For everyone that says baking is more of a science than an art, this is a lie perpetuated by ovenmages to withhold baking knowledge from the rangefolk.

Seriously though, I will follow a baking recipe to the letter and end up with a melted pile of warm ingredients. My partner routinely deviants and produce absolutely heavenly bakes. When she bakes with me it’s like we’re reading two different recipes. I’m convinced her comments while baking are actually esoteric incantations to appease the baking gods.

“Oh with this one you don’t have to separate the wet and dry ingredients. You can just mix everything in one bowl.”

“No you have to fold it.” proceeds to violently whisk

“Double the oil.”

opens the oven 20 times “Not yet.” how is the oven still warm at all?

Absolutely, baking a cake is so much trial and error, but once you find the sweet spot, it works

Tried lots of temperatures, different times, different recipes. Burned, underbaked, overbaked, until it became perfect

Also worth considering that every oven is different and thus there is a lot of variation, your oven might say its at 300F while its really at 330F in the and 280F in the bottom. May not seem that much but if youre cooking a big piece over a long time, like a turkey, that slight variation is the difference between an undercooked turkey or a dry turkey lol.

Definitely. I’m not sure who to attribute this quote to, but I’ve heard it said a few times that “cooking is more like an art, baking is more of a science.”

I definitely prefer cooking because it’s a lot harder for things to go wrong and a lot easier to fix them if they do. The way I’ve heard it explained, being able to do similarly with baking (e.g. not needing a recipe) is about knowing the composition of ingredients and how they work together. So I would say the art/science analogy makes a kind of sense here. With cooking, you can more so go by taste. With baking, you need to either understand how it works mechanically or follow the recipe precisely.

I was fine with baking until I started baking vegan. Egg substitute is juuust different enough from bird eggs that it throws every recipe off slightly and you have to relearn everything.

At home I’m a general cook, my spouse bakes and cooks specific dishes and cuisines. We mesh well, but I agree, I tend to not like baking at all!

I just realized I’ve never baked anything alone ever. Now I know why.

There’s culinary science to explain what you’re talking about.

It’s also interesting how simple and hard to mess up recipes for baking are viewed as generally unappetizing or “for the poor”

Hard to create recipes are viewed as desirable, Kim is souffle bourgeoise decadence?

Some of the most common mistakes in baking I see is changing the quantities of ingredients in a recipe, you generally should never scale up or down the recipe unless you know what you’re doing. Good recipe books will tell you if you can open the oven for inspection.

Nowadays we have measurements and more advanced technology to measure temperatures, humidity etc.

This is how an apolitical persons feels when we start explaining Marxism to them in details btw. Boring.

I also don’t bake very often, but it does not frustrate me. I find baking quite enjoyable. You need to respect the recipes and trust the process. It requires more precise study rather than feeling things out if you want to experiment with your own creations.

It also requires you to be quite familiar with your oven, as they vary more than you might initially think. With experience, you can then adjust certain things according to your taste like the amounts of sugar, lemon, vanilla, etc., without messing with the texture of the final product.

Like you said in another comment, a fun part of cooking is experimenting and improvising on the fly. That being said, I do find a different type of joy with baking compared to cooking.

It can be very relaxing. You have a recipe that you know you like, or a new one you want to try out from someone you trust. You don’t have to stress or think too much about the ingredients and adjustments. Take your time to measure, mix things smoothly, knead, decorate if you want to, turn on the oven, set a timer, and enjoy the pleasant smell of freshly-baked goods. You can look at it from the outside until the crust is just the way you like it, and just trust the recipe and timer to take care of the inside.

I love cooking, I often put a lot of love into it, and use only plant-based ingredients. But still with baking it feels more… wholesome. There’s just something about the process itself, and the joy of taking something freshly-baked out of the oven. It feels peaceful and rewarding.