Cooking vs Baking - Art vs Science?

Just had a read of your post...

Sadly I tend to agree with what you're saying so the debate part of things might not happen :p

I like to think that I'm quite decent at cooking and I tend to have the approach you mention - a knowledge of how to gauge the "feel" of things, some knowledge of the science behind some aspects of cooking and a general idea of what goes where and when. Sadly this approach completely fails when I attempt it with baking. It's really hard to move away from it (for me at least) too so I don't tend to get very far with any baking experiments.
 
It's pretty much accepted that baking is more scientific.

Baking relies on replicating the exact conditions required to achieve a known result, such as keeping the fat in pastry cold, exact quantities/proportions, correct preparation (kneading etc), correct temperatures and cooking times.

The smallest things can make a difference, for instance my gran used to make amazing pastry, we suspect it was because due to a medical condition she always had cold hands, which meant she could rub in fat to the pastry without it warming up significantly.
 
Both.

I see cooking as art but I use science to improve it.

Just as scientific developments in paint, brushes and canvas, and a greater knowledge of styles and techniques can make modern artists produce better results.
A better understanding of what is happening when I cook allows me to produce better results.
 
I'd say baking bread is an art and takes skill.
You can't just give someone a recipe and expect the end result to be the same like you would expect with a scientific experiment.

Most cooking on the other hand is nothing more than combining the right ingredients in the correct amounts for your personal preference and mixing them together in the correct order and it's almost impossible to go wrong.
 
Baking you need a far greater understanding of the science to just throw things together, people stil do just throw stuff together to make a cake, but you need to understand what's happening etc.

Understanding the basic science in cooking is extremely useful. Understanding at what temp collegen and other things break down at and what a too higher heat does, is so much more beneficial than learning/copying the more bizarre molecular gastromy.
 
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