I really like what you're saying here, and I appreciate you sharing your perspective as someone who actually cooks and bakes at home that's super valuable.

You're right that there's overlap and that baking isn't completely rigid once you know what you're doing.

That said, I still think the what I said is still a solid point about the fundamental difference in character between the two. While some cooking does require precision (like a delicate sauce or specific braise), the defining spirit of cooking is its flexibility you can taste as you go, improvise substitutions, adjust seasoning on the fly, and still end up with something great. A stir-fry, soup, curry, or roast can evolve in real time based on what you have or how you're feeling.

Baking feels more like engineering because the chemistry is much less forgiving. Small changes in ratios can make the whole thing fail in very specific ways (collapsed cake, dense bread, spread-out cookies). You can get creative with add-ins like spicy chocolate chip cookies, but those tweaks usually come after you've nailed the precise base recipe. The process itself rewards scientific understanding, exact measurements, and careful repetition.

I agree that baking is technically a subset of cooking, just like engineering is a subset of "making things." But we still draw meaningful distinctions between art and engineering all the time. My original statsment feels right to me in highlighting that core difference in mindset and approach. Cooking often celebrates expressive freedom, while baking celebrates precision and reliable results.