I love to cook. Next to making software, it's probably the thing I enjoy doing the most. I don't, on the other hand, really bake. I dabble at it, throwing together a clafoutis or quick upside-down cake every now and then, but I balk at anything serious.

A few weeks ago I found a recipe for bread that I'm hooked on:

I make a half recipe of the dough last minute before going to bed. Then I wake up at dawn and bake off a couple loaves. The recipe works for me for a couple reasons:

• Exactitude isn't a requirement: While I use a scale to measure out my flour + salt + yeast, it seems more forgiving than most bread recipes. A few dozen grams this way or that yields good results.
• The variables are arranged such that a mix suffices. No kneading. Kneading is work, but it's also complexity. How much do you knead? What's the goal of kneading and how do you know when you have or haven't achieved the goal? What's an over-knead look like, and how do you prevent it? Etc.
• Liquid content is high enough that the mixing takes 30 seconds max. No stand mixer required. Which minimizes clean-up.

Baking, like software development, requires more precision than it appears from the outside. Need for precision causes complexity: rather than eyeballing ingredients like I might when working on a stew or braise, I have to keep & maintain a scale to weigh out my flour.

Complex environments attract people who are capable of working in complex environments. Both through necessity and desire - complexity is challenging and challenging is fun. Chess is more popular than checkers.

People who like complexity will tend to amplify complexity through intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.