"That's fair, and perhaps precision could be part of the structure. The default is "exactly", but there are options for adding according to taste, judgment, moo

"That's fair, and perhaps precision could be part of the structure. The default is "exactly", but there are options for adding according to taste, judgment, mood, whatever, and some way of expressing a suggested range." Yes, that is ideal. List exactly what you did in your ingredients list. Then add information about what you change and the impact of this. Kenji López-Alt's recipe is the perfect example of this. I prefer starting from the Jacques Torres' recipe but I still go back to Kenji's article. It shows me the impact of moving any of the dials for the cookie I want. "Note also that a lot of times the variations are to account for some other inherent variation, like adjusting the sugar in a pie depending on how sweet your fruit is." Yes, but that should be called out. The key thing is that a recipe should be an actual recipe. It should be precise documentation that allows you to reproduce a product as much as possible. Prose is what actually is teaching you how to cook.