Baking is a food cooking method using prolonged dry heat acting
by convection, rather than by thermal radiation, normally in an
oven, but also in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common
baked item is bread but many other types of foods are baked.
Heat is gradually transferred "from the surface of cakes,
cookies and breads to their centre. As heat travels through it
transforms batters and doughs into baked goods with a firm dry
crust and a softer centre". Baking can be combined with grilling
to produce a hybrid barbecue variant, by using both methods
simultaneously or one before the other, cooking twice. Baking is
related to barbecuing because the concept of the masonry oven is
similar to that of a smoke pit. Baking has been traditionally
done at home by women for domestic consumption, by men in
bakeries and restaurants for local consumption and when
production was industrialised, by machines in large factories.
The art and skill of baking remains a fundamental one and
important for nutrition, as baked go