There are two sorts of people. You either start with the recipe, or start with the pantry. If you are a religious recipe follower then throwing random ingredients together with a few sauces and spices is way out of your comfort zone. You stick to the recipe. Donna knows best. And if you are at the other end of the spectrum, a 'master scavenger-chef', then cooking from a recipe is a little bit daunting.
I am the latter. I am very confident that I can eat whatever I cook from the random contents of my freezer and pantry, but when I have to cook for other people I feel like the food should be recognisable and have a name. And proper cakes and things really need recipes. So I have to think, plan, shop, and cook following instructions, which is just more stressful for me. At the same time, I feel the call to freedom; I'm not 100% bound to the recipe, and I'll "adapt" it for efficiency.
So the office birthday cake today has wholemeal SR instead of normal SR flour. I could not find coconut milk at coles last night (???) so I decided to use a bit of condensed milk and a bit of soy milk instead. Then I put in less sugar, because condensed milk is obviously very sweet. Then I didn't have a high enough cake tin, so I put a bit less mixture in the tin and cooked the rest in a bowl like a pudding for my own dessert. And then I probably had the oven up a bit high, but that probably turned out OK because Rachel, who cooked this cake for her wedding, said that it takes longer than you think, and I didn't test the cake with the skewer, I just took it out at the right time, so it was a good thing it was hotter.
I felt comfortable making all those variations on the recipe, they all seemed logical at the time, and I'm pretty confident the cake will be edible.
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My gosh - those are some daring variations! With baking, I'm less likely to stray from the recipe, unless I know definitely that it wouldn't harm the outcome.
ReplyDeleteYou can probably guess I'm a recipe-follower. Not all the time, but mostly. Esp. with baking.
It ended up delicious, actually it's hard not to be delicious with 400g of chocolate, but very tough-crusted on the outside edge. Possibly the oven temperature.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny because, even though I am such a rule follower, I am happy to adapt recipes, even before I have tried them! I got given 'an accidentally good banana bread recipe' from Em. I needed to make if GF as a first step - it called for plain flour, I only had self-raising- decided it didn't matter and did the substitution. It called for shredded coconut, I only had desicatted - decided it didn't matter. It called for 1/2cup of sour cream, I only had no-fat yogurt- so added 3/4cup as the extra liquid that GF recipes tend to require. Put in some xantham gum as well, and put it in the oven. Worked brilliantly. Sent an email to tell of the success only to get the reply 'it's practically a different recipe!'.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I really am a lawless, rule breaking rebel!
That is quite a contradiction in your character, Mandy! Most amusing!
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