I have started cooking more in the last two years. Cooking is actually not that difficult once you grasp some of the fundamentals. I now usually just check the ingredients and go my merry way, very seldomly do I follow the method to a T. If you fuck up a little while cooking chances are good you can pull it back.
Baking on the other hand, fuck baking! Baking is way different than cooking, add 5 tsp instead of 6? You have fucked it up, start again.
The trick is to be good with weights rather than volumes, which most recipes use
I can hand weigh a LOT of stuff accurately after s few years of trying and then double-checking with my scale. For example I pull exactly the amount of ground beef I need to form a hamburger patty 98% of the time with a variance of about .04 oz, which I’d consider fine
Take that to baking and I can hand weigh just about the exact amount of flour I need to make buns for those burgers in much the same way. Baking is more precise but after practice you can again get within some pretty fine ranges
I’d recommend practicing as you cook by converting volume recipes to weights, then trying your best to get it right on the first go, weighing the result, fixing it, and then just kinda holding the correct weight and internalize the difference between what you first got and whats right
For me, baking is more forgiving than cooking. I’m good at cooking (I think), but getting just the right texture and taste is difficult. The worst for me is meat. Cook it for too little and it’s raw and potentialy unsafe, but cook it for too long and you get a shoe sole. The time window is narrow and you have to account for the time the meat will cook after you take it of the heat.
On the other hand in baking I can usually add 10min if I’m not sure or poke it with a skewer to check if it’s done. Making batter/dough is more precise, but I wouldn’t say it’s super precise. Most of the time I get away with eyeballing baking powder or yeasts. Also flour and sugar often have something like 20g tolerance so it’s not terrible (I prefer using scale so I might be biased), and going beyond that can still give you a good result e.g. few years ago I doubled the sugar in my challah recipe (50g to 100g) and it made it much softer with no downsides. You can’t fix taste after you baked the cake but on the other hand the are less variables when it comes to adding flavoring, so it’s easier to learn doing it right on first try (It’s hard to fuck up adding vanilla extract).
I was watching MasterChef and Ramsey shouted “if it’s not finished cooking, turn up the heat!” and I have used that line thousands of times since then, but I tried it with a braided puff pastry and fucking ruined it.
There are opportunities in baking to deviate from the recipe, but it’s important to know how the ingredients react with each other during the mixing or baking process. I know some people who add an extra egg to their batch of cookies, some who add extra butter, etc and those who follow it verbatim. There’s certainly a lot less room for error, and a lot of small mistakes that can absolutely fuck the outcome, but there is room for creativity if you know which components are critical and which are optional. (and for which recipe, because some are more sensitive than others)
Just don’t mix up baking powder and baking soda like I did when I was 11. Worst mistake of my life, that batch of waffles was completely inedible and had to be tossed 🙁 (idk if that counts as baking or cooking but whatever)
Recipes might say to weigh the flour or at least scoop and scrape so the cup is level but it really doesn’t need to be that precise. I don’t even use measuring spoons for exact measurements of baking powder. I just scoop what looks like half a teaspoon using an actual teaspoon, not a measuring teaspoon.
Now if it says 500 grams of flour and you use 1kg, it’s going to be a problem. But +/- 10% isn’t noticable.
I have started cooking more in the last two years. Cooking is actually not that difficult once you grasp some of the fundamentals. I now usually just check the ingredients and go my merry way, very seldomly do I follow the method to a T. If you fuck up a little while cooking chances are good you can pull it back.
Baking on the other hand, fuck baking! Baking is way different than cooking, add 5 tsp instead of 6? You have fucked it up, start again.
I’m pretty decent with baking but yeah definitely in awe of anyone who can just like, eyeball muffin ingredients and freestyle bake
The trick is to be good with weights rather than volumes, which most recipes use
I can hand weigh a LOT of stuff accurately after s few years of trying and then double-checking with my scale. For example I pull exactly the amount of ground beef I need to form a hamburger patty 98% of the time with a variance of about .04 oz, which I’d consider fine
Take that to baking and I can hand weigh just about the exact amount of flour I need to make buns for those burgers in much the same way. Baking is more precise but after practice you can again get within some pretty fine ranges
I’d recommend practicing as you cook by converting volume recipes to weights, then trying your best to get it right on the first go, weighing the result, fixing it, and then just kinda holding the correct weight and internalize the difference between what you first got and whats right
Eventually it should kinda just be second nature
I always use weight, but haven’t picked up that particular skill lol. I’ll work on it.
For me, baking is more forgiving than cooking. I’m good at cooking (I think), but getting just the right texture and taste is difficult. The worst for me is meat. Cook it for too little and it’s raw and potentialy unsafe, but cook it for too long and you get a shoe sole. The time window is narrow and you have to account for the time the meat will cook after you take it of the heat. On the other hand in baking I can usually add 10min if I’m not sure or poke it with a skewer to check if it’s done. Making batter/dough is more precise, but I wouldn’t say it’s super precise. Most of the time I get away with eyeballing baking powder or yeasts. Also flour and sugar often have something like 20g tolerance so it’s not terrible (I prefer using scale so I might be biased), and going beyond that can still give you a good result e.g. few years ago I doubled the sugar in my challah recipe (50g to 100g) and it made it much softer with no downsides. You can’t fix taste after you baked the cake but on the other hand the are less variables when it comes to adding flavoring, so it’s easier to learn doing it right on first try (It’s hard to fuck up adding vanilla extract).
I was watching MasterChef and Ramsey shouted “if it’s not finished cooking, turn up the heat!” and I have used that line thousands of times since then, but I tried it with a braided puff pastry and fucking ruined it.
Baking is straight up science more than art, you have to be precise or it’s fucked.
There are opportunities in baking to deviate from the recipe, but it’s important to know how the ingredients react with each other during the mixing or baking process. I know some people who add an extra egg to their batch of cookies, some who add extra butter, etc and those who follow it verbatim. There’s certainly a lot less room for error, and a lot of small mistakes that can absolutely fuck the outcome, but there is room for creativity if you know which components are critical and which are optional. (and for which recipe, because some are more sensitive than others)
Just don’t mix up baking powder and baking soda like I did when I was 11. Worst mistake of my life, that batch of waffles was completely inedible and had to be tossed 🙁 (idk if that counts as baking or cooking but whatever)
Recipes might say to weigh the flour or at least scoop and scrape so the cup is level but it really doesn’t need to be that precise. I don’t even use measuring spoons for exact measurements of baking powder. I just scoop what looks like half a teaspoon using an actual teaspoon, not a measuring teaspoon.
Now if it says 500 grams of flour and you use 1kg, it’s going to be a problem. But +/- 10% isn’t noticable.