One of the most fascinating things about my new professional venture into recipe writing is how people respond to recipes. There’s a lot to unpack here, but I’m specifically talking about the concept of a recipe itself. The most common response is something along the lines of “Oh, I never follow recipes” or “I simply can’t follow a recipe, most of them are (poorly written/too salty/unnecessarily complicated/not like my mom used to make).” And readers, I hear you. There’s a lot of noise out there.
But I’m here to make a case for recipes. I love them so much that I am trying to make a career out of writing and testing and perfecting recipes, because apparently I am pathologically incapable of merely having a hobby. I love reading recipes, I love writing recipes, but most of all I love cooking from recipes. Recipes are artifacts. Recipes are teaching tools. Recipes are ideas made flesh.
I’ve written before about how incomplete my education was when I was promoted to the title of pastry chef at several restaurants. That… was a weird time, but a huge reason I squeaked by for as long as I did were other people’s recipes. If I was expected to make something I’d never made before, I looked up a bunch of recipes and followed them religiously. I quickly learned what made a good recipe and what made a horrible recipe. (Clear directions and visual clues saved me from many disasters!) And although I’m usually a staunch never-read-the-comments kinda gal, I make an exception for recipe comments. Often the comments are the first indicator that the recipe is not well-written or well-tested, and that’s helpful information. And more often they’re hilarious, inadvertent glimpses into some deeply weird psyches. In my darkest moments trapped in the pastry basement of some bustling restaurant, I would say to myself “If the folks who are constantly trying to substitute greek yogurt for every other form of dairy can pull off this dish, SO CAN YOU, BITCH”.
I’m bemused by folks who claim that they “can’t bake” because, like… you just… follow the recipe? It’s really that simple! Okay, obviously some very technique-heavy baking projects require more hands-on training for a beginner, but the majority of everyday desserts (cakes! puddings! pies! cookies! ice cream!) can be achieved by a novice with the wherewithal to follow a clearly written recipe. If you’re convinced you can’t bake, ask yourself if you’re actually bad at baking, or if you’re just too impatient to actually follow a recipe to the letter. Which, for the record, is fine with me! You don’t have to enjoy baking or following recipes!
When it comes to cooking, I hear a lot from people that they like the free-form nature of not following a recipe, which is infinitely easier to do when you’re cooking than it is when you’re baking. Baking is a science! Cooking is an art! Well, sort of. First of all, there’s a lot of science involved with cooking as well. Your recipe-free dish will probably be great! But it could be even more great with that technique you’ve never tried before or that amount of acid you think might be too much or that garnish you think is superfluous. Example: the other night I made the Chorizo & Brussels Sprouts Tacos from one of my new favorite cookbooks, Ali Slagle’s I Dream of Dinner (So You Don’t Have To). The recipe instructs you to cook brussels and chorizo on a sheet tray in a very hot oven. While they’re roasting away, the recipe calls for you to make a quick pickled red onion with a little lime juice, and when the pan is removed from the oven, to stir that quick pickle into the brussels-chorizo mix. I was skeptical about the onion– I happen to be pretty sensitive to raw onion and don’t generally enjoy it. I worried that the time allotted for the brussels to cook wouldn’t be enough to fully pickle the onion, and that it would be too raw for me. I considered leaving it out. But in the end I followed the recipe, and I am SO GLAD I did. Not only was the onion perfectly pickled, that pop of acid from the onion took the dish from okay to outstanding.
Listen, as long as folks are excited about cooking and comfortable being in the kitchen, I’m happy. So if for you that means not following a recipe, absolutely go for it. But I went to culinary school and have been cooking professionally for the last twelve years and I still learn things from recipes. I learn new techniques, I learn about flavor combinations I wouldn’t have thought of on my own, I learn about time management in the kitchen. Recipes allow me a glimpse into cultures that I’m unfamiliar with and help me to decolonize my Western culinary training. Recipes make me a better cook every damn day.
It's easy for the pendulum to swing too far the other way. When you’re too dedicated or afraid to riff, what do you do when it’s too late to go grocery shopping but you don’t have the ingredients on-hand to follow a specific recipe? Plus sometimes it’s really fun to just let the spirit move you. So. My general rule of thumb: Feeling creative and loose? Improv away! Feeling stuck in a rut/too tired to think/too stressed to be creative? A recipe to the rescue! I try to strike a balance between respecting the process and precision of recipes and allowing myself to be human. This week may be the perfect example: why leave anything to chance when you’re cooking one of the biggest meals of the year? Save yourself a few brain cells and pick some Thanksgiving recipes to follow— lord knows there are a billion options to choose from.
To save yourself frustration, it’s important to know which recipes will lead to success. I use recipes from trusted sources that I know test their recipes. This means mostly cookbooks and websites with test kitchens, like New York Times Cooking (oh so worth that subscription cost!) or Food52 any of the big food magazines. Blogs are a sticky wicket. Some of the “legacy” blogs are excellent, written by dedicated professionals. I love Smitten Kitchen– Deb is rigorous to the point of hilarity with her testing. And she recently wrote something that resonated very deeply with me about following recipes:
“Did you watch Ina Garten on 60 Minutes? My favorite part was when she said she makes her recipes exactly to the letter at home — I do this too, and for exactly the same reason: I worked so hard to get the salt or sugar level right and the cooking time perfect. Why would I want to make it any other way? But I’ve never heard another cook say that. If you’re a no-recipes, shoot from the hip, mostly going on vibes cook, I think that’s wonderful. But I disagree with the popular sentiment that this should exclusively be our kitchen goals. Some of us like to cozy up at the end of the day to a set of instructions that are certain to yield the exact dish we crave, exactly the way we want it. To me, it can be freeing not to have to drive all decisions at every moment of adult life.”
I generally stay away from smaller blogs that pop up high on SEO rankings and are crowded with advertising– sometimes they’re great, but often they’re more concerned with SEO than the reliability of their recipes. Not a cute look.
I know y’all have opinions about this, so sound off in the comments! Do you like following recipes? If no, why not? If you’re a recipe fan, where do you get your recipes? (Online? Cookbooks? Family heirlooms?) What types of food demand a recipe to you, and what types are you more comfortable riffing? What’s your opinion on paying for recipes? Would you be interested in future newsletters from me detailing common recipe “hacks” (how to reduce sugar/salt, how to substitute ingredients, etc.)? TELL ME EVERYTHING.
Some Recipe-Related Reads:
A Kitchen Resolution Worth Making: Follow the Recipe Exactly by Genevieve Ko for The New York Times (unlocked article)
What Experts Know About Reducing Sugar in Baking Recipes by Ali Slagle for Food52
Food Security Is Good. But Who Provides Meal Security? by Anjali Prasertong for her awesome newsletter Antiracist Dietician
How I Learned the Art of Seduction by Melissa Febos for The New York Times (another unlocked article, happy birthday)
COOKBOOK CRUSH:
New feature alert! Since I have something of a cookbook fetish I’m going to highlight a book from my collection in every newsletter. As always, please support your local bookstores! To purchase this newsletter’s featured cookbook online (and to support local bookstores and to give me a teeny lil commission), buy through my page at bookshop.org.
My copy of Shauna Sever’s Real Sweet has SEEN SOME SHIT. I use it constantly; the pages are rumpled and stained. As a pastry chef who went to a health-supportive culinary school, this book really hits the sweet spot (sorry) for me. Shauna Sever writes clear, concise recipes that are incredibly easy to follow and her flavor combinations nod towards the classics with a whimsical touch.
What I love most about this book is that it’s not about frugality or limits, rather it celebrates the actual flavors of natural and unrefined sweeteners. Originally published in 2015, the book features breakfast snacks, candy, and fancy desserts all sweetened with unrefined sugars such as coconut sugar, muscovado, honey, and maple syrup. Each dessert is carefully calibrated to play up the specific flavor notes of its sweetener. Some standouts include her deeply moist Maple Chocolate Cake (pg. 101), her Gingerbread Fudge (pg. 134) sweetened with muscovado and brown rice syrup, and the recipe that made me want to propose to Shauna: the Coconut Sugar Banana Sheet Cake with Caramelized Coconut Sugar Frosting (pg. 95). Shauna also talks a great deal about the chemistry of sugar, which I find fascinating. She details which liquid sweeteners work as a substitute for corn syrups and which don’t; she talks about how to compensate for the drying effect that coconut sugar can have in some baked goods.
If you’re a baker looking to experiment with new flavor profiles or simply a person trying to cut back on refined sugar in dessert recipes, this accessible book is an absolute must-own.
PLAYLIST*:
Sometimes I Forget How Summer Looks On You, Ben LaMar Gay & Finom
Feed Me, Earth Girl Helen Brown
Heteronormative Horshit Blues, Shilpa Ray
And I Know, Eola
*all music mentioned in the newsletter collected in this handy Splatternalia with Sara May playlist
HOT OFF THE STOVE:
A bunch of recipes soon-to-be published (look for them in the next newsletter!), but in the mean time I did ghostwrite the header for this Baklava Cheesecake recipe. Ghostwriting is super fun! Hire me to ghostwrite for you!
I’m in heavy prep mode now for Thanksgiving and trying, in my own way, to decolonize this genocidal holiday and make the meal less about mythical white-washing and more about connecting with people I love. Not exactly sure how to do this herculean task properly, but this year I’m not! serving! turkey! Nope, since there will only be five people around the table on Thursday our main will be Fried Chicken with Cranberry-Mustard Sauce. I’m whipping up a side of Brussels Sprouts with Pickled Carrots and a Citrus Vinaigrette from Josh McFadden’s Six Seasons and finishing the meal with a Ginger Cherry Pie from Erin McDowell’s The Book on Pie. Obviously there will also be mashed potatoes and gravy, I’m not a monster.
Splatternalia original artwork by the indomitable Hannah Taylor. Check out her stuff here and support her by commissioning work, buying prints and/or attending her gigs!
I blend improvisation and recipes in a kinda haphazard way that works for me. I bookmark things or just google chaotically a lot, and once I’m comfortable, I like to riff without one. I especially enjoy technique/method-driven stuff like ATK, because that’s instruction I can apply to different meals.
I would LOVE to know your kitchen hacks, and I’m also super curious about ehy random blogs slay SEO and major pubs like BA and NYT Cooking (except for their relentless google ads) don’t rank higher. Knowing how to sift through recipe search results is a real trial takes background knowledge/skill most people don’t have.
I LOVE a good recipe! My partner and I meal plan our lunches and dinners for the week, and having a recipe, whether online or from one of my cookbooks, makes cooking easier and more enjoyable.
One thing to simplify our meal planning is the Google spreadsheet I created to keep track of all the online recipes. I have a tab for absolute favorites, one for tried and true, one for recipes to try out eventually, as well as a tab for good sources when we're on the hunt for something new. I categorize the recipe by meal type, and of course include notes.
I had a baking blog from 2011-2014 and shared recipes I developed, so for me it's critical to have well-tested and thoughtful recipes to work with. And Sara I agree with you completely about how to source these kind of recipes. I often check the comments to see if people are having similar issues with a spot, and I read the recipe through to see if it makes sense. I've been burned a couple of times by recipes that promise a lot (and deliver only headaches), so taking some time to evaluate is key.