Baking

Baking is the mode of cooking food in an airtight chamber or oven. The term is also applied in the manufacture of Bricks (q.v.), Pottery (q.v.), &c. The baking of bread will be treated under BREAD. The oven that forms part of a kitchen-range is simply an iron chamber, with flues for conveying the heated gases of the fire round it. In baking, strictly so called, the oven is kept close, so that the steam and aroma arising from the inclosed substances are confined; but a great improvement is effected if a current of air is produced by ventilators. The rank taste that often characterises baked dishes is thus avoided; and the process may then be called oven-roasting. Ovens are sometimes heated by water (superheated), and frequently now by gas. Meat for baking is placed in a dish, from the bottom of which, in some cases, it is raised on a wire frame or trivet.—Baking, although a convenient mode of cooking meat, is not considered quite so good as Roasting (q.v.). See also OVEN.