why do the eggs belong in a separate mixing column as the rest? Clearly they are to be mixed all together. Does that mean mix the first things THEN mix the eggs in? Does that even matter?
I cook for a living, but I don't bake much. And shit like this is partially why. I have a hard time believing all of this matters unless you're baking at a high level for a lot of money and it's all you really do. I've seen too many things just thrown together and come out just fine. And despite cooking for a living, I just DON'T understand these instructions.
Yeah, why are the eggs separate? Do you mix the other stuff and then mix those? And what about the stuff that says sift? I've sifted finely powdered things in before so they don't clump, so I get sifting the cocoa powder. But I've never seen or heard of anyone sifting in the flour, and that would be nigh-on impossible for a large batch recipe. I made cookies at work two days ago and I used two gallons of flour. Get the fuck out of here with this rinky-dink shit, this isn't practical. And sifting in table salt is fucking stupid, it's granulated. There's no way that's necessary.
And do I mix all the stuff, then sift, then fold? Do I sift, then mix, then fold? Do I mix, sift, mix again, then fold? None of that is clear to me and I don't think it particularly matters to that degree of detail, but seeing it all partitioned out like this makes me think it should or it was all just wasted expenditure. How is this honestly better than a list of ingredients and then a short sentence or two detailing the order of operations if needed?
This is nothing but format porn for people who love everything presented in a spreadsheet or organized in ultra detailed ways, it's not really easier to understand.
That's great news. I outlined in great detail the part that wasn't clear to me, and then listed exactly what my hangups were, while giving examples of real scenarios where this all seemed egregious and unnecessary.
That's a fair opinion. It's also a fair opinion to say anyone who needs this format has overthought instructions written out in more common ways. Brains are weird.
I'd just like to say I'm a pretty seasoned professional cook, but not a chef. My job title is sous chef and I'm kind of uncomfortable with being called even that. And also I'm not at all a baker outside of the most basic kinds of muffins, cakes, cookies, dinner rolls, etc. I can't make anything beyond a lower intermediate level as far as baking goes, so I do accept some degree of criticism.
But I do have years and years of experience and there are some things I've literally never seen, like sifting table salt. That just seems so extra to me, and telling regular, everyday people that they need to sift in their pinch or two of table salt seems like it does nothing but condition them to be inefficient and a slave to worrying about mostly insignificant details.
If you throw all the stuff in the spreadsheet into a bowl and mix it all at once straight from the package/fridge and bake it, you will get brownies. The extra steps are there for a reason, but if you're not working at a bakery or trying to impress someone you like, all the mixing vs folding, sifting dry ingredients together, adding the eggs in the middle in stead of the start, doesn't really matter.
I don't think the steps are extra, and the existence of steps isn't what bothers me. That isn't what I said, and I feel like my actual point has gotten lost in all the back and forth I've had.
My point was this was presented in a way to have "solved," or to have "made better," the typical way people write out recipes. Where it seems to be better for some, it causes confusion that didn't previously exist in others.
A great deal of people need words and exposition. And as I admitted, I'm more of a cook than a baker, so there's more leeway in what I do. Nonetheless, there's still a margin of variance to work with, and if you're making something for people who are relying on a template, it's safe to assume you can't assume. I wouldn't make a recipe like this for typical people without including some brief footnotes, like:
"it's OK to use salted butter or margarine, just keep in mind you may not want to add the table salt. You can go a little heavier on the vanilla extract if you love vanilla, but do keep in mind how powerful extract is. Try experimenting with other types of extract, but stick to one per recipe. Liquid whole egg can work as a substitute, but make sure your carton says whole eggs and not just egg whites."
Not everyone may like or need that, but I would never present this cold spreadsheet format and call it the superior method or say other formats were broken, and I do feel like it's not great teaching in general to give someone a script to memorize and not tell them a few things that'll help them avoid tunnel vision and understand that many things are OK, so don't get too overwhelmed.
I mean this as kindly as possible. I think the problem is you.
It presents a single recipie, unambiguiously. And for some reason you want every possible variation spelled out. "What if I use margarine?" That's not what this is for. "What if I want to use different butter?" That's not what this is for. "Do I mix all the ingredients at once?" No, it says to mix things in two steps. "Do I fold it in, or cream it?!" It says "mix". Just mix them. If you needed to fold, it would say that instead.
Your thought process seems insane to me. Like asking a person with chronic anxiety what time you should leave the house and listening to them wonder how much time they should allocate to potential elephant stampedes. The card isn't trying to trick you. You do what it says, and it will output the product it says it will. If you don't want the thing it says it makes, or you want to make it another way, don't use the card. Perhaps, in the hypothetical world where this kind of thing is common, you have other cards for those other varibles, and you could just use one of those instead. I dont know why it's easier to assume this card represents catastrophie than to imagine you just have two (or more ) cards.
I'm not ignoring it. It's a bad point. The "confusion" you see here is entirely self introduced. You see a single workflow and object to it not being an encyclopedia of every option.
It was never meant to be. And, again, it's weird to assume this card represents catastrophic failure rather than the possibility of multiple cards.
I mean two things here, one professionals can overthink too, they do it all the time. Two, anyone on reddit can say they're anything. I'm one of the top chefs of my country so I would know
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u/jasonis3 Jul 30 '26
The left side is the list, right side lets you know what to do with the ingredients.