How Do You Cook - Recipe or Wing It

[Marianne]

I"m a Cajun. I use a recipe, only to get the basic idea; besides that, I make a few improvements. Even when I use a box cake....it don't take a genius to know you only have to add an extra egg, 1/4 cup water and half cup self-rising flour to make a bigger cake. If I'm missing an ingredient, I might say,"Well, this will do just as well"

Oh no kidding. I didn't know the trick with the cake mix!!! I grew up in a high altitude city, so we always had to add a couple of tablespoons of flour to box cake mixes. Or if nothing else, every box had to be checked for 'high altitude' directions.

Most of the time I make cakes from scratch, using a make your own mix that I keep in the freezer. Those cakes are bigger than standard box mixes. The exception is angel food cake. When I made a scratch one, it was denser and heavier than the cake we were used to, so I buy the mix for that.

k15n1, I know what you mean about chemical taste. I can hardly stand to eat some Pillsbury products, all I taste is baking powder.

 

[Denim Deb]

I've been thinking about this. When I cook, I wing it-unless it's the first time I'm making something. If I bake, I normally follow a recipe.

 

[Justme]

I am a wing it person. Cook books and recipies = ideas and inspiration. Both ingrediants and amounts will change from one cooking to another on most things. Yes there are a few that need to be followed more closely and a very few that at least parts must be exact but in general close is just fine.even with a brand new recipe I find it difficult if not impossible to follow to the letter. My family sometimes complain cause "this dish does't taste the same as last time" and the reason is I don't remember what I did last time. I grew up with wingit cooks and in trying to duplicate great grandmothers specialities -after failing after going by the "about a" recipe-have stood by as she was making it and taken everything from her hand before it went to the bowl and measured it. Still didnt come out right. Came to the conclusion that it had something to do with the oils in her hands. I do find that as time goes on some of those things are getting closer. Maybe there is something to the hand oils thing and the exact chemical composition changes with age. Sure miss my Mammy, Granny and Gramdma though.
My son, when four, went through a cooking phase. He would like to dream up a recipe. He had watched us cook since birth so had some basic ideas and would ask some howtos but for the most part I let him do what he wanted. We had some really weird dishes but most were very good and really unique. I would have never thought to combine some of the things he did but it put just the right twist on it and for the most part have only rarely if ever seen the combo in any recipe or cookbook. Now at 22 he is definately a wing it cook.

I do notice that it seems most on here seem to wing it if not always then at least more so than not. I wonder does that have something to do with SScy or the confidence and experience that you are CAPABLE?

 

[Marianne]

I am a wing it person. Cook books and recipies = ideas and inspiration. Both ingrediants and amounts will change from one cooking to another on most things. Yes there are a few that need to be followed more closely and a very few that at least parts must be exact but in general close is just fine.even with a brand new recipe I find it difficult if not impossible to follow to the letter. My family sometimes complain cause "this dish does't taste the same as last time" and the reason is I don't remember what I did last time. I grew up with wingit cooks and in trying to duplicate great grandmothers specialities -after failing after going by the "about a" recipe-have stood by as she was making it and taken everything from her hand before it went to the bowl and measured it. Still didnt come out right. Came to the conclusion that it had something to do with the oils in her hands. I do find that as time goes on some of those things are getting closer. Maybe there is something to the hand oils thing and the exact chemical composition changes with age. Sure miss my Mammy, Granny and Gramdma though.
My son, when four, went through a cooking phase. He would like to dream up a recipe. He had watched us cook since birth so had some basic ideas and would ask some howtos but for the most part I let him do what he wanted. We had some really weird dishes but most were very good and really unique. I would have never thought to combine some of the things he did but it put just the right twist on it and for the most part have only rarely if ever seen the combo in any recipe or cookbook. Now at 22 he is definately a wing it cook.

I do notice that it seems most on here seem to wing it if not always then at least more so than not. I wonder does that have something to do with SScy or the confidence and experience that you are CAPABLE?

I think you're right. If it doesn't turn out the way we expected, most of us can do something with it. Chickens and other critters are a last resort.

 

[ORChick]

I remember a case when winging it didn't work for me. My mother could bake a very nice pie, and I learned from her how to make a good crust. She always kept a measuring cup in the flour crock to use as a scoop. My crusts were good, but as I got better at cooking I also got sloppy, which is always a danger when winging it. I couldn't think why my pie crusts were not turning out as they should (I didn't make pie all that often; usually just around the holidays) Finally I looked in Mother's old Joy of Cooking and realized that I was just sloppy scooping the flour out -- "Oh, this looks about right", but of course it wasn't. Now I don't need to look at the recipe, but I am more careful about measuring ... and always get compliments on my pie crust.

 

[k15n1]

I remember a case when winging it didn't work for me. My mother could bake a very nice pie, and I learned from her how to make a good crust. She always kept a measuring cup in the flour crock to use as a scoop. My crusts were good, but as I got better at cooking I also got sloppy, which is always a danger when winging it. I couldn't think why my pie crusts were not turning out as they should (I didn't make pie all that often; usually just around the holidays) Finally I looked in Mother's old Joy of Cooking and realized that I was just sloppy scooping the flour out -- "Oh, this looks about right", but of course it wasn't. Now I don't need to look at the recipe, but I am more careful about measuring ... and always get compliments on my pie crust.

I measure for pastry, too. The flour and butter, at least.

I just completed some "research" on pie crusts. I was tired of sticky mess and unreliable results. Saw a video of Julia Child rolling out a crust and it was a life-changing type event. It took her less than a minute to do. So easy! So I started making pies and trying to figure it out. For a while, I tried weighing out everything and that sort-of worked. Still, if you smash the butter into too large or too small bits, the amount of water you need is wrong and I'd end up with a gummy mess or a dry pastry that cracked when I tried to roll it out. But at the time, I didn't know what was going on. All I knew was that results were unreliable and measuring perfectly didn't always help.

Eventually, I found The Art of French Cooking (Julia Child et al) and used that recipe. She wrote that you should start with cold butter in 1/2" pieces. Smash them into the flour between thumb and fingertips (to avoid heating the butter) until it looks right. Then add a little water, mixing with your fingers, until you get a nice dry-ish ball of dough. Smear it on the counter, bit by bit, then refrigerate. Refrigerate. Refrigerate. This, for butter-users, is THE trick. If you don't refrigerate it, it'll be sticky and you'll have to resort to one of the embarrassing waxed-paper or plastic-wrap tricks that you see on TV. The other trick is adding the water until you have the right amount, not measuring.

I made a table of butterour ratios (by weight) in a bunch of different pastry recipes. I tallied up the results and the average is 76%, or about 3 parts butter/shortening and 4 parts flour. Most recipes use 70-ish % but Julia's recipe calls for 80%, which brought up the average. Turns out it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if it's exact or shortening or butter. Figure 3:4 is the ratio for a basic pastry and you're good to go.

Recently I tried an english recipe that called for suet pastry. That was awesome. I highly recommend it.