bake

In professional cooking, to bake food is to surround it with hot air (not necessarily intensely hot) and is usually applied to breads, pastries, vegetables and fish. Roasting is a more specific term, usually applied to meats and poultry, although the technique is essentially the same. Roasting, however, can be done on a spit or in front of an open fire.

Bake (?), v. t. [imp.& p. p. Baked (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Baking.] [AS. bacan; akin to D. bakken, OHG. bacchan, G. backen, Icel. & Sw. baca, Dan. bage, Gr. to roast.]

1.

To prepare, as food, by cooking in a dry heat, either in an oven or under coals, or on heated stone or metal; as, to bake bread, meat, apples.

⇒ Baking is the term usually applied to that method of cooking which exhausts the moisture in food more than roasting or broiling; but the distinction of meaning between roasting and baking is not always observed.

2.

To dry or harden (anything) by subjecting to heat, as, to bake bricks; the sun bakes the ground.

3.

To harden by cold.

The earth . . . is baked with frost. Shak.

They bake their sides upon the cold, hard stone. Spenser.

© Webster 1913.

Bake, v. i.

1.

To do the work of baking something; as, she brews, washes, and bakes.

Shak.

2.

To be baked; to become dry and hard in heat; as, the bread bakes; the ground bakes in the hot sun.

© Webster 1913.

Bake, n.

The process, or result, of baking.

© Webster 1913.