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by lotsofpulp 626 days ago
I hate baking because precision isn’t sufficient to make the quality of food my mom makes, who has tens of thousands of hours of experience. She bakes by look, feel, smell, and even though I wrote down very specific instructions, I can hardly get my product to match up.
2 comments
bobthepanda 626 days ago
Baking is about precision but it’s not just limited to the recipe. The recipe may need to be adjusted based on temperature, humidity, cooking appliance, altitude (if you live in different locations.) Heck, ingredients like flour are not necessarily standardized across brands or region.

Tasting/feeling as you go and adjusting is probably one of the most important bits of cooking or baking.

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jasonjei 626 days ago
Yes… It’s even crazier with bread baking. While cakes and cookies are generally the same everywhere with the exception of high altitude baking, bread baking is some of the trickiest skills to master.

For example, hydration of the dough will dictate the final outcome of the bake. Every flour hydrates differently depending on protein, ash content, milling, and so on. So even if a recipe calls for generally 70% hydration, it may be more or less depending on the “feel” of the dough if you switch flours. Croissant dough detrempes need to be hydrated at a very low percent, generally under 60%. The flakiest croissants tend to be made with a very dry stiff dough hydrated at 50%.

And beyond the choice of flour—temperature (proofing, desired dough temperature), climate, kneading/mixing, yeast or wild starters, salt will drastically change the substance of the bread.

We haven’t even talked about gluten formation (especially with regard to autolyse and dough folding) and fermentation techniques… and how the raw dough is loaded into an oven and at what temperatures (deck, convection or fan-assisted, with humidity, Dutch oven, etc).

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HeyLaughingBoy 625 days ago
Precision in baking is overrated unless you're a factory.

Every loaf of bread I bake probably tastes slightly different, and that's just fine according to the people eating it. If I'm baking a cake, or cookies and at the last minute, I discover that I'm out of something important, I just figure out a substitute and it turns out (usually!) just fine.

Far more important than precision is understanding how various ingredients will react with each other and compensating.

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