No Stupid Questions

So I was curious about the question, and since every answer here was different, I asked Bing Chat. The response is pretty clear and - to me - surprising:

Baking and roasting are both forms of dry-heat cooking that use hot, dry air to cook food in an oven. However, there are some differences between them, such as:

• Temperature: Roasting usually requires a higher oven temperature of above 400°F, while baking uses lower temperatures of 375°F and below¹². This affects the cooking time and the browning of the food.
• Transformation: Baking often involves a transformation of the ingredients, such as turning a dough into bread, a batter into a cake, or an egg mixture into a quiche¹. Roasting typically involves whole, solid foods that retain their shape, such as meat, poultry, or vegetables².
• Browning: Roasting tends to produce more browning on the surface of the food, which enhances the flavor and texture. This is because roasting uses higher temperatures and oils that speed up the caramelization and Maillard reactions². Baking usually results in less browning, unless the food is baked for a long time or at a high temperature.
• Moisture: Roasting can cause more moisture loss from the food, especially if it is cooked at a high temperature for a long time. This can make the food drier and tougher. Baking can preserve more moisture in the food, especially if it is covered with a lid or foil³.
• Application: Roasting is mainly used for cooking meats, poultry, and vegetables that have enough fat to prevent them from drying out. Roasting can also create a crispy skin or crust on the food. Baking is more suitable for cooking fish, seafood, breads, cakes, pies, and other desserts that need to rise or set in the oven.

Roasting is something you can do with any strong heat source, you can spit roast with nothing more than a campfire, a stick and a hunk of meat.

Baking is a specific branch of cooking where you measure very specific amounts of ingredients and cook them with a usually dry, indirect heat.

An oven is capable of performing both functions. As well as others in addition.

This comment section is amazing.

TL;DR Most people don't know. The people who do know disagree with the other people who also know. There is a disconnect between whether we are talking about oven settings, temperatures, sauces, covers, dry heat, open flame, vegetables vs meat, the list goes on...

What a lovely chaotic discussion!

I love how every answer is different. Makes it clear as mud, doesn't it?

It's a language-specific distinction, mostly referring to the temperature and secondarily to what you're cooking (dough vs. others). Other languages deal with it differently. For example:

• Italian merges "bake" and "cook" into "cuocere" (ho cotto il pane = I've baked the bread), but keeps "roast" distinct as "arrostire" (ho arrostito la carne = I roasted the meat).
• Portuguese doesn't bother with the distinction. Roast, bake, both are "assar" (assei o pão = I've baked the bread; assei a carne = I've roasted the meat).

You could also say something like "ho arrostito il pane" (lit. "I roasted the bread") in Italian but the meaning is different - you're toasting the bread, not baking it.

In general you'll use a higher temperature when roasting than when baking, but there are a few exceptions - like, pizze are baked, but a pizza baked on low temperature is a sad pizza. For stuff like beef ribs (that are cooked on low temperature) I've seen people using both "baking" and "roasting".

The type of food and temperature is what makes the most of the difference. Roasting is 400F/~200C and above, baking starts at 350F/~150C, I believe.

Dictionary.com has an interesting page just on this topic, and it's more complicated than you might expect.

You bake a cake and you roast meat or potatoes. I think its what you cook.

In my owen i cook both with the same heat mode, not from "top" or "bottom".

When you roast something, you keep it wet. Baking dries things out.

Roasting tends to be a very long and low heat cooking done over 6-8 hours usually with thick meat cuts like turkeys or hams or chicken in a covered pan. This makes the meat juicy and tender. Baking is just putting something on a flat sheet pan and exposing it to the ovens heat directly for 20-30 minutes to quickly heat it up and crisp it.

I thought roasting implied directional heat?

roast alaska

Are you referring to oven settings?

If so i have no idea and have also wondered this often.

Me and a buddy spit roasted this pig last night.

Roasting is heat from the top and baking is heat from the bottom I think.

Roasting means to cook over a flame. Baking means to cook in an oven.