you check room, water, flour, dough temperature? Do you put your dough to leaven at precise temperature and humidity? Do you put just enough steam into the baking chamber, and do you correct the temperature before loading the oven? Do you know the way heat moves through the oven, and do you know which corrections need to be made for your exact one?
We do. And we always make it right. So, what's to worry about? It's very simple and routine at that point. You do A, you get bread. Simple as that!
Iblove cooking. I fucking hate baking. I just don't get it. How can a cake be burnt on the outside and liquid on the inside when I follow every step of the recipe super accurately
The key is that you're usually not following the recipe as accurately as you think.
Also, burnt out & liquid in means too hot. Calibrate your oven so you're actually baking at the temps the recipe calls for!
Buy a $10 oven thermometer and check your oven rack positions, sounds like it’s running way hotter than intended. If you have a convection oven the cook time may need to be adjusted.
Same way a steak can be charcoal outside and raw inside: too hot. You need to preheat your oven to the predetermined temp, which is set to a degree that allows the heat to penetrate all the way to the center slowly.
While i agree that baking recipes are more complex on the whole, you can definitely find baked recipes that are a lot less sensitive to mistakes than others. No-knead breads and galettes come to mind. Certainly not idiot proof, but not quite as unapproachable as it seems.
To be clear, i get that the comment is hyperbolic but i'm replying in the hopes that someone gives baking a try who maybe otherwise wouldn't
Cooking without a recipe is like driving without directions. The farther you reach the harder it is, but anyone can get where they're going, and if not they can get pretty close.
Baking without a recipe is like trying to get to the moon.
Nah, the moon is a straight shot, you can brute force your way there eventually. Baking is more akin to trying to get to your Uncle Tito's, who lives in the wilderness. You have to follow a very specific set of esoteric instructions, and if you turn 43 degrees left, instead of 45, you'll end up at the Tito's vodka distillery instead of Uncle Tito's. Which could be a fun experience, but it's not what you were going for.
I have become Guy Fieri, the destroyer of chickens
But I like competitive cooking shows...
Jessie, it's time to cook.
Should have replaced Oppenheimer with Walter white
Does banking shows exist? I didn't know that
There's the great british bake-off
Or if you're in America, the Great British Baking Show (Pilsbury owns the rights to commercial use of the term "bake-off")
And Holiday Baking Championship on Food Network in the US as well as Cupcake Wars, a cookie one I can’t remember the name of, etc. Lots of baking shows.
