Are most people terrible bakers?

[Anonymous]

ME!!! -- I've never been good at baking.
So I don't

It's ok .. Tons of other things I'm good at.

Fun Spin -- Our kid2 loves to bake and is great at it..

[Anonymous]

I bake a lot. I think people go wrong on cookies in three ways:

1) they don’t have a mixer and pick a recipe that calls for creaming the butter and the sugar. You really need a mixer or great biceps to make that work

2) they forget to bring the butter to room temperature and they try to use it cold or melt it instead. That won’t work. To bring your butter to room temperature quickly, cut it into .5” or so slices, spread them out on a plate, and microwave 20 seconds at a time.

3) they try to make ingredient substitutions on the fly

Also, most of us just don’t like shortbread. Sorry.

Do your flour by weight, it’s much easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Definitely not. Kids don't like hard, dry, lightly sweetened cookies.

[Anonymous]

Problem with many bakers is that oven performance can vary widely. A recipe calling for 375 F for 15 minutes might take 10 minutes in yours while it will take 22 minutes in someone else's. Amateur bakers often have zero concept of food chemistry.....you need to simply be aware of things like the Maillard reaction, which is the key to making many of the best and most flavorful baked goods.

A problem specifically with American bakers is that all of the stupid recipes nonsensically use volumes instead of mass. It makes so much more sense to use grams and mass for recipes rather than use volumes like cups for things like butter and flour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

There are a lot of self taught cooks out there. You can learn a lot by watching cooking shows and experimenting on your own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I could have written this post! I'm very disappointed in the cookies from the exchange I went to, and wish I had kept the simple molasses cookies that I baked. Also some people subbed out butter and flour for dairy free and gluten free alternatives, which completely changed the taste and texture of the recipes. I ended up throwing most in the trash.

Amateur substitutions don't usually work. Tried a dairy free / gluten free cookie recently that had the texture of kinetic sand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I could have written this post! I'm very disappointed in the cookies from the exchange I went to, and wish I had kept the simple molasses cookies that I baked. Also some people subbed out butter and flour for dairy free and gluten free alternatives, which completely changed the taste and texture of the recipes. I ended up throwing most in the trash.

Amateur substitutions don't usually work. Tried a dairy free / gluten free cookie recently that had the texture of kinetic sand.

I worked at Starbucks in 2009 and they introduced a gluten-free Orange Valencia cookie. They were disgusting but I used to take them home anyway when they went stale because I was poor and 22.
Then 10 years later my kid got kinetic sand for his birthday and when I touched it my mind immediately went to that awful cookie! Exact same texture!

[Anonymous]

Baking requires precision, it’s not something that goes well if you try to experiment. I’m trying to learn baking from my mother. She makes it look easy and makes great bread, pies etc, but I haven’t inherited the ability. It seems to me good instincts are pretty important too, but that also applies to cooking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Problem with many bakers is that oven performance can vary widely. A recipe calling for 375 F for 15 minutes might take 10 minutes in yours while it will take 22 minutes in someone else's. Amateur bakers often have zero concept of food chemistry.....you need to simply be aware of things like the Maillard reaction, which is the key to making many of the best and most flavorful baked goods.

A problem specifically with American bakers is that all of the stupid recipes nonsensically use volumes instead of mass. It makes so much more sense to use grams and mass for recipes rather than use volumes like cups for things like butter and flour.

I guess by “mass” you mean weigh things? I’ve heard that’s the best way to go but I don’t have a scale accurate enough for that. I guess I’d better get one.

[Anonymous]

Most cookie recipes don’t call for enough extracts. The vast majority of cookies that call for vanilla extract should have 2 tsp.

[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!"

NP but this is so annoying. Not to mention the 5 star reviews from people who have never made the recipe, just to say “looks yummy!” Or “can’t wait to make this”. Why are you rating a recipe you haven’t made?

+1. Huge pet peeve, plus the, “I’m allergic to (one of the central ingredients), so what can I substitute?” Um, a recipe for something else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most cookie recipes don’t call for enough extracts. The vast majority of cookies that call for vanilla extract should have 2 tsp.

I measure vanilla the way I measure garlic. With my heart. When DD first started baking with me, we used a ‘glurg’ as our official measure for vanilla.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most cookie recipes don’t call for enough extracts. The vast majority of cookies that call for vanilla extract should have 2 tsp.

almond extract is really potent though. And anise.

[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 never considered chocolate chip a Christmas cookie but those NYT cookies sound yummy.

[Anonymous]

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

How would you know that?