Cooking Baking
Cooking and Baking
By: Amy Riv
Actually what is the difference between cooking and baking term? From several definitions, cooking is the process of preparing food by applying heat, selecting, measuring and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure for producing safe and edible food. The process encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to alter the flavor or digestibility of food. Factors affecting the final outcome include the variability of ingredients, ambient conditions, tools, and the skill of the individual doing the actual cooking. The diversity of cooking worldwide is a reflection of the aesthetic, agricultural, economic, cultural, social and religious diversity throughout the nations, races, creeds and tribes across the globe. Applying heat to a food usually, though not always, chemically transforms it, thus changing its flavor, texture, consistency, appearance, and nutritional properties.
Otherwise baking is to cook in an oven or oven-type appliance. This term typically applies to pastries, cookies, breads, casseroles, and occasionally fish and poultry. Or in other words, baking is a cooking procedure that uses dry heat in an enclosed chamber or the technique of prolonged cooking of food by dry heat acting by convection, and not by radiation, normally in an oven, but also in hot ashes, or on hot stones. It is primarily used for the preparation of “baked goods” such as bread, cakes, pastries and pies, tarts, quiches, and cookies. These products are sold at a bakery.
The dry heat of baking changes the form of starches in the food and causes its outer surfaces to brown, giving it an attractive appearance and taste, while partially sealing in the food’s moisture. The browning is caused by caramelization of sugars and the Maillard reaction. Moisture is never really entirely “sealed in”, however; over time, an item being baked will become dry. This is often an advantage, especially in situations where drying is the desired outcome, for example in drying herbs or in roasting certain types of vegetables. The most common baked item is bread. Variations in the ovens, ingredients and recipes used in the baking of bread result in the wide variety of breads produced around the world.
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