Anyone here prefer baking to cooking, or vice versa?

>skill
For the more delicate and complex stuff, sure, but basic baking is really more about patience and the ability to follow directions. If you could handle chemistry class in school, you can handle baking.

It would be pretty monotonous for someone who likes variety, I'd imagine.

oh, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love baking.I've been doing it for ten years and while I've gone through periods of burnouts, I have a great job where I get to make fantastic little pastries erry day. But after you get to use profession ovens and sheeterz and have someone else do you dishes, you don't really want to take that mess home.

I keep meaning to get a sourdough starter going at least but keep putting it off. Home baked bread is the tiiits.

>sourdough starter
I keep thinking about this, but it seems almost like adopting a pet. I love bread, but something about "sorry guys, I got to go home and feed my starter" sounds wrong.

Any books you'd recommend or something like that?

I enjoy baking bread but not necessarily more than cooking. I only rarely make sweets and when I do, it's a pie or cheesecake for a holiday gathering. I guess I like cooking better since I don't do the dessert type stuff.

It isn't nearly as complicated as you'd think. Tartjne bread makes it sound like you need to carry the container everywhere with you and feed it to the minute, but generally if you're within an hour or two it will be close enough. After the first three or four days they are incredibly hardy, and after two weeks you can actually fridge them for like a month. They go dormant, then you pull it out, feed it for a day or two, and BOOM, ready to bake.

It's been awhile since I've done it from a recipe, but iirc, a book called "local bread" has a pretty good liquid starter recipe, which is what I would recommend for a home baker.

I bet you can handle my dick in your mouth.

You may have a point, but I just find baking more pleasant. Waiting is half the fun.

I only ever cook on the stove. In the last decade I have used the oven only twice.

I bet I could do. I can bite down pretty hard.

Fuck off, edgelord.

How about baking in general? What's a good launch point for someone new?

post your tits caked in flour you pastry slut

>le death of le author everyone i desire is le female now

Fuck off fetishist retard.

Thefreshloaf.com has a starter recipe that I used and it worked really well. It's been going for 6 months so far. You have to use organic flour and an unpasteurized fruit juice. Pretty simple, really.

Thanks mane

For some reason I'm too retarded to properly kneed and shape dough and it always fucks up, so I prefer cooking in general.

Baking - technical
Cooking - technique

I think this is the best way to describe why certain people like one over another

Cooking at a basic level is more about what you know and can do. You can completely fuck any dish and usually fix it somehow if you're knowledgeable

Whereas with baking, it's all math and small intricacies, and one miscounted ingredient or mistake with how you handle the ingredients can instantly ruin it

From a professional perspective they're both equally artistic and skillful, but as far as home cooks go, I think people who 'bake' tend to like it because they can be more creative with it, or at least will say that because they're shit at cooking

Well said.

Glad to see there are a fair share of bakers on Veeky Forums. I thought this thread would be full of gourmet elitists or something, considering the atmosphere on this board in general.

My bakingbros.

I agree. I prefer cooking since I can't really improvise or make snap judgements while baking. With cooking I can always just come up with a new plan or replacement if ingredients are missing.

Baking leaves little room for error.
If you fuck up while cooking, you can just roll with it.
Also, all bakery items are made entirely of carbs, butter and sugar, you can't bake with the same frequency as cooking unless you like being a hamplanet.

Ever heard of bulking bro?

I don't prefer one to the other, baking compliments cooking and vice versa.

Once you reach the point where you understand how everything works together, baking can be almost-spontaneous, it just means you have to do calculations in your head on the fly. Almost anyone who bakes does this to some extent without being conscious of it: when you're kneading bread and you add a little more water because the dough feels too stiff, you're adjusting the hydration percentage according to the results of a comparative analysis based on the results of testing the dough with an analog viscometer. Adjusting what you're baking on the fly according to formulas and using a scale is essentially the same thing, just made digital and more accurate.

Or unless you're physically active - I'm a skinny cyclist who bakes bread at home several times per week, and I can easily eat more than three pounds of bread in a single day.

Also, I took these loaves out of the oven literally seconds ago. Sourdough, 2/3rds whole wheat... smells amazing but is driving me nuts because I'm hungry and I know these need to cool for at least an hour.

I prefer cooking over baking mostly because I was never taught how to bake growing up so I have no idea how to go about but I really want to learn how to bake things.

Looks great. When you cut it give us a crumb shot. Did you use a banneton? I've been doing a 68% hydration with just a normal bowl but I want to get higher hydration and I guess the banneton is the only option.

Nope, bannetons are on my list of baking equipment I want but haven't purchased since I don't absolute need them. These loaves were proofed sitting flat on a baking sheet - the shape develops well in the oven because baking at 7,000 feet elevation means that ovenspring will always be HUGE. High hydration loaves are difficult for me in any case because even with proper scoring and lots of steam they tend to blow up into funny balloon shapes that don't bake evenly.

How do I into baking?

>high hydration

Yeah, I tried to jump my hydration to 80% without a banneton and ended up with a mess. Guess I'll have to breakdown and get one.

newfag baker here, I want to make bread, literally never done it. Walk me through it as if I were a 5 year old please

Always cum in the dough before it proofs, it'll make it rise because the sperms will swim up towards the light.

>dough
>proofs
>rise
none of these words have meaning to me

to proof means to rise a dough in its final shape, and the rising is caused by the leavening, like yeast

Have some respect, will you.

This

This is me and cooking, my man.

I made one once. Four days later I came home, excited even though I'd gone through nine hours chefing, to discover that my wife had thrown it away, sure I'd forgotten about my sourdough starter. I still haven't forgotten about it.

>Anyone here prefer baking to cooking, or vice versa?

I prefer cooking to baking, mostly because I feel like I just don't have the space for baking bread - the counter-space for rolling, kneading, etc. - and I don't much care for most desserts.

Find a recipe that sounds good and follow it.
FOLLOW THE RECIPE.