So how long did it take you to realize recipes were bullshit?

Depends heavily on the dish frankly. Obviously some things you can completely wing, but good luck baking without measuring at least loosely.

>>7133479
Of course it's to taste on many things, but good luck with pastry if you're not following a recipe

>>7133482
Baking isn't cooking. It's baking.

>>7133482

I use a scale for baking, though bread, pizza, and pasta doughs can all be done without, really.

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>>7133538
>frying isn't cooking
>grilling isn't cooking
>boiling isn't cooking

The first day I was paid to cook something.

>>7133566
He's completely correct, don't be a pedant.

>>7133602
No he's completely wrong and literally just opening any dictionary will explain this. Baking is cooking. You ever notice how we don't have a separate board for baking? Because it's cooking.

His post is so small, there's nothing else to refute, I don't see how that's being pedantic.

Welcome to the world of advanced cooking

>>7133616
Your autism is showing, friend-bud.

Sure, he is "literally" wrong, but that's not the point. There's huge difference between the science experiment that is baking and, say for example, throwing some shit in a wok and calling it a stir-fry.

They're more like guidelines 99% of the time.

Though it's usually a good idea to follow the recipe exactly(assuming it's good), then experiment to suit your own style and taste.

>>7133627

Not him but there's also a huge difference in preparing the perfect risotto and nuking a potato, yet both are cooking. Cooking = preparing food.

>>7133627

not the guy you're responding to but an arsey correction like that is always going to be taken literally. especially because it's completely redundant as this post: >>7133482 was saying the exact same thing as he was - that baking is a very different thing.


also i fundamentally disagree, i think that cooking and baking are both sometimes precise and sometimes vague, it depends on what you are cooking or baking. even the refined products used for baking can vary significantly.

>>7133538
Baking is cooking.

You rode the short bus, didn't you?

>2.5 tbsp
>let's make that 2 heaping tbsp

>>7133627
>baking
>science experiment

It was really hard turning that knob and setting the timer for my baked potatoes. I must be the next master chef.

>>7133651
I meant as in cakes and breads.

>>7133665
Is measuring baking powder and flour really different from measure rice and seasoning? I mean, if you fuck either up you get shitty bread or shitty risotto.

>>7133673
you can be fluid with seasoning in a normal dish, depending totally on the other ingredients and how you cook it, the wrong amount of ingredients in bread or not preparing it to the specifications will cause complete failure of rock hard or just messed up bread

>>7133673

there's a phase of cooking when you bake when you don't get to interfere with the product at all, you can make no adjustments from that point on. that's the main thing that makes the difference. otherwise, you're right, everything is measurable and eventually becomes intuitive.

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>>7133627
This is going to be one of those threads, isn't it?

>>7133638
Risotto is almost always cooked intuitively, without a recipe.
Most things can.

Baking food containing flour, leavening agents and/or eggs relies on very precise ratios for different results, as opposed to basically every other form of cooking.

>>7133683

everything relies on precise ratios for different results if you get deep enough.

>>7133629
This, especially for baking, follow the recipe strictly the first time unless it's a category of thing you're already pretty competent with.

My mother, bless her heart, has been getting into baking, but every single new recipe she tries she'll say something like
>it's nice, but it's not very sweet
Then when I ask if she changed anything, she'll say
>it seemed like a lot of sugar, so I didn't add it all

Or it'll be too dry, because she thought the batter was too loose, or have a strange texture because she decided to throw some cocoa in. I mean, it's still tasty, but holy pattern recognition batman.

I've learned how to cook by looing at my mom, dad and grandma. When I started cooking by myself at 8 I mostly tried t copy the dishes I've seen. Since then my cooking is mostly improvization and I never follow the recipe precisely or measure things unless it's baking. My cooking is pretty good and I always rage when I see autists on /ck/ complaining about "pinches", "handfuls" and other measurement units that aren't completely accurate. If ou want complete accuracy, go to a fucking chemistry lab.

>>7133676
As somebody who makes bread by eye and feel, you're wrong.

Around eight years old. Been cooking (with heat and all that) since I was five or six.

Also, baking is a method of cooking and anyone who says otherwise is simply fucking wrong. :-)