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My mom made the best pie crust anybody who ate it ever tasted. Her recipe came from a Crisco label. One of the steps specifically said to slowly stir a liquid

My mom made the best pie crust anybody who ate it ever tasted. Her recipe came from a Crisco label. One of the steps specifically said to slowly stir a liquid into the mix with a fork. Everybody else who attempted the recipe used a spoon and didn't get anywhere near the proper texture. So her difference was simply that others wouldn't follow the directions exactly.

Shivetya 9y ago
it never ceases to amaze me the people who won't follow a recipe then complain it is not a good recipe. the number of people whom I led down the road of cooking; this is especially true for techies who seem adverse or even scared to try; is quite long and it came down to one thing. start with simple recipes. follow exactly. then work your way to complex items and personal variations but the key to understanding cooking is to follow a recipe and see why it works. if you want to scare yourself later go play with browning butter, reducing, and for real fun making candies
- nlawalker 9y ago
  This is a common trope on recipe sites that allow comments or reviews. "I halved the amount of butter it called for and added 3 tbsp of cinnamon and 4 cloves of garlic. This recipe is awful, one star."
- swolchok 9y ago
  > if you want to scare yourself later go play with browning butter what's scary about browning butter? It seemed to work great for me on the first try. Whole kitchen smelled delicious, and so were the chocolate chip cookies I was browning it for.
- tonyarkles 9y ago
  Making caramel and butterscotch were some of the most terrifying kitchen moments the first time. It was quite clear to me that the mixture I had going there was quite a bit hotter than the boiling point of water (the water had all cooked off). The thought of a sugar burn was concerning. But it all turned out ok, and we had some delicious syrups. Just had to be careful.
bsder 9y ago
It's more than that. I have an amazing chocolate cake recipe--I'm SURE it's cribbed from some magazine, chocolate container, or something. I have stopped giving it out as people simply can't get it right. There are three classes of failure: The first class of failure is in not following directions. When it says "1/2 teaspoon", they mean it. Baking is like lab--small things often make big differences. "Helping" one of these people is frustrating--"Um, try actually following the recipe." The second class of failure is that a lot of people don't have basic cooking skills. "My chocolate is weird"--yeah, water does that to melted chocolate. "I can't whip this meringue"--yeah, you can't get even a trace of yolk in that or it's not going to work. The third class of failure is that people don't seem to pay attention and learn. Hmmm, that cake recipe doesn't seem to like humid days. Uh, oh, there aren't any bubbles in my batter--my baking soda/baking powder are probably bad. Sniff, sniff--that doesn't smell right--did you use margarine or butter to prepare that pan? One of my favorite for this was reconstructing my grandmothers kalach recipe. It just never smelled right. Until I remembered that she used to have a container underneath the cabinet that she used for the recipe--as a kid that never meant anything. As an adult, I was like "Hmmmmm, I bet that was lard." Sure enough, that made it smell right. Cooking requires paying attention, but baking, especially, is in the details.
- emj 9y ago
  The problem is while recipes are facts and can be freely spread, prose about how to make cookies is copyrighted. So you get lots of recipes but the important instructions are losts, and people get used to the idea that a recipe is just ingredients and easy to follow steps. The results is lots of recipes that are pretty easy follow, but as always when a design meets a user someone is going to misinterpret your fool proof design. So good simple recipes is a lot like UX when the needs are simple. Think: Recorder app vs. Audacity.
  - wincy 9y ago
    My wife and I always hate reading recipes online. We finally spent like $50 and bought three of the most amazing cookbooks. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, which explains how cooking works, Food Lab, and America’s Test Kitchen. I made a baked potato with a perfect inside and perfect crisp skin from the books, it involved like 4 steps of how to cook, like bathing them in a specific mixture of salt water, baking for 45 minutes, then running olive oil on the skins, then baking for another 15 minutes. If they didn’t explain the why in the book, which I guess is the copyrighted part, and what the results are, I never would have tried that recipe.
albeebe1 9y ago
I think a specific step is what makes my wifes whipped cream stand out. It can't be the ingredients.
- unwind 9y ago
  Uh, you're not being very clear but I feel I have to say this: some people add sugar when whipping cream, more or less automatically. It's not at all strictly necessary in order to, you know, whip the cream, but it will affect both flavor and texture. If you like your sweets, you're probably going to think that the cream with added sugar tastes better.
  - andreareina 9y ago
    Or salt.
proverbialbunny 9y ago
My great grandmother had the best pie crust I've ever had, and she got it from Crisco as well. She did something odd though, like running the dough under a stream of cold water in the sink while making it, or something like that. After all, it's not the ingredients but how you go about it. I, on the other hand, have my own personal not-secret sauce recipe for ravioli I created from scratch. It's made to my personal tastes, so I'm biased. Not all secret recipes are from the label.
- white-flame 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure that specifically "cold" water is listed in that Crisco recipe as well. These little tricks & tips are actually part of the recorded recipes, as people knew they were differentiating factors that made it turn out really well, and made sure they were noted. Edit: https://www.crisco.com/recipes/classic-crisco-pie-crust-1242 https://www.crisco.com/recipes/classic-crisco-pie-crust-1242 Fork, ice cold water, lots of very specific tips, etc.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
mikehollinger 9y ago
I use the cooks illustrated chocolate chip recipe, which specifically says to mix wet and dry ingredients, then let it stand for a few minutes, and repeat a few times in a row. Apparently someone in the test kitchen was sidetracked by something, stepped away, and when they returned to finish the mix, the resulting in a better cookie.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
justherefortart 9y ago
My wife found this amazing cookie recipe online. My mom gave her some of her 1950s cookbooks. That exact same recipe was in this cookbook. We just laughed. At least my family is lazy, when they use a recipe from a box, jar, or whatever, they just peal/cut it off and stick it to a 3x5 card or put it in a recipe book on a blank page. So you know where that "family secret" actually came from. The only unique sauce I've ever tried was my grandfather's BBQ sauce. It's just a bunch of other sauces mixed together, but it's pretty different. He was always changing it up but most everyone in my family has a bottle of grandpa's "condiment concoction" as my evil-ex called it.

Shivetya 9y ago

it never ceases to amaze me the people who won't follow a recipe then complain it is not a good recipe. the number of people whom I led down the road of cooking; this is especially true for techies who seem adverse or even scared to try; is quite long and it came down to one thing. start with simple recipes. follow exactly. then work your way to complex items and personal variations but the key to understanding cooking is to follow a recipe and see why it works. if you want to scare yourself later go play with browning butter, reducing, and for real fun making candies

nlawalker 9y ago
This is a common trope on recipe sites that allow comments or reviews. "I halved the amount of butter it called for and added 3 tbsp of cinnamon and 4 cloves of garlic. This recipe is awful, one star."
swolchok 9y ago
> if you want to scare yourself later go play with browning butter what's scary about browning butter? It seemed to work great for me on the first try. Whole kitchen smelled delicious, and so were the chocolate chip cookies I was browning it for.
tonyarkles 9y ago
Making caramel and butterscotch were some of the most terrifying kitchen moments the first time. It was quite clear to me that the mixture I had going there was quite a bit hotter than the boiling point of water (the water had all cooked off). The thought of a sugar burn was concerning. But it all turned out ok, and we had some delicious syrups. Just had to be careful.

bsder 9y ago

It's more than that. I have an amazing chocolate cake recipe--I'm SURE it's cribbed from some magazine, chocolate container, or something. I have stopped giving it out as people simply can't get it right. There are three classes of failure: The first class of failure is in not following directions. When it says "1/2 teaspoon", they mean it. Baking is like lab--small things often make big differences. "Helping" one of these people is frustrating--"Um, try actually following the recipe." The second class of failure is that a lot of people don't have basic cooking skills. "My chocolate is weird"--yeah, water does that to melted chocolate. "I can't whip this meringue"--yeah, you can't get even a trace of yolk in that or it's not going to work. The third class of failure is that people don't seem to pay attention and learn. Hmmm, that cake recipe doesn't seem to like humid days. Uh, oh, there aren't any bubbles in my batter--my baking soda/baking powder are probably bad. Sniff, sniff--that doesn't smell right--did you use margarine or butter to prepare that pan? One of my favorite for this was reconstructing my grandmothers kalach recipe. It just never smelled right. Until I remembered that she used to have a container underneath the cabinet that she used for the recipe--as a kid that never meant anything. As an adult, I was like "Hmmmmm, I bet that was lard." Sure enough, that made it smell right. Cooking requires paying attention, but baking, especially, is in the details.

emj 9y ago
The problem is while recipes are facts and can be freely spread, prose about how to make cookies is copyrighted. So you get lots of recipes but the important instructions are losts, and people get used to the idea that a recipe is just ingredients and easy to follow steps. The results is lots of recipes that are pretty easy follow, but as always when a design meets a user someone is going to misinterpret your fool proof design. So good simple recipes is a lot like UX when the needs are simple. Think: Recorder app vs. Audacity.
- wincy 9y ago
  My wife and I always hate reading recipes online. We finally spent like $50 and bought three of the most amazing cookbooks. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, which explains how cooking works, Food Lab, and America’s Test Kitchen. I made a baked potato with a perfect inside and perfect crisp skin from the books, it involved like 4 steps of how to cook, like bathing them in a specific mixture of salt water, baking for 45 minutes, then running olive oil on the skins, then baking for another 15 minutes. If they didn’t explain the why in the book, which I guess is the copyrighted part, and what the results are, I never would have tried that recipe.

albeebe1 9y ago

I think a specific step is what makes my wifes whipped cream stand out. It can't be the ingredients.

unwind 9y ago
Uh, you're not being very clear but I feel I have to say this: some people add sugar when whipping cream, more or less automatically. It's not at all strictly necessary in order to, you know, whip the cream, but it will affect both flavor and texture. If you like your sweets, you're probably going to think that the cream with added sugar tastes better.
- andreareina 9y ago
  Or salt.

proverbialbunny 9y ago

My great grandmother had the best pie crust I've ever had, and she got it from Crisco as well. She did something odd though, like running the dough under a stream of cold water in the sink while making it, or something like that. After all, it's not the ingredients but how you go about it. I, on the other hand, have my own personal not-secret sauce recipe for ravioli I created from scratch. It's made to my personal tastes, so I'm biased. Not all secret recipes are from the label.

white-flame 9y ago
I'm pretty sure that specifically "cold" water is listed in that Crisco recipe as well. These little tricks & tips are actually part of the recorded recipes, as people knew they were differentiating factors that made it turn out really well, and made sure they were noted. Edit: https://www.crisco.com/recipes/classic-crisco-pie-crust-1242 https://www.crisco.com/recipes/classic-crisco-pie-crust-1242 Fork, ice cold water, lots of very specific tips, etc.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

mikehollinger 9y ago

I use the cooks illustrated chocolate chip recipe, which specifically says to mix wet and dry ingredients, then let it stand for a few minutes, and repeat a few times in a row. Apparently someone in the test kitchen was sidetracked by something, stepped away, and when they returned to finish the mix, the resulting in a better cookie.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

justherefortart 9y ago

My wife found this amazing cookie recipe online. My mom gave her some of her 1950s cookbooks. That exact same recipe was in this cookbook. We just laughed. At least my family is lazy, when they use a recipe from a box, jar, or whatever, they just peal/cut it off and stick it to a 3x5 card or put it in a recipe book on a blank page. So you know where that "family secret" actually came from. The only unique sauce I've ever tried was my grandfather's BBQ sauce. It's just a bunch of other sauces mixed together, but it's pretty different. He was always changing it up but most everyone in my family has a bottle of grandpa's "condiment concoction" as my evil-ex called it.