and this is why i don’t bake. I’m more of a “throw shit together and hope for the best” kinda cook.
My fiance is a professional chef who can’t really bake, and I’m a schmuck who can’t cook but can bake no problem. It wouldn’t be a bad deal, except all her food allergies mean I have to find substitutions for practically everything. So you have any idea how many fucking things include corn byproducts? Almost all of them.
I always fucked up making pizza dough. I’d weigh the ingredients to the gram, work it per the instructions, and it always ended up a sloppy mess or dry clusterfuck.
I finally figured out hydration based on how the dough reacts. It took me 50 pizzas to get it right. Now I don’t even measure.
But I can only make pizza dough :) Bread works out slight differently
Knowing the science behind all methods of cooking is what made me a better cook. Alton Brown is the shit for teaching the science behind why things are done. No other TV cook has taught me more about how to cook with my own ideas and not simply follow someone else’s recipes.
I hate myself and decided to get into Italian and BBQ smoking… Everything is done on a timeline with fine heat control and time does not care for you readiness. You really have to memorise and learn from experience before you can get to the level of autopiloting stress-free.
Cooking is an art, baking is a science.
People complain about their baked goods not coming out right but they treat the recipe as a suggestion. That works for cooking (sometimes) but almost never for baking.
Grilling: FIRE!
Grilling is the superior method
So true
Former head chef: Yes. Our pastry chef was the alchemist and I was the magebomb.
Don’t bother me in the kitchen while I’m CREATING!!!
What you can fuck with in baking is vanilla. Douse to your hearts desire.
I may add extra chocolate chips to my banana bread
Ingredients I always ignore the amount given in recipes:
Garlic, lime juice, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, chocolate chips, raisins. There’s probably more.
Always more with garlic. Calls for “2-3 cloves” means at least half bulb. On spice, I’ll hold off if I’m cooking for others that can’t deal and just leave that on the side when serving.
It is technically possible to use too much garlic, but at that point you’re concerned about the amount of money being used to season a single item.
Oh I’m compassionate on hot spices, but if it’s just for me? GAME ON, LET’S SWEAT
Just scrape all the seeds into a mortar and pestle, grind them, throw the beans in some alcohol (rum, bourbon style Canadian whiskey, sherry), soak then leave them in a sugar bowl and save the sugar.
Now take the vanilla bean paste from your pestle and put it directly in my mouth.
This is how my S.O. make sourdough. It ALWAYS works🤷♂️
Baking bread is wild. When you start you do everything by the book and it’s meh. Then once you get a feel for what each stage is supposed to look and feel like you can just slap some flour around and it comes out awesome.
As a former line cook and a baker this is correct.
The process is chosen by the ingredients. Baking has very little variation in ingredients and even then the wrong flour can mess up a recipe. With cooking, there are natural variations in all natural meats and vegetables, so you might need to balance the flavours somehow. That requires a flexibility in the process. “Here’s what you want to achieve, you figure out how to get there”.
At least bread you can eyeball once you get enough practice at a specific recipe, a lot of it is about the moisture content which changes in the air from day to day so it’s never precise anyway
