The art, science, and craft of using heat to make food more palatable or digestible vs. the process of preparing dough, batter, etc., while preparing it in an oven using dry heat; this describes the process of cooking versus baking. While the cooking definition is broadly explained as combining ingredients and heating them, baking is much more specific, only using dry heat with precisely measured ingredients. That means all baking is considered cooking, but not all cooking is considered baking. Many people will enjoy cooking or baking, but most likely one over the other.
Sydney Sica spent the last month or so cooking new meals and trying different foods for her final project in her journalism class at Pennridge High School. She started making tacos and pasta, then compared calamari, and made her own Chipotle bowl at home. For her final blog, she compared a Wawa quesadilla to her version of a homemade quesadilla. This is one of her favorite things to cook at home as it’s simple, quick, and such a great-tasting meal. Laurie Sica describes Sydney’s quesadilla as “very unique and super yummy, but I love the added banana bell peppers. I think they really make a difference.” Cooking is Sydney’s preferred choice when it comes to cooking or baking.
Paige Fenly, also working on her final project for her journalism class, chose the topic of baking. Paige loves baking and has made many fresh desserts for her and her family, including homemade cupcakes, fudge brownies, and chocolate chip cookies. While traveling, she and her dad stopped at a local Walmart and picked up a freshly baked cheesecake. John Fenley compares this Walmart cheesecake to higher-end cheesecakes he has tried and says, “It was not nearly like a really high-end New York bakery. The taste was milder than I liked, and it wasn’t as sharp as I would have liked, but it wasn’t bad. The flavor was there. It was surprisingly good for Walmart but was on the lower end of cheesecakes.” While comparing cooking and baking, he also claims, “As a vegetarian, I have had to learn to cook for myself in most places, so I really enjoy cooking because I know what I like now, while with desserts, it’s still trial and error, and I know I might hate it.”
To conclude, cooking and baking are super similar yet very different, each having different outcomes. Cooking generally is more salty or savory foods, while baking is more sweets or sugars. Baking is a process that includes more patience than cooking does not, and you must be more precise with your measurements while baking, but while cooking, you can make it more of your own. You are able to add or subtract ingredients easier or more successfully sometimes, depending on if you are cooking or baking. Salty vs. sweet: messy vs. precise: quick vs. time-consuming: cooking vs. baking.
Sources:
https://www.maytag.com/blog/kitchen/cooking-vs-baking.html#:~:text=While%20the%20cooking%20definition%20is,all%20cooking%20is%20considered%20baking.
https://www.dominosugar.com/baking-tips-how-tos/basic-baking-tips
