Are most people terrible bakers?

[Anonymous]

Yes, most are. But I also NEVER participate in cookie exchanges. Most people have filthy kitchens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Baking is a science. Very different from cooking. Hardest part in baking is following the recipe. Folks want to throw in adjustments and haven’t mastered the recipe first.

That's the funniest part about reading recipe comments. "Recipe called for 8 tablespoons butter but I wanted to cut out the fat so I only used half. Instead of sugar I used Splenda and I didn't have walnuts so I used pine nuts instead. We don't like raisins so just omitted those but threw in some chopped up apple for sweetness. Family didn't like it so threw it all in the trash. Ugh, waste of ingredients!"

There’s an Instagram account devoted to this and it’s hilarious. My favorite was a person who was making a carrot cake but thought carrot are too sugary/unhealthy so they subbed in kale. They were astounded that the cake was disgusting. They then blamed the author of the recipe for wasting their time/ingredients. Amazing.

What’s the name of the account? I follow a couple of weird food accounts and would probably enjoy that one too.

[Anonymous]

My husband bought a cookie box from the school that had Snickerdoodles, chocolate chips and sugar cookie with a very pretty snowflake in royal icing. But that was it! Bring your A game if you're selling a pricey cookie box.
My MIL makes outstanding cookies but she doesn't want to share the recipes with me so I guess it ends with her. My friend was complaining that her mIl is always inviting her over to make candy/bake together and I told her she was lucky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband bought a cookie box from the school that had Snickerdoodles, chocolate chips and sugar cookie with a very pretty snowflake in royal icing. But that was it! Bring your A game if you're selling a pricey cookie box.
My MIL makes outstanding cookies but she doesn't want to share the recipes with me so I guess it ends with her. My friend was complaining that her mIl is always inviting her over to make candy/bake together and I told her she was lucky.

That is the A game. That's what sells at a school bake sale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I expect pitchforks to come out for this comment, but could it also just be that Christmas cookies aren't that good?

I am admittedly a "meh" baker, much prefer cooking to baking. But when we are given assortments of cookies this time of year (for which I thank people profusely and am very much grateful for their kindness), there's honestly rarely anything I'd actually like to eat? I feel terrible because I know how much effort goes in, but I'd rather have your standard chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin than all these fancy-looking ones. It's like there's an inverse relationship between looks and taste.

+1. Like PP I like standard chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, maybe a peanut butter blossom to be festive. I am stealing this from another cookie thread with apologies to the poster because it's just a matter of taste: "I also make amaretti cookies, pecan sandies which I think are actually more like Mexican wedding cakes, cranberry pecan biscotti, Italian rainbow cookies" Sorry, but these are the cookies my family and I do not like. They're too dry or something for us and our unrefined palates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband bought a cookie box from the school that had Snickerdoodles, chocolate chips and sugar cookie with a very pretty snowflake in royal icing. But that was it! Bring your A game if you're selling a pricey cookie box.
My MIL makes outstanding cookies but she doesn't want to share the recipes with me so I guess it ends with her. My friend was complaining that her mIl is always inviting her over to make candy/bake together and I told her she was lucky.

That is the A game. That's what sells at a school bake sale.

I'm the 8:19 poster and that is my ideal cookie box!

[Anonymous]

I'm the 5:11 poster, and every year I make cookies for the neighbors and try to do something out of the ordinary. Last year, it was the New York Time's Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread cookies (with orange flavored chocolate chunks). Our family thinks they're outstanding, but we didn't hear anything from the neighbors. This year, I was going to try the NYT Lemon-Tumeric Crinkle Cookies, but I'm wondering if I'm just wasting my time and should just stick to basic chocolate chip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the 5:11 poster, and every year I make cookies for the neighbors and try to do something out of the ordinary. Last year, it was the New York Time's Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread cookies (with orange flavored chocolate chunks). Our family thinks they're outstanding, but we didn't hear anything from the neighbors. This year, I was going to try the NYT Lemon-Tumeric Crinkle Cookies, but I'm wondering if I'm just wasting my time and should just stick to basic chocolate chip.

I like those turmeric crinkle cookies but I can see that not everyone would

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Baking is a science. Very different from cooking. Hardest part in baking is following the recipe. Folks want to throw in adjustments and haven’t mastered the recipe first.

That's the funniest part about reading recipe comments. "Recipe called for 8 tablespoons butter but I wanted to cut out the fat so I only used half. Instead of sugar I used Splenda and I didn't have walnuts so I used pine nuts instead. We don't like raisins so just omitted those but threw in some chopped up apple for sweetness. Family didn't like it so threw it all in the trash. Ugh, waste of ingredients!"

There’s an Instagram account devoted to this and it’s hilarious. My favorite was a person who was making a carrot cake but thought carrot are too sugary/unhealthy so they subbed in kale. They were astounded that the cake was disgusting. They then blamed the author of the recipe for wasting their time/ingredients. Amazing.

What’s the name of the account? I follow a couple of weird food accounts and would probably enjoy that one too.

There's a subreddit "I didn't have eggs"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband bought a cookie box from the school that had Snickerdoodles, chocolate chips and sugar cookie with a very pretty snowflake in royal icing. But that was it! Bring your A game if you're selling a pricey cookie box.
My MIL makes outstanding cookies but she doesn't want to share the recipes with me so I guess it ends with her. My friend was complaining that her mIl is always inviting her over to make candy/bake together and I told her she was lucky.

That is the A game. That's what sells at a school bake sale.

I guess you're right. I was hoping for biscotti, spicy cookies, shortbread, the kind of thing an adult wants to dip into coffee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s not as easy as following the recipe. Some recipes are bad. And some techniques (like creaming) are not self-evident. The proper temperature and degree of doneness are hard too. I recently made a banana bread that required a full extra 45 minutes (and to je covered by foil) compared to the recipe. I only got it right because I took the internal temp.

Also most people don’t use Crisco or margarine anymore so the cookies are bound to get hard.

I was with you until your Crisco/margarine comment. I make shortbread holiday cookies as well as molasses cookies that stay soft for days. Literally just had one of my shortbread cookies with royal icing this morning (made a week and a half ago) and it was perfection. The molasses cookies last even longer (I do a gingerbread version with royal icing as well as a spiced drop cookie version rolled in orange sugar) because of the higher moisture content.

You can achieve this with butter, but temp of the dough when you stamp out the cookies and when you bake them is key.

But yes, a lot of people don't know any of this, try to follow recipes but don't know when to recognize the dough is too warm and needs to be chilled and other common cookie mistakes.

Please share the shortbread recipe!

[Anonymous]

You can’t learn how to bake by just reading a recipe or watching YouTube videos. You have to learn by doing it with someone who knows what they’re doing. It’s a skill passed down from one generation to another, and sadly that’s not happening as much anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the 5:11 poster, and every year I make cookies for the neighbors and try to do something out of the ordinary. Last year, it was the New York Time's Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread cookies (with orange flavored chocolate chunks). Our family thinks they're outstanding, but we didn't hear anything from the neighbors. This year, I was going to try the NYT Lemon-Tumeric Crinkle Cookies, but I'm wondering if I'm just wasting my time and should just stick to basic chocolate chip.

I like those turmeric crinkle cookies but I can see that not everyone would

Yeah, usually I do two kinds, chocolate chip and something else. The biggest compliments we ever received were for Laura Bush's Cowboy Cookies:

https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/cowboy-cookies-recipe

[Anonymous]

Issues people have with baking: flour (need to spoon and level), temperature of butter and eggs, refrigerating batter, baking soda (must be fresh), and baking time.

Think of places that sell chocolate chip cookies. Panera bread and Wegman’s are all bad. For some reason, people like the Wegman’s cc cookies, but I think they have a horrible aftertaste.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the 5:11 poster, and every year I make cookies for the neighbors and try to do something out of the ordinary. Last year, it was the New York Time's Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread cookies (with orange flavored chocolate chunks). Our family thinks they're outstanding, but we didn't hear anything from the neighbors. This year, I was going to try the NYT Lemon-Tumeric Crinkle Cookies, but I'm wondering if I'm just wasting my time and should just stick to basic chocolate chip.

I made the nyt caramel gochujang cookies last year. They were definitely different in a good and addicting way.