Annoying recipes!

Allgaun wrote: »

I had some over ripe bananas and found this recipe on line:

https://www.thebakingchocolatess.com/perfect-banana-chocolate-chip-muffins-fluffy-moist/

Cool, I had all the ingredients and only 160 calories?

Except NO! The recipe builder says 280 per muffin!

I wish I entered the ingredients before I made them, now they are going to work for others to enjoy.

Just cut them in half. 140 calories then.

I just substitute or make any ingredients I don't have (date syrup is just dates soaked in water and blended, or I could just use maple syrup, sugar syrup, molasses...etc). I also always log any recipes before I make them because I don't trust any recipe with numbers out there.

What I personally find annoying may be a weird thing to hate about recipes. I hate recipes that use cups. I would rather weigh all the ingredients and not clean measuring cups and spoons.

missysippy930 wrote: »

amusedmonkey wrote: »

I just substitute or make any ingredients I don't have (date syrup is just dates soaked in water and blended, or I could just use maple syrup, sugar syrup, molasses...etc). I also always log any recipes before I make them because I don't trust any recipe with numbers out there.

What I personally find annoying may be a weird thing to hate about recipes. I hate recipes that use cups. I would rather weigh all the ingredients and not clean measuring cups and spoons.

I have a lot of cookbooks (I’m in the US I’ve been buying them all my life) they all use measurements with measuring cups and spoons. Because of the internet, I haven’t bought any cookbooks lately, so I don’t know if it’s changing, but most sites I use, use measuring cups and spoons. I was watching an episode of America’s Test Kitchen recently, and they did weigh some things, but mainly, for US based shows, they measure using cups and spoons. Conversion of recipes, from cups to grams, for me, is more time consuming than washing a few measuring cups/spoons, and it’s hard to change lifelong (68 years) habits. I’ve been cooking/baking for over 50 years, and have never had a recipe fail because of measurements.

It's not about failure, it's about laziness on my part. I don't like washing extra dishes and performing extra steps. The cookbooks we have list ingredients in grams, so when I see a recipe in cups and spoons I need to log it for calories in a website that automatically shows weight of ingredients in order to cook it. The problem is that it's not my main food logging website, so I find myself needing to register the recipe again in my main tracker if I like it, or quick log the calories without nutrients if I don't.

This is especially true for one pot meals. I would rather pour things directly into the pot, and not deal with cramming my chopped onions into a cup and all the mess that makes. Weighing a whole onion close enough to the weight needed, chopping it, and scraping the chopping board directly into the pot is much easier for me. When I'm done, I only need to wash the chopping board, the knife, and the mixing spoon, and the counter and the floor are mess free because I tend to make a mess with measuring cups, needing to have it filled to the top and all that.

helen_goldthorpe wrote: »

I hate recipes which use cups because I don't have any measuring cups. I have always used recipes in grams from books and a scale but with the internet I come across American cup based recipes more often. I then have to search the internet to find out how much a cup of whatever ingredient it is actually weighs...

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/eat-this-much-recipe-clip/deefcoodgkfkemnadjphindnllkcgjgp?hl=en

You can make a free account on that website and the recipe clipper will take care of the cups to grams conversion. It doesn't always clip properly, so sometimes you need to copy and paste the ingredients manually, but it does open the "new recipe" window automatically.

This is what the ingredient matching page looks like (much more accurate than MFP ingredient matching)

amusedmonkey wrote: »

missysippy930 wrote: »

amusedmonkey wrote: »

I just substitute or make any ingredients I don't have (date syrup is just dates soaked in water and blended, or I could just use maple syrup, sugar syrup, molasses...etc). I also always log any recipes before I make them because I don't trust any recipe with numbers out there.

What I personally find annoying may be a weird thing to hate about recipes. I hate recipes that use cups. I would rather weigh all the ingredients and not clean measuring cups and spoons.

I have a lot of cookbooks (I’m in the US I’ve been buying them all my life) they all use measurements with measuring cups and spoons. Because of the internet, I haven’t bought any cookbooks lately, so I don’t know if it’s changing, but most sites I use, use measuring cups and spoons. I was watching an episode of America’s Test Kitchen recently, and they did weigh some things, but mainly, for US based shows, they measure using cups and spoons. Conversion of recipes, from cups to grams, for me, is more time consuming than washing a few measuring cups/spoons, and it’s hard to change lifelong (68 years) habits. I’ve been cooking/baking for over 50 years, and have never had a recipe fail because of measurements.

This is especially true for one pot meals. I would rather pour things directly into the pot, and not deal with cramming my chopped onions into a cup and all the mess that makes. Weighing a whole onion close enough to the weight needed, chopping it, and scraping the chopping board directly into the pot is much easier for me. When I'm done, I only need to wash the chopping board, the knife, and the mixing spoon, and the counter and the floor are mess free because I tend to make a mess with measuring cups, needing to have it filled to the top and all that.

I guess it’s more about baking, using measuring cups and spoons. Baking is more of a science, cooking an art. I’m not real exact with vegetables. I never measure them. I use the whole item, whether it weighs more or less, than the recipe calls for. I know myself, if it came down to part of a vegetable, it would probably not get used. I would never measure out a cup of chopped onion. Doesn’t matter to the outcome of the recipe. And until it becomes an issue for losing weight, which it isn’t, I’m not worried about the accuracy of the weight of vegetables in the recipes I make.

Allgaun wrote: »

I have a favorite cookie recipe, sometimes they come out of the oven puffy and chewy, sometimes flatter and crisp. It's about the flour I'm pretty sure, packed down it's more flour in the cup. I wish the recipe was flour by weight, it would lead to a more consistent bake

There is a way to measure flour more accurately. Never pack it down. Spoon gently into a measuring cup and level off with a straight edge spatula. It’s pretty accurate. Other things can affect the results of cookies. Humidity. Egg sizes. I bake about 15 different kinds of cookies, some years more, at Christmas.

just_Tomek wrote: »

I love Allrecipes.com and all the reviews that give the recipe 5*....... and those reviews start by.... I changed this, added that, replaced this with that, perfect recipe lol

That’s one my issues with Allrecipes reviews. How can you give a recipe a ***** review when you change the recipe 🤷🏻‍♀️
I like the site though. I use it more than any other recipe site.

When I get a recipe that lists flour or whatever dry ingredient by volume, I weigh out the equivalent based on what the package says a cup is supposed to weigh (most flour says a serving is 1/4 cup or 30 g, so I weigh out 120 g per cup of flour that the recipe calls for).

missysippy930 wrote: »

amusedmonkey wrote: »

I just substitute or make any ingredients I don't have (date syrup is just dates soaked in water and blended, or I could just use maple syrup, sugar syrup, molasses...etc). I also always log any recipes before I make them because I don't trust any recipe with numbers out there.

What I personally find annoying may be a weird thing to hate about recipes. I hate recipes that use cups. I would rather weigh all the ingredients and not clean measuring cups and spoons.

I have a lot of cookbooks (I’m in the US I’ve been buying them all my life) they all use measurements with measuring cups and spoons. Because of the internet, I haven’t bought any cookbooks lately, so I don’t know if it’s changing, but most sites I use, use measuring cups and spoons. I was watching an episode of America’s Test Kitchen recently, and they did weigh some things, but mainly, for US based shows, they measure using cups and spoons. Conversion of recipes, from cups to grams, for me, is more time consuming than washing a few measuring cups/spoons, and it’s hard to change lifelong (68 years) habits. I’ve been cooking/baking for over 50 years, and have never had a recipe fail because of measurements.

I have cookbooks and recipes from all over and use whatever way of measuring the recipe uses: Weight, Imperial, or Metric. Measuring cups have both metric and imperial printed right on them so it is easy to switch back and forth. My food scale is always on the counter so that is easy too.

The most annoying recipes are the ones online that start with a long rambling story that has nothing to do with how the dish is made. Give me the option to go directly to the recipe (I recently found a Chrome add-on that does exactly that).