I loved baked goods and pastries but must largely forego such delicious wonders for health reasons. I have little doubt that bakers and cooks do exhibit very different approaches and methods as you point out. Still, for me, the difference is almost always between low carb friendly foods and the oh so enticing forbidden fruit. Thankfully, that is beginning to change a bit as we see more low carb and/or gluten free baked goods which often incorporate such alternatives as nut flours. I hope to see more of this trend.

Thanks for sharing.

uses almond flour, something I'd never considered. I now have one and a half bags of it in my freezer because I couldn't remember how much the recipe called for when I was shopping. It sounds like an interesting way to make baked goods, so I may try some of the other recipes on the bag.

I know more and more people need low-carb cooking and baking, and there are plenty of cookbooks out there for that. I'd go with that route if I needed to cook low-carb. That way, you get the expertise of someone that's been doing it for a while instead of someone that has to re-think their old recipes to convert, replace ingredients, and still work right. Swapping out ingredients takes more knowledge of food science than some would imagine

The same authors that wrote "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day" have a second book called "Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes A Day" with a chapter on gluten-free. I have the first book (on my kindle) and may get the second one. Their recipe for making the dough is quite easy and should be interesting for how they approach the gluten-free portion. One of the authors is a pastry chef, so you'll know that they understand how the science works in order to make these healthier versions come to life

Is at best fooling themselves. Either that person is making the same few dishes over and over again, or else is going to make a lot of bad dishes in experimenting.

My attitude is that I follow a recipe exactly the first time I make it, and I will make notes in the cookbook about improvements. That's not to say that there aren't mistakes in cookbooks -- I'm thinking of a cake recipe I once made which called for 250 milliliters of liqueur in a cake, apparently a misprint for 25 ml. Another recipe in another cookbook called for preheating an oven to 50°F. A third recipe from a third cookbook I have has one make a Yorkshire pudding by adding three eggs to a cup of flour and a cup of milk; do that, and you will understand the meaning of the British idiom over-egging the pudding.

BTW, as a rule of thumb in a dessert recipe from an American general cookbook, I can typically reduce the amount of sugar by a quarter.

I like both cooking and baking. The standard birthday cake in my house is a sachertorte, which I make quite well if I say so myself. I make bread -- usually ciabatta -- once or twice a week. I also do just about all the cooking in my family -- my wife can cook, but to her it's a chore, while I enjoy it. For some reason, I seem to have great difficulty in making pie crusts.

The had no numbers at all in it.

1. Use a food processor and don't overmix
2. Use chilled fat and icy cold water - and don't overmix
3. Chill the combined dough at least 20 minutes - and don''t overmix

I mix butter and shortening half and half in my pie crusts

It is rare for us to use a recipe for anything other than baking. It would have to be a totally new dish for us.
We usually just have an ingredient list and maybe a notation about a specific technique. If I am writing a recipe to share here, we have to work through it from memory to get quantities.
But we both are fairly experienced cooks and have been at it a while.

If anyone ever makes a tabletop device that's used in bakeries called a "sheeter" I may get one, because that would eliminate the part I hate the most about pie crusts and other doughs: the rolling to exact thicknesses. I could make puff pastry again!

As for your cooking, as I've said before (and in my blog post) you may not have it written down, but it is still a recipe. It's a set of instructions that you know by heart and are able to go through all the steps in order to recreate that dish time and time again. That is the definition of a recipe

I understand there are many cooks out there that seem to be so proud that they don't use recipes and will even deny that they do, but when you start to question them about how they make a particular dish, and how they keep making it the same way over and over again, you learn that they are following a memorized recipe. It may their own creation, but nothing changes the fact that it is a series of steps to make the same dish each and every time

all the time. We compensate for the quality of ingredients, or maybe today we want something a little spicier. Cooking for some people is more like jazz than pop. We improvise in a given framework, we don't play the same notes the same way each time out.

The flavor may change, but the basic part of the recipe remains the same. For example, if you're cooking a stew, it remains a stew whether you use beef or venison. Just as if I make a loaf of Italian bread, it remains Italian bread whether I add some fresh basil leaves to it or rosemary leaves. Only the flavoring has changed. Everything else that made that a loaf of bread, or a stew, remained the same.

If a major ingredient changes, such as the liquid content of the stew, or not using any oil in the Italian bread, both cease to be the original item they were intended to be. So, variation only changes flavor. Anything more and it's a brand new food/recipe

.....using a little flour. I don't use the same recipe most people use, but I have baked professionally for a coffee house, and received many a rave review. A pie is the most forgiving of desserts. Any imperfection you might make in rolling out the dough just translates to "home" -- in a very good way.

but I'm sure the silicone-coated parchment paper I use now would work just as well

I did that with my linzer dough, yet it still stuck to the parchment. So, the next time I used a portion of the refrigerated dough, I just rolled it on a little flour. There's enough fat content in it that it didn't stick to roller or the work board.

Now, I have successfully made tarts, and even converted a good pecan pie recipe to making pecan tarts.

Try using a fork and poke a bit all over the bottom of the pie plate just before it goers into the oven?
I always work with very very cold dough for pies.

Some people put beans in a pre-bake a little too, but i've never done that.

I use ceramic pie weights. Still shrinks.

Do you preheat your oven?

Is it a smooth gathered ball
Or just barely holding together?

and look a bit of a mess. At that point, stop, smoosh it together just enough to form a round, cover it, and chill for 20 minutes.
Working it too much develops gluten which will cause the shrinking - fats not cold enough can also contribute. And I think too much water can also be a factor. But overworking it, definitely does. Can make the dough tough too.

The same thing goes for rolling it out. I preheat and work on fillings while the dough chills, take it out at 20 minutes, and roll quickly, fill (or pre-bake depending on the pie) and pop it in the oven.

The best way to see the right consistency would be to look for a pie crust vid. If you don't find one, let me know and I'll track one down. All my good links are on the computer that died.

I really don't know why we had to make everything twice as sweet as the European counterparts (I'm thinking of things like buttercream and spongecakes here,) but most chain restaurant deserts have always turned me off because of that. Thankfully, I don't eat at chain restaurants much any more. However, Middle Eastern sweets and desserts made with phyllo dough and honey can be rather sweet (yet oh so delectable!)

I remember making linzertortes at a Swiss bakery I worked at for a while, but never made them at home. I did make linzer cookies this past Christmas, after I'd finished making all of my biscotti batches. I think I was more tired than I wanted to admit because they were more work than I was willing to put into them. Still, the dough came out fine, and my new sets of cutters worked well. I think it would be a better recipe to have some help with, though...

When my girlfriend visited last year I was kind of surprised that she didn't cook much, as she's lived on her own most of her life, too. So, I'm the Master Chef now when she visits. That's okay, I do enjoy cooking, and baking, especially for others

to cook follow your heart.

Yes, I blow it from time to time-I have a very well fed disposal-but it's fairly rare. I had a dish called Cajun alfredo sauce with pasta and it was probably the worst thing I've ever eaten at a restaurant. I thought about it for a few days recreated an entirely different dish and it was doggone good.

but you still have to know the techniques in order to cook, or bake. You may say you don't follow a recipe, but really, you do. It may not be written down, but it is a set of instructions used to get a reproducible result each time. Otherwise, your result will be a dish that is simply not the same as the one before, because some amount is off from the previous time. When you cook the same recipe over and over again, you don't make that mistake, and so by then, it is truly a recipe

And I'd say you know the techniques of cooking well enough to recreate and improve upon a recipe you only tasted and did not get a chance to see cooked. That's expertise and what allows any of us to create new recipes

If you know what flavors blend well and which spices/herbs play well together you can successfully wing it almost all the time.

When you blow it though it's pretty spectacular.

Anything can change quickly or you just used the wrong flavor or even the wrong ingredient. The next thing you know, your sugar syrup is at the softball stage and you might as well forget using it for anything but some kind of candy. Or you curdled your cream filling, and the only thing to do with that is throw it out!

I am definitely a cook and not a baker.

And you, I am guessing, are a baker.

I know the techniques that allow me to cook something without a "recipe", and I have to know how to cook some things for certain types of baked goods (think of fillings, for example.) I'm just trying to point out that even without a recipe, it's still a recipe anyway. Because a recipe is simply a set of instructions to create a reproducible result every time. Otherwise, there's no recipe, and I've certainly cooked that way before, too. You can create things that taste good because you know the techniques and what mixes well flavor-wise. But you won't be able to reproduce the same results the next time, unless you have an eidetic memory. And then it simply becomes a recipe again.

But, every cook, and every baker, must know the techniques of the trade. Otherwise, you'll just be known as the person that burns water

until recently.

I finally feel that I have the basics down well enough to become creative.

This is a wonderful and unique experience for me.

So maybe I will also try to become more proficient at baking.

The issue of technique is also really interesting.

More and more often I have a rather overwhelming memory of my days spent in laboratories when I am in the kitchen.

And it's a very pleasant memory indeed.

And a cook is a food scientist

Those biscotti cookies I make every year taught me how to make my own recipes, too. Even with major differences among the main recipes, there's enough leeway to allow for different spices, fewer eggs and more fat, and so forth. I know I say "techniques" a lot, but I'm also using it for the word "basics" because it's all the same to me. Once you know how to cook, or how to bake, you then become even more free to become creative. The recipe is still there, as you need a foundation, but the result might never be called whatever it was you started with. You have just created a whole new recipe!

and run into a sort of paralysis in the kitchen when it's not something they shove into an oven like a roast or casserole.

I also know cooks who are fearless when it comes to any exotic cuisine out there who freeze when they have to produce anything more complicated than a pan of brownies from a mix.

Fortunately, some of us have become both and can act as mediators, teaching the bakers the why and wherefore of the stove top and the cooks the same about baking chemistry.

Still, it seems that some sort of culinary chauvinism is going to stay with us as only cooks and only bakers square off in a silly fight over who is the more important.

training and or experience. I've had a little of both, and it was required of me to know cooking techniques in addition to baking techniques. Now, I can understand self-taught bakers and cooks being that way, as they go with what are their strongest interests.

I hope you didn't take my post to mean I was being chauvinistic about who is more important, though. My intent on my blog post was to point out that a good baker (and/or pastry cook/chef) must know both sides of the kitchen, so to speak, in order to perform all aspects of their trade. And also to enlighten those that seem to think we don't know how to cook