The constant battle between cooks and bakers have been raging since the dawn of the kitchen. There have been rumors shouting back and fourth between the two sides. The cooks would yell at the bakers, '
those who do cannot cook.. ~
BAKE! '. And the bakers will yell back, '
those who cannot bake.. ~
COOK! '.
But really, it is not a matter of who can or who can't, but rather who is willing and who must. As cooks, we have a habit of gauging everything with just the tips of our fingers, and that includes checking the color of our meats, whether it's rare, medium rare, and etc, to the grains of sea salt that we season our foods with. It is never about measurements with an instrument that tells us what degree of temperature a meat is at, or how many grams of salt we measure on a electronic scale to sprinkle into a Caesar salad. We just use our finger tips and our senses as tools of measurement. To bakers, we,
cooks, may seem like wild, untamed beasts that chaotically throw around ingredients into a pot or pan and pray for it to taste right, but keep in mind, even in chaos there is some kind of order and most of all beauty.
However, the story is much different with the world of bakers. With baking, it is all about precise measurements and patience. For a baker to be successful in his career, he or she must master and love the arts of measuring everything single little ingredient to the gram. Not because there's a law that states you must, but if you don't, the outcome may be a disastrous one. Since baking is a form of science and balancing equations. Math. I hate it. But bakers must know it and understand it. The difference between balancing an acid to sucrose(sugar) will give you the right kind of invert sugar that you require. That balance can only be done properly be all means of precise measurements. It takes a lot of patience out of bakers to carefully knee, roll and sometimes even refrigerate and wait for the dough for whatever reason over and over again. Often, the process can be not rushed and the steps not must be skipped. But like people say, " Good things come to those who wait ".
We scale and label every single ingredient to the gram before we start a recipe.
How about the atmosphere in the kitchen between cooks vs bakers? Recently I watched the tv program called "Hell Kitchen", I feel so stress for them, shouting and scolding here and there.
ReplyDeletei can never work in a kitchen. i think i would break down a hundred times...cant handle so much pressure and stress :P and plus measuring/balancing and converting stuff....ughhhh im a bit slow...so i can imagine the head chef will be chopping my head off at the of the day lol
ReplyDeleteCompletely right!! I found it so much difficult at first, since it requires too much patience and being precise. In my opinion the trick is we have to organize well if we wanna have a beautiful batch for the next day.
ReplyDeleteyou have a fantastic course, i am so jealous! :D
Yep.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a right pain to me. By your definition, I must be a cook even though I prefer baking. I use my judgement rather than precise recipes when baking - I've produced lots of things that aren't necessarily very pretty, but I've never yet baked anything that couldn't be eaten. But then, I'n not likely to ever become a professional baker.
ReplyDeletecool!
ReplyDelete