Do you always follow the recipe? Spill the beans...!

angelavdavis

I have just been making a sandwich cake for OH and (as usual) proceeded straight past the "sift the flour" instruction.

I have NEVER done this!!!

It made me wonder what else people cheat at??

I very often omit or swap ingredients, but actual instructions??

Come on, spill the beans!!

prettypennies

Salting aubergines and peeling tomatoes life's too short

celyn90

OH often asks me if I can make something again - the reply is always I don't know. You might get something like it again at some point but an exact copy?!?:rotfl: :rotfl:

I don't weigh anything, I swap stuff, I add in extra things... Works okay most of the time - the odd creative disaster, but these are too infrequent for me to be careful and actually read the instructions... It's the culinary equivalent of a bloke trying to assemble flat-pack furniture... who needs instructions...

Olliebeak

I always sift the flour (usually adding half - 1 teaspoon of baking powder into it at the same time) - I find that I can get away with the very basic flour that way, instead of buying the branded one .

spaghetti_monster

Never bother sifting flour. But stick to 99% of instructions with baking - I'm not experienced enough to chuck stuff in by sight.

But I often go off recipe with savoury things - barely ever weigh out veg (350g onions???? I just grab a few!) I think I'm more used to things and what will make things taste different.

For example, a veg soup, stew tastes different every time depending on what you've got - I think that's half the fun of it (and practical too!)

HariboJunkie

celyn90 wrote: »

OH often asks me if I can make something again - the reply is always I don't know. You might get something like it again at some point but an exact copy?!?:rotfl: :rotfl:

I don't weigh anything, I swap stuff, I add in extra things... Works okay most of the time - the odd creative disaster, but these are too infrequent for me to be careful and actually read the instructions... It's the culinary equivalent of a bloke trying to assemble flat-pack furniture... who needs instructions...

Me too. I just look at the pictures in my cookery books, glance at the ingredients and do my own thing.

I'm failry strict with baking though as I've had a few disasters. :rolleyes:

thriftlady_2

I never sift flour either.
I follow instructions pretty closely in baking recips though, but I change the kinds of sugar, fruit etc. I sometimes combine two recipes like banana muffins with chocolate ones to make choconana muffins. Last weekend I adapted a recipe for navy cake (rich fruit cake with rum in) by changing the dried fruit- I called it Pirate Cake because the rum was all gone after I'd made it

For other kinds of cooking I don't follow recipes at all. I read loads of recipe books and they give me inspiration to wing it. I rarely make anything twice.

Penelope_Penguin

I don't follow recipes apart from for baking (and once I've followed a recipe once, I may deviate next time ). I enjoy using what I have in the pantry, and inventing new dishes.

I'm currently inventing quiche fillings :T

However, the only row I ever got into on OS was when I gave a recipe to someone (a bit of this, a pich of that type of thing) and they demanded a proper recipe with quantites (in imperial, too, when I use metric :rolleyes: ). I declined and they took a huff :rotfl:

Penny. x

morwenna

I always sift flour - I think being scared of my Domestic Science teacher at an impressionable age has something to do with it! :rotfl: Mind you I am grateful to her - she taught me to cook, sew, embroider, darn & mend and clean..

As for recipes, if I want to try a new cake, then I am pretty much like Thriftlady - otherwise I just weigh the eggs and off I go..

Savoury recipes though, they are just guidelines, aren't they?

buxtonrabbitgreen

I too usually follow recipies for baking but everything else is educated guesswork. My dd:s friends mum was very impressed, when at her house my dd made them pancakes without the aid of scales or recipie. Both my kids can also make macaroni cheese with a proper roux without instructions or scales. They have watched me tipping ingredients in and got the hang of it.

Elliesmum

I'm a bucket cook - chuck it in. I'll change ingredients depending on what I've got in!!! I most likely stick to the recipe more with baking, my Gran was a fantastic baker and she was very strict on methods etc so rubbed a little bit of that onto me.

EM xx