When presented with a selection of vegetables and other ingredients a good cook could make a nice meal by just making stuff up. Want a thicker sauce? Reduce it more, or maybe thicken with flour, it's up to you. You can just taste and adjust as you go.
You can't do that when baking. If you add too much liquid to a batter you can't just add flour to make it perfect again. You'll ruin the other ratios. You can't just bake it at any temperature in any sized pan for any amount of time. When it comes out will either be cooked or not. If you burnt the outside then it's ruined.
A good cook can consistently produce great meals without any recipes whatsoever. A baker cannot.
Ummm... contextually: this is incorrect for a bread baker.
You can totally bake bread without a recipe, and adjust while you go. You can check breads before they're done and let them bake longer. Maintain a rough 1:2:4 ratio of starter:water:flour, adjust hydration/process for the kinds of flour you use, and you can bake 'whatever' and have it be very tasty.
Bread making goes back stupid long in human history. 5,000 years of fermented breadmaking... Until very recently breadmaking was just a skill you learned from someone else who could do it, baked entirely by estimation, and transmitted that knowledge orally. Grandmas buns call for "enough" flour. The pros tell you to reserve flour/water until things look "right".
For other kinds of baking I don't really agree either... it's more about ratios and observation, though. If your batter is too thin you absolutely add more flour -- you just can't ignore the other agents in the bake. Temp and size will affect cooking times, but you can change those while baking. You check cakes to see if they're done before taking them out. You lower temps if you see edges darkening too quickly...
I mean, if you burn the outside of veggies they tend to be ruined too, and cooks use experience and trial & error to navigate the difference in the same way bakers do.
You can't do that when baking. If you add too much liquid to a batter you can't just add flour to make it perfect again. You'll ruin the other ratios. You can't just bake it at any temperature in any sized pan for any amount of time. When it comes out will either be cooked or not. If you burnt the outside then it's ruined.
A good cook can consistently produce great meals without any recipes whatsoever. A baker cannot.