[dinkleberg]

I do find it kind of wild how intimidating most people I know find baking. Get a food scale and follow the directions and you're good to go and will have something respectable and delicious. As with anything, you can dive deep and go extreme with it. But baking delicious food is not rocket science.

[socalgal2]

It is fun but it's also not universal. While every house and apartment I've lived in in the USA had an oven, the default in Japan is no oven. 1 to 3 burners, and possibly a broiler is the norm.

If you want an oven you get microwave/oven combo.

Might be similar in Korea? China? Taiwan? India?

[mr_mitm]

Funny you'd say that. Other people say cooking is art, while baking is a science. No room for errors.

[bigstrat2003]

Those people are dead wrong on both counts. Cooking meals benefits more from precision than they claim (if you want reproducible results you best be measuring!), and baking does not require as much precision as they claim (I estimate ingredients all the time when baking and my bakes come out great).

There's a lot of mysticism around baking online, but in truth it's very easy. Just follow the recipe and you'll be ok. You don't need to carefully weigh ingredients and stuff like people say.

[mr_mitm]

It depends, I guess. When I make pizza dough, I use around .1% yeast. Using .4g instead of .8g would make a huge difference, and getting that right without carefully weighing it is neigh impossible.

[bibouthegreat]

Cooking is art, baking is a very easy science (weight things and check the temperature), pastry is another thing. That requires talent, experience and a lucky star.

[malfist]

Baking bread is fun because its not science. It had guidelines but thats it

[mr_mitm]

Science can be fun!

[deadfoxygrandpa]

if there was no room for "errors", how is it possible that there are tens of thousands of different bread and cookie recipes and stuff like that?

[mr_mitm]

Because while the recipes are easy to follow, you can't fix a baked dough. If you messed up the salt, the yeast, etc. that's it. Cooking is more forgiving in that sense.

[esafak]

Baking bread is not like that unless you have strict control of the environment; it is sensitive to temperature, and nature of the water and flour. It's an art; you have to read the signs. And mastering that is rewarding.