Ergonomics of baking - analysis of the activity

When I think about time requirements of baking, I think of it as time consuming, and appropriate for days when I have free time. Last time I baked, I had about four hours free, and that felt about right, although I didn't use all the time up.  Alexa Johnston (2008) sums it up perfectly like this

I am often asked how I find the time, since many imagine that baking takes ages to do and should be well down the list of priorities for a busy woman today.  But making time to do something I enjoy so much is not really a challenge and it needn't be frightfully time consuming anyway.  You can achieve great results in less than an hour - and brilliant ones if you just take a little longer...(p. 7)

For me, I can make biscuits in half an hour, but it is so much nicer to take a full hour.  So yes, you can do the activity in a different way and get the same outcome.

On that note, sometimes you can change the ingredients, but that requires a bit of skill or experience.  For people with not a lot of skill, there are countless baking 'manuals' out there, aka cookbooks.

One thing that baking requires is a lot of focus.  If I'm talking to someone else while I do it, I often miss out ingredients or put in the wrong quantities, whether it's a new recipe or one I'm familiar with, so for me, it's probably best if I do it as a solitary activity or ask someone of equal competence to complete certain tasks.

Baking also requires you to have use of your hands.  In her book Cooks' tools: The complete manual of kitchen implements and how to use them (1980) Susan Campbell devotes the first section to hands, stating "Hands may be regarded as an integral part of any tool..." (p. 7) then goes on to mention that no implement is better than hands, for example when rubbing butter or kneading dough.  I think baking would be very difficult to bake with one hand, and almost impossible with no hands, but this woman would probably disagree with me:

References:

Campbell, S. (1980) Cooks' tools: The complete manual of kitchen implements and how to use them. William Morrow and Company, Inc: New York

Johnston, A. (2008) Ladies, a plate: Traditional home baking. Penguin Group (NZ): North Shore