Do you follow recipes by the book?

i consider recipe as a guide, to get the list of ingredients needed and sometimes partially the cooking process itself. i must admit though that i learned to cook when i bought a recipe book and followed the steps to a tee, some with success and some with failure, but the fun part is the art of cooking itself, the trial and error part, and the end result of which if it would be appreciated by those who would eat it...lol! A piece of advise, videos are more informative and entertaining, but... my old recipe for this would be to watching my mother, relatives or friends cook...lol!

At first I tended to follow recipes exactly as in the book, but currently I don't own a kitchen scale, so I can't do that anymore. Even measuring in a tentative way, I tend to always measure right, so I guess that the recipes in books are not supposed to be followed letter by letter, but you can add your very own touch to them

Normally I don’t follow recipe by the book. If I can’t find a specific ingredient given, I tend to replace it with something that is almost similar, or sometimes I continue cooking without completing the ingredients so far it turned out good. But I won’t encourage everyone to do the same, its still best to follow the recipe given by the book for best result.

The first time or so I do follow thing exactly by the book. But as I find that I like the recipie I modify it with what I have (not baking items) or change the amounts of things slightly. I usually only change the amounts in thing for baking like sugar, nuts, choco chips, & nutmeg. I like doing websites that have ratings on the recipes I find I do better wit those that are highly rated as I won't be wasting ingredients on something that may not otherwise turn out.

I love cooking and am a trained home economist and used to teach catering. I have to admit to cooking 'by the seat of my pants', it is very rare for me to follow a recipe to the letter (unless it is for some baking recipes) as I always want to put my own twist on the recipe. However for newer cooks I realise that they do need to follow a recipe until they gain confidence. But I do know what you mean about some of the recipes in recipe books or online, they often contain words and techniques that are not known by newer cooks. I write my own recipes and actually sell low fat recipe- books, I try to keep them as simple as possible. If there is something that you want a recipe for, don't hesitate in messaging me and I will try to send you a recipe that is easy to follow, as myLot do not like us putting recipes in our discussions.

I never followed recipes by the book. It's kind of hard for me to follow everything lol. If I was only cooking for myself, then I will just cook whatever I have, as long as it cooked, tasty, and I can eat it. But I do want to learn to cook more, so I can cook a nice food for my future husband. As for baking, my fiancé is very good at it, and I'm still trying to learn from him.

I try to though like you, cooking skills are not so great, at least as far as trying out new recipes are concerned. I’m good enough for everyday cooking and as far as recipes are concerned, I don’t know where I go wrong, but somehow I’m just not able to get the same results as predicted.

For me recipe book are only for us to guide and give some advices. We still have the control of everything. Sometime we are no comfortable what it is written and we have our own style how to do things(at our own risk). But in the end, always do follow instructions.

Hello there! I totally know how you feel. Just like you, I have tried in the past to cook or bake something but are not really successful. What I do is that I actually follow the instructions step by step. But I don't understand where I went wrong because what I attempt to cook or bake does not come out the way it should. I really think that it takes practice and guidance from somebody who knows how to cook or bake to really learn the art itself.

Me and my girlfriend usually work together when it comes to making food but sometimes if we want to spoil each other one of us will cook the meal solely by ourselves. We will usually use recipes to have something to go off of but we usually end up spicing the items up at least a little bit to make it even better. Anything with vegetables in it we usually don't follow the recipe because we like lots of vegetables with our food. You should check out the website wholeliving.com, there are some really good recipes on there. That's where my girlfriend and I usually get a lot of our best recipes to try out.

When I bake, I try to follow the recipe as closely as I can the first time around. I allow myself some modifications only after trying it first. :)

I love cooking and yes i do follow recipe from cook book,but most of the time i follow my instinct. My kids loves pasta a lot and i am proud to say that,they can distinguish the difference of my pasta from others,esp with the spaghetti and fettuccine. I also like baking,such as baked macaroni and cakes and other pastries uhmnn so hungry now You can do some experimental too,and you can always improve your cooking you just need time and perseverance dear. Why not enroll at any cooking training school then

i watch it in Youtube i don't like reading the instructions i like seeing how its done.. i guess am not that good when just reading it i don't follow the measurements. i want it the way i want it to taste. and although i'm not very good in cookings since i just started out, i usually ask suggestions from the elders... any tip that they can give me counts a lot... i'm learning now more and more since i'm planning to settle down few months from now and i don't want my husband to be disappointed... a way to a man's heart is through his stomach and he just proves it to me every single day.

I'm not a good cook either, I'm a beginner in baking. When I was tryng to learn how to bake, everything was a disaster. I broke glass bowls in the microwave, I burned what I was baking, I wasted a lot of ingredients actually, until I got the hang of it. I follow recipes first, just so I know what it should look, smell and taste like, then when I create it again, I try to put in my own stuff. Put a little twist in it. Turns out that the food I prepare would taste great! Cooking and baking is an acquired skill, you just need to practice a lot. Also passion for what you're doing is very important. If you like what you're doing it turns out to be good, even if you had a lot of mistakes along the way. Besides, to be a good cook/baker, you need to have many mistakes first. It's how you learn and become the best

I find the cooking terms and such pretty easy to understand as long they are not in metric as I am older and I learned the non-metric, standard, I don't know what to call it, just not metric, in school and in my early adult years at work. So as long as the recipe is in cups and tablespoons and teaspoon sizes I'm okay with it. I might use a recipe once or twice if it is a new dish I haven't made before. But after that I usually change things and make it my own dish and then I don't need a recipe. Like when I learned to make cabbage rolls I made them from a recipe and then after talking to other people that make them, and I liked them, I got ideas of things to add that I liked that weren't in the recipe, like bacon....and using seasoning salt instead of regular table salt changes the flavour a lot. I also make a lot of home made soups with my leftovers or from fresh stuff. It's easy to learn how to cook by just experimenting and by asking other people. But if you are just learning than using the internet to look for recipes is a good idea and you should follow a recipe the first few times exactly as it says to learn the right consistancy and such you need to know. Good luck and happy learnings. Cheers my friend, Chris

To be honest, I tried to follow the recipe given but I always fail. There's always whether I add something a bit extra or less. Well, it does turn out fine in the end, so I won't bother much. Besides, it's hard to measure everything. So I tend to tweak the recipe a bit But the main point in preparing a dish is to see whether people love it or not. And since my family loves it, I take that as a success.

I am a self taught cook. This is how I learned. I bought cookbooks geared for children and tried every recipe. When I mastered that I went on to cookbooks that were general and easy to follow. Some cookbooks out there are complicated and hard to follow. They are for people who know what they are doing or who are professionals looking for different things to try. Start with basic cookbooks. My first one was a Betty Crocker book. The recipes are easy to follow, they give instructions in steps and there are great pictures of what it should look like. Also those books cover different kinds of cooking, frying, baking, no-baking, soups, crock pot recipes, etc. etc. What I did was I always always always followed the recipe precisely -- no substitutions, no changing the steps, etc. If it turned out good and the family liked it, then the next time I used I might have changed it around a little or experimented. Anyone can learn to cook, but you must be patient and be willing to practise and experiment. Don't give up! Start easy and work up to the complicated stuff. I think flans are hard for a beginner.....

I follow some recipes by the book. Me being only 21, I haven't had a lot of time to practice and some things down packed. Some things I make, Like homemade biscuits, dont come out as good as you think they do. But I just keep practicing. They get a little better every time. My husband has got in the way where we wants more "homemade foods". So he has had me make homemade butter and homemade bread. The first time I made the bread, he eat 2 loaves for dinner. When I made the butter, he begged for me to make more bread. Sometimes, when you make it homemade, even if it doesnt turn out like the picture, lol, it take better than what your going to get out fo the frozen food section. We are going to make our own cheddar cheese in a couple days. :) you can look up videos on line that will show you what to do in some recipes. Try doing that. Once you get down packed with that, making things should be a peice of cake. Thats what I had to do when I firt started cooking. I couldnt go by the directions if my life depended on it. My husband still can't. thats why he doesnt cook anymore.

Never count on books! Cooking should be a creative way to express yourself and create pleasure. or a boring household job. Read a recipe but never follow them word by word. Use your imagination and put in the ingredients you mostly like. I believe if someone is a beginner he/she should learned by someone experience and not from books. If there is no other option ..then ok but to me recipes are mostly to not forget rare ingredients and special patterns I you might forget otherwise.

Before marriage I do not really cook so I have no idea how to whip up something really edible. But after marriage I tried and I think cooking is more on mix and match. And one does not need to religiously follow the cookbook. We can learn so much from experience and you'll be surprised to come up w/ something new and delicious! :)