Cooking For Engineers

[Disneymom]

Here's a silly question from me...

Do more engineers prefer cooking (more forgiving when it comes to not measuring ingredients) or baking (which requires far more precise measurements)? Not sure why I asked other than my hubby is a Nuke and isn't into cooking because he can't just throw things together like I do, but is fine with baking because it is more precise and has an actual recipe to follow (read "equation"). I just thought it was kind of funny!

On a side note, I prefer cooking because it is more forgiving when I don't measure my ingredients (nearly everytime I cook), but when baking, I am very careful about measuring the correct amount (which is probably why I prefer non-English cookbooks/recipes because everything is done in the metric system versus the customary system). Which brings me to another thing...can anyone recommend a good kitchen scale? TIA

~MLE

[LAN3]

My personality doesn't quite fit the engineer profile, but I am the analytical sort, and I prefer baking because it's not so alchemical as cooking.

However, the parts of baking that challenge me the most are still so hard to quantify-- pie crust and biscuit dough, which are sensitive to temperature of the fats and sensitive to blending technique, as well as yeast breads, which in addition to being alive, rely on the maker developing gluten, managing air content, and the effects of the texture changes during the baking that cause tears and cracks and crumb-density and air-pockets and such in the oven.

The great thing about baking is that, when your technique is bad, you get somethign that tastes good and has the wrong texture. So at least you can eat, heheh.