Baking

Baking is a food cooking method using prolonged dry heat acting by convection, and not by thermal radiation, normally in an oven, but also in hot ashes, or on hot stones. When the desired temperature is reached within the heating instrument, the food is placed inside and baked for a certain amount of time. It is primarily used for the preparation of bread, cakes, pastries and pies, tarts, quiches, cookies and crackers. Such items are sometimes referred to as "baked goods," and are sold at a bakery. A person who prepares baked goods as a profession is called a baker. It is also used for the preparation of baked potatoes, baked apples, baked beans, some casseroles and pasta dishes such as lasagna, and various other foods, such as the pretzel. Unlike other cooking methods, baking does not alter the nutritional information of the food item. Frying, sauteeing, grilling, etc. all change the fat and calorie content of the food.

Many commercial ovens are provided with two heating elements: one for baking, using convection and conduction to heat the food, and one for broiling or grilling, heating mainly by radiation. Meat may also be baked, but this is usually reserved for meatloaf, smaller cuts of whole meats, and whole meats that contain stuffing or coating such as breadcrumbs or buttermilk batter; larger cuts prepared without stuffing or coating are more often roasted, a similar process, using higher temperatures and shorter cooking times. Baking can sometimes be combined with grilling to produce a hybrid barbecue variant, by using both methods simultaneously or one before the other, cooking twice. Baking is connected to barbecuing because the concept of the masonry oven is similar to that of a smoke pit.

The baking process does not require any fat to be used to cook in an oven. Some makers of snacks such as potato chips or crisps have produced baked versions of their snack items as an alternative to the usual cooking method of deep-frying in an attempt to reduce the calorie or fat content of their snack products.Baking has opened up doors to businesses like cake making factories and privatised cake shops but the baking process is done in a more larger mass in bigger and open furnaces.