I'm not much for sticking to measurements with baking, either. I've been lied to too many times by cookbooks that are supposed to be giving me precise instructions. The number of times I've had to add more flour to pancake recipes and the like are innumerable. I look at the dough and if it looks even close to how I think it should look, I leave it alone. If it doesn't, I start adding either starches or liquids as I think is appropriate. Still, I do start with a recipe, I've never tried baking from total scratch.

The whole "baking must be precise" is so ingrained in me that I really can't imagine trying to bake by feel like that.

I can't do jazz-baking with just anything, but if (a) it's something I touch in the prep stages and (b) it's something I know pretty well, then I can tell if it needs something or not. The texture of bread is a case in point: bread dough before the first rise is this funny flexible stretchy texture, and I always know when I'm at the point where no more flour will go in.

I've been lied to too many times by cookbooks that are supposed to be giving me precise instructions.

Well, it's also difficult to work with precise instructions (even when the book does its job properly), because circumstances change. Like, oh, the size of the eggs (or even the amount of yolk in each egg), the temperature outside, if some of the ingredients are not 100% fresh and so forth. So even with the most precise instructions, sometimes there's a need to play it by ear (if it's regarding cooking and baking, should it be playing by tongue?).

I also think that you have to learn to trust your instincts, to be able to do that balancing act of reality-vs.-instructions. Also, I love it that you can learn to understand what each ingredient may contribute to the mix, in order to know to respond to it properly. But that's already more like a lesson in chemistry or in "Potions" in a "Harry Potter" book, so I guess it's not everybody's piece of cake.

That is (to me) the real difference between "baking" and "cooking", Nilly--how important the chemistry is to the final result.

muffins...

I just realized I had a dream last night about baking brownies (I think, something chocolate-y) from scratch, and making a lot of last minute changes, because when I got the batter in the pan, it didn't look right.

It's all about knowing what for what--how much whole wheat flour you can put in, how much you can add before what leavening, what liquids are substitutable.

Maybe you don't know it consciously, but if you bake enough, you get a feedback loop that corrects itself.

There's also a vast difference between different kinds of baking -- pies are infinitely jazz-able, yeast breads nearly as much so, cakes (and chemically leavened eggy things in general) are fussier (but, as noted, can and should be played with within limits).

I was doing a test recipe for CI last week and it was *so hard* to keep reminding myself that I was supposed to, you know, follow the recipe as written. Well, mostly, anyway. Of course, now I'm in a spot because one of the aspects of the final product may have been due to a minor substitution, or it may have been intentional to the recipe.

With regular cooking, I go nuts - if it's not something I've made before, I'll start with a recipe as a guideline, more often two or three, and go from there. If it's something I'm more comfortable with, I'll sometimes flip through some cookbooks for ideas, but that's about it. What I should do better is take notes. That was my mom's biggest complaint about my cooking - always good, but rarely replicable.

Same with my daughter, brenda. She'll ask me for a recipe for something and I can only say is "stand and watch me the next time I make it and write it down. And be prepared for it to be different than the time before." She gets very frustrated with me.

pies are infinitely jazz-able

Pie fillings are infinitely jazz-able. Pastry is considerably less so. I mean, you may go by feel, but it's not so much improvisation as environmental corrections.