Why Recipes Fail

Sorting Recipes

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What do recipes have in common with getting directions to a friend’s house?

Do you remember getting directions from a friend before GPS?  You tightly held the little map or directions in one hand while trying to steer.  When you came to an intersection where she said to turn left, you realized there are two options: a sharp left and a less sharp one- which do you choose?  Oh, and if you chose the wrong one, you could be driving around forever because the rest of the directions never took you to her house.

Those directions are like some of the recipes you find on the internet.  They are vague directions that, instead of helping you make a terrific dinner, lead you to a bland overcooked disaster.

Here are the real reasons why recipes fail:

1. They were untested.

2. A substitution changed how the recipe works

3. You just may not like it, and that’s fair

The two-year secret behind recipes and cookbooks that work

Yep, people put recipes on the internet and even in cookbooks that sound good, but aren’t tested (or at least proofread).  I had a cookbook from a prominent chef who had shows on television, and his recipes didn’t work.  One was so salty that you couldn’t eat the dish!

This happens because, believe it or not, cookbooks can take years to develop when done right.  There are the recipes to choose, then test to make sure they come out right, and some people have others test their recipes to make sure they are easy to understand, which is brilliant, and it takes time.

Ina rigorously tests her recipes

Here’s the process, apparently, that Ina Garten uses to write a cookbook according to an interview in Epicurious:

• Year one - choose the recipes, write the recipes, and test the recipes.

• Year two - continue to test, and then write, design, and photograph the recipes.  Not to mention the editing process.

If there aren’t years to develop a cookbook because the chef is hot now, or they want the cookbook to mirror what they are doing or recently have done on television, they rush the process, and mistakes are made, ingredients are omitted, or quantities are inaccurately calculated.

Why holiday cooking needs a GPS and not a napkin

Back in 2020, many of my friends and family were cooking Thanksgiving for the first time.  I was getting questions like, “Jen, what does a pinch mean?” or “Jen, my turkey is 12.79 pounds, and that isn’t on the tag.  How long could I cook it?”

It prompted me to get into the kitchen and test all of our family recipes that honestly weren’t written down.  For example, making gravy…we just make gravy and don’t think about it.  That year, I doubled down and measured how much stock you needed if you were also using pan drippings, and what was the perfect quantity of cornstarch that made it nice and thick, but not gloopy.  Then I moved on to my Apple Crunch Pie and so on.

I captured these ideas and put them together in the first version of Thanksgiving Recipes From Home.  I named it that because that is exactly what it was.

In future versions, I answered more questions like how to sequence cooking when you only have one oven, or what a sample shopping list looks like with all the ingredients combined.  

Lots of spaces on the internet don’t give you that detail.  They are the directions on a napkin rather than a GPS that helps you course correct when things aren’t going in the right direction.

The party dip no one would eat

Okay, I like a hint of it, but in general a cilantro-heavy dish turns me off.  So, when I look at a recipe with lots of fresh cilantro, I either bypass it or substitute another herb like flat-leaf parsley.  Sometimes it works and other times not so much.

Why recipes fail when you substitute one ingredient for another is that you may change the nature of the recipe.  Perhaps the recipe I was making needed the cilantro to balance out another flavor.  Not knowing that and using parsley won’t give me the best dish possible.

This happened to me recently when I substituted gluten-free premade breadcrumbs in my Roasted Pepper Dip (for a party no less!). The dip is delicious when you make it with the ingredients in the recipe.  I’m sure it would have worked well if I made my own gluten-free breadcrumbs from a quality gluten-free bread.

But, I didn’t.  Instead, the breadcrumbs I used had this weird flavor.  And even though I tried to convince myself it was fine, no one ate it.  Ugh!

So if you are substituting, go ahead, and remember that the dish may not come out like you remember, thought, or wanted it to.  That is the risk you take.

When you do everything right and still hate the taste

Finally, it might be personal taste.  Perhaps the recipe adds more vinegar than you like.  You have done everything right, and you still don’t like it.  That’s totally fine.  Not all recipes are written to your specific taste.

These are still important cooking lessons.  You’ve learned you don’t like things over vinegary. That’s an important lesson.  You may go back and do some research to find out what you can do to make something less vinegary and still taste great.  

Solutions for why recipes fail

If you want to answer the question why recipes fail, my recommendation is to find a couple of trusted sources that you can go to for new recipes, or to verify a recipe you get somewhere else.  My go-to resources are, as I’ve mentioned, Ina Garten, America’s Test Kitchen (if you don’t have one of their cookbooks, they are full of great tips and recommendations.  You can’t access their recipes online usually unless you are a paying member, but you can get a lot of the recipes on YouTube), Julia Child - Mastering the Art of French Cooking, The Silver Palate Cookbooks, and The Fannie Farmer Cookbook to name a few.

Beware of mass-produced cookbooks. Some are good, and some are rushed.  I have a couple of mass-produced cookbooks from the 70’s from Sunset that I love.  Their recipes make sense, are easy to use, and work every time, so I’m not saying use them. Just proceed with caution.

Also find trusted websites.  I test every Appetite for Life recipe before it goes on the website, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t make it to you.  There are other sites such as Smitten Kitchen, Preppy Kitchen, King Arthur Baking, and The Woks of Life that I regularly go to, and there are tons of others.

My best piece of advice is to keep learning. Practice, practice, practice.  Maybe not with a Thanksgiving dinner, but weeknight dinners are perfect for a bit of practice.  As a matter of fact, when we were growing up, that is exactly what my mother did.  We never had just spaghetti and meatballs. There was always a twist. Doing this, she became a fantastic cook and taught my sister and me to do the same.  We have, in turn, inspired my nephews, and the legacy goes on.

So just like driving to a friend’s house today, you may use GPS and not written directions, pay attention to where you are going so that in time you don’t have to use the GPS, and you can get there all by yourself.