# baking

Pronunciation: US say "BAY-king" /ˈbeɪkɪŋ/; UK

## Verb

1. Present participle and gerund of bake. — present participle and gerund of bake.
   - Simple: Present participle and gerund of bake. Use it for something happening now or for the activity itself.
   - _He spent the afternoon baking a cake for the party._
   - _Baking is something she looks forward to every weekend._

## Noun

2. An act of cooking food by means of dry oven heat.
   - Simple: The act of cooking food with dry heat in an oven.
   - _The baking of the casserole took most of the morning._
   - _A slow baking allows the flavors to develop and the crust to set._
4. A batch of bread, cakes, or similar products made in a single round of cooking.
   - Simple: A batch of bread, cakes, or other food cooked at one time.
   - _Each morning's baking yielded about three dozen loaves._
   - _The shop's weekly baking was famous throughout the village._
6. The particular manner or method used to bake something.
   - Simple: The way something is baked, like bread or a cake in an oven.
   - _The slow baking on these rolls gives them a thick, chewy crust._
   - _Bakers judge the quality of the baking by the color of the crust._

## Adjective

3. Extremely hot: said of a person, an object, or the weather.
   - Simple: Extremely hot, like the inside of an oven.
   - _We trudged across the baking sand toward the only patch of shade._
   - _By noon the warehouse was baking, and the workers took frequent breaks._
5. That cooks food by dry heat, as an oven or similar appliance does.
   - Simple: Used for cooking food with heat, the way an oven does.
   - _The baking element at the bottom of the oven glowed red._
   - _Commercial baking equipment maintains a steady temperature for hours._

## Origin

From Middle English bakynge, equivalent to bake combined with the suffix -ing.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/baking (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).