We present a broad family of quantum baker maps that generalize the proposal of Schack and Caves to any even Hilbert space with arbitrary boundary conditions. We identify a structure, common to all maps consisting of a simple kernel perturbed by diffraction effects. This “essential” baker's map has a different semiclassical limit and can be diagonalized analytically for Hilbert spaces spanned by qubits. In all cases this kernel provides an accurate approximation to the spectral properties -eigenvalues and eigenfunctions- of all the different quantizations.