Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 49
- 4
PaperclipPerfector
4mo ago
(text post)
2063 thread views
Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I wrapped up the latest season of the Great British Baking Show (/GBBO) this week and had some thoughts. In aggregate, the show isn’t remarkably different this season than others. The same tropes apply – the cohort all likes each other and thinks of themselves as a “family”, there’s an outro detailing post-show hangouts, etc.
After watching all the seasons on Netflix, I’ve become adept at picking up a couple of archetypes that appear each time. A combination of gender, age, and general appearance can get you far in guessing how far someone will make it throughout the show (though adding data from the first episode vastly increases accuracy). There are older folks who are just too tired, too shaky in the hands, too stuck in their ways to compete. The younger bakers that get too emotional or aggressive (in terms of ambition) fall by the wayside.
There was light CW fodder. The new host was a black woman, and a deaf participant required the use of a sign language interpreter during their tenure. We’ve discussed GBBO and the CW before – I have to say that I’m still satisfied that it hasn’t succumbed to the obvious cruft that you can see all the time in most shows. I quite enjoyed the new host, and the disabled competitor was, in fact, competitive.
My preferred method of watching these shows is light binging. I build up a queue before hopping on the train, timing my watching volume and cadence to where I watch ~4 shows per week and get to have the benefits of continuity without monotony. While I’m sure it’s been present in previous seasons, the tonal shift across episodes was obvious and welcome. Light, airy music to introduce the cast. A little bit of drama in the middle episodes. And by the last 3, darker and tenser background audio, the volume lowered to hear the bakers detailing exactly what they’re doing and why. More close-up shots of the delicate piping and frosting for each piece.
Interestingly, the finalists: were all white men who play sports. Their grimaces and focus during the last rounds of the competition were a contrast to what I'd seen before. I assume it's not what the show wanted to happen, but that's how the cookie crumbled. The winner ended up bucking my own bias and assumptions. Matty fits perfectly into the mold of "cheery young guy who doesn't take this seriously enough to deliver". But he did!
I was left with frustration that I haven't developed this skill. I consider myself an above-average cook, but still haven't been able to master the basics of consistency with waffles and biscuits. Learning baking is hard for many reasons, one of which is that what you're producing is so calorie dense and crammed with sugar you can't truly test your work or exercise it multiple times per week.
Anyone here successfully become a great baker? What did it take?
So, my insane baking hot take that drives people nuts, is that the phrase cooking is an art, baking is a science, is dead wrong. I can tell you exactly what a adding or removing a little of any ingredient will do to a given cookie dough by eye alone. It's just practice, reading up on the chemistry of food, and experimentation. Really getting skilled at cooking and baking takes 10-20 years. You can't really grind it unless you're running your own restaraunt or something and can feed your food to people, you just have to slowly learn over time. But if you keep at it, apply a critical eye to your own work, consume good food related content that expands your understanding of things like the maillard effect and how gluten effects dough, you will eventually get good at baking.
Literature reviews, chemistry and experimentation certainly sound like science to me!
The phrase is usually used to mean that cooking is much more forgiving than a lot of baking, where a few extra minutes in the oven or too much mixing or not enough or not rolling things out exactly to the right thickness or not getting the flour butter ratio exactly correct etc etc can very quickly and easily ruin a recipe.
A lot of cooking, by contrast, allows for some experimentation and variation, and a little too much oil or butter or a couple minutes too long on the tomato sauce or the casserole isn’t usually as ruinous. You can decide that you feel like sauce that’s a little thicker or a batter with more pepper or add a little garlic and some tinned sardines into a tomato sauce where you also slightly increase the amount of oregano you use and all those changes are mostly immediately obvious and easy and predictable.
Most pro bakers use scales in their work even when making the same pastries every day, whereas even in professional kitchens in many cases chefs just eyeball things because minor fluctuations are irrelevant or can be fixed during cooking.
This is just as true of baking. Minor fluctuations don't actually matter that much for most recipes. For example, when baking I always eyeball the shortening because I can't be arsed to clean out a measuring cup after measuring it. It's always fine. Similarly, there's no actual need to measure flour or sugar by weight. Even if your measuring cup isn't always the exact same amount because you don't perfectly level it, it's not going to matter. Lots of people even in the baking world feel like you have to be super precise, but you really don't.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link