Reproducing recipes: do not make these mistakes
Raise your hand if you have never messed up a recipe! Sooner or later all cooks, regardless of their degree of experience or skill, have to face the frustrating experience of failing a recipe. Reproducing recipes is not trivial, even if you pedantically follow the procedure and have years of experience in the kitchen. But why does it happen and how to prevent it from happening?
When the problem is the recipe
When I was a university student I bought a book of chocolate recipes, at the modest price of 5 euros (maybe the price should have told me something ...). Gloating at the thought of the many delicacies that I would have prepared, I began to try one recipe after another…no one turned out well. Some preparations were too dry, others too liquid…each and every time, I had to review the recipes and adjust the ingredients…yet I followed the recipe to the letter!
Well, this is the classic example of unvalidated or insufficiently tested recipes. But how do you know if a recipe has been validated? You simply can't. Recipes do not come with a certificate, so no one can guarantee the result. From my experience, I have found that recipes posted by bloggers are quite reliable, because bloggers tend to eat what they cook and generally post something that they have tested a few times. The recipes of professional chefs are also very reliable, because they are widely validated.
When the problem stems from the ingredients
Maybe you can't find all the ingredients needed for recipe and decide to replace them with others. An example? A while ago, I wanted to prepare a highly hydrated pizza dough, whose recipe required a particular highly absorbent flour. Not being available here in Canada, I used an all purpose flour and I added it with gluten flour. What a disaster. The result was a sticky dough, which did not torque in the standing mixer and was very difficult to knead. If you are dealing with a very special recipe, use exactly the prescribed ingredients (the most experienced cooks often indicate the brands of the products, if they are of crucial importance. It is not advertising, it is being consistent!).
When the problem is the difficulty of the preparation
Maybe you have never prepared a leavened dough, but during the Christmas holidays you decide to make a panettone or a pandoro sfogliato. Well, I'm not telling you to give up with it, it's not my thing, but let's say that the risk of failure increases. Some preparations require a lot of practice, manual skills and the right tools (I would never have been able to make panettone without my beloved standing mixer :)). The same goes for puff pastry and croissant pastry. I still have some difficulty with the croissant dough and I still can't pull it without breaking it on the last round :(
When the problem is insisting in changing the doses
I had a friend who regularly changed the doses of the recipes. She tasted a dessert I had made, she liked it and wanted to make it again by herself. "Can I have the recipe?", she asked. Of course! Then, a couple of days later, it tuned out that the dessert hadn't come as good as mine. "Did you make everything as I told you?" And from there, it turned out that she had halved the doses of sugar and butter, because they seemed excessive to her :P
Maybe, you also have a friend like that. Maybe, you are like my friend ;) The point is: did you like that dish? Do you want to make the same? Well, then stick to the instructions. If you change the recipe, you won't get the same result. Now, obviously recipes can be modified, but there is a big difference between modifying them and turn them upside down. E.g. replacing white chocolate chips with dark ones is modifying a recipe. Halving the doses of sugar and butter is turning a recipe upside down. Remember that some ingredients are not only there for reasons of taste, but also have a structural role. Therefore, if you vary the doses significantly, not only will the organoleptic result will be less pleasant, but you will also have a different texture, very different from the original.
I hope this post was useful to you. If you liked it, let me know in the comments :)