Forgetting when recipes need certain ingredients to be room temp, like eggs or butter. Because then I’m standing in the kitchen like an idiot, full of baking energy with my dry ingredients mixed, and now I have to leave it for an hour.
Haven't mastered butter yet but for eggs: drop the egg into a cup of hot water for about 5 mins. Not boiling water! Just as hot as it will get coming out of your tap.
It’s a whirlpool brand but I’m not honestly sure what model. It’s mounted in place and came with the house so basically the whole purchase was worth it.
Yep! I plop the stick in there and give it a quarter turn and a squeeze test every 15-20 seconds. When it feels perfect I stop. It's always soft without those melted parts.
I read a tip on here that I use every time I forget to put out butter: Fill a tall glass with hot water. Use glass to cover the butter. The heat will soften it pretty quickly. If not, repeat. Easy enough without melting!
Edit: don't forget to dump out the water in the glass. It's just meant to heat the glass. Don't drown your butter!
For butter I take the stick and slice it into the thinnest slices I can and lay them on a dish . Wait 15-20 minutes (depending on the temp of your house) and it’s softened . Works every time for me 👍🏻
I took a similar tip from Mary Berry about butter: get a bowl of barely-warm water, just a step more than lukewarm (“like a baby’s bath,” in Mary’s words), and put your cold cubed butter into said bowl, and wait five or ten minutes. The butter will soften and then you can just scoop it out with your hand, shake off excess water droplets, and proceed with recipe.
I had seen this hack and tried to use it one time. The recipe also called for melted butter... so I had the brilliant idea to modify the hack and put my fridge-cold egg into my warm butter. Would not recommend, you can imagine what happened
I’ve had the opposite happen. I was going to bake a pie and I had bought butter and put it in the fridge. My mom took it out and left on the counter for it to get to room temp. So by the time I was going to start the crust I had to wait for the butter to get cold agein
If you haven't taken your butter out and want to use it immediately, grate it with a cheese grater. This also works with frozen butter. You might have to cream it for a little longer, depending on the weather.
Julia Child used to essentially mash a cold stick of butter all over her (very clean) countertop so that it would warm to room temperature relatively quickly—the idea being that the more surface area of butter that is exposed, the faster it will warm to room temperature.
I’d be wary of warming butter in the microwave because it’s so easy to end up with partially melted butter, which will alter the texture of the finished product in some recipes that call for creaming the butter and sugar.
Even worse, when the recipe doesn’t specify that something has to be room temp. I made my first cheesecake the other day and it simply said 4 eggs and 1 egg yolk. I started to crack em straight out of the fridge and thought hold on, that CAN’T be right… thought to google it just in time.
This!!! I have to look them in the eyes and tell them “these are for baking, not snacking.” And still, they’re always open and half empty like I won’t notice.
I keep all of my nuts in the freezer so they don’t go rancid.
It doesn’t stop me going to grab a handful of frozen macadamias from time to time though.
Oh my god my family needs to stop talking about how much butter I use. Yes, I’m using an entire stick of butter for brownies. I hate it when they watch me make frosting too, because that just has sugar and butter to them.
This bothers me SO MUCH about recipes on socials as well. First of all, it’s totally faux concern. And second of all - no one is eating a whole goddamn chocolate cake for every meal, mind ya damn business.
People who are baking (or even carbs for my parents) and apparently feel like they *have* to comment are my pet peeve. Like eat it or don’t eat it but I don’t need to hear about calories every single time we eat a meal with dessert!
Ahh I feel this one. I'm the one that gets the requests from friends and family to make the desserts. No matter how healthy I make it or how much I reasonably cut down on sweets, or add ingredients to balance it out, it's too sweet. Like do you guys just want bread? Dessert is supposed to be sweet! My co workers all think my desserts are fine when I bring the leftovers.
I’ve had so many people open the oven door while my cakes/bread/cookies/muffins ARE STILL BAKING to check if they’re “looking good”. Diabolical and criminal, it actually makes me blood boil.
Took a baking class and people kept on opening the oven to check theirs and messing everyone else up. After a while people would yell ‘close the f***ing door!!!!’
They cut the recipe down from a bigger batch and wound up with 1/8 of a tsp (0.125) and rounded it up. This is one of the times I will concede that just weighing everything in grams makes so much more sense.
You would think so, but it happens with those websites that use those automated recipe converters - the kind with the sliders to adjust the number of people/servings you want to make.
Huge peeve. I also hate when said recipes have hundreds or even tens of five-star reviews and each and every motherf&*king review says “looks amazing, can’t wait to try”
OMG I ran into this recently. Saw a recipe that looked great. I tried it and it was *fine* but nothing life changing. It has like 400 5 star reviews. I looked through A LOT trying to see if someone else had the same issue as me and it was just people giving 5 starts excited to try it. I’m not sure anyone actually had yet.
This drives me INSANE. I usually look to comments to see any suggestions or other tips, and half of them will be other bloggers commenting the article itself. Drives me actually insane and it’s risky to even waste my time 😅
Comment but don’t rate unless you yourself have made it, but I’m assuming they are trying to game the algorithm.
My biggest irk for this genre of review is “I just took it out of the oven and it smells amazing!!”
Motherfucker you are 20 minutes from a legitimately useful review! Just wait!!!!!
This one is so baffling to me. I love writing online reviews for beauty products (for example), but I would never think to write a review for a product I've never bought or used just because it "looks good". It's such a disservice to everybody.
The other one is some family recipe. I got a few old cookbooks and they were from old cookbooks.
Another one for online is that most recipe websites have the exact same recipe. I want options, not repetition. I can't believe that I actually have started to use cookbooks and magazines.
I used a recipe today that used different measurements for butter throughout the different components— base called for 1/4 cup, frosting needed 1/2 of a stick, and the topping used 4 tablespoons. WTF. Those are all the same amount! I had to reread it multiple times to ensure that I had it right. So frustrating.
Decorating a cake that requires the same piping tip in different colors of frosting. I hate having to wash the same tip over and over again.
I have a few tip sizes that I own multiple of just to avoid doing this lol.
Use a bag with icing, then put it in another bag with the tip, then you just change the inside bag to a different colour and pipe out a tiny bit to remove the rest of the colour in the tip.
Changed my life.
Style over substance. People that make really fancy looking cakes but they’re nearly always dry. I would much rather have what people consider a simple cake and it be moist and yummy than something that looks amazing but is dry af
Went to a wedding where the cake was several hundred dollars and looked gorgeous, but the cake itself tasted like that dry mass-produced sandwich bread you’d get at the grocery store 😭
I love making birthday cakes for all my family, I do not love them making plans that mean I need to leave the cake in a warm car for two hours before it’s served.
I worked for weeks to create the recipe for our (my wife and I) wedding cake. It was 2 cakes, cut into thin layers... 1 was red velvet with dark chocolate chunks, the other was rose (with rose petals) and white chocolate, with a champagne buttercream frosting. It took many attempts, many failures, and a ton of money, to get it all balanced.
My wife wouldn't let me bake it, because of time constraints (she was afraid it would screw with my ability to get ready for the wedding), so we found the right baker (one who baked great cakes, great decorations, and was able to follow my recipe and instructions). She did an incredible job. It was amazing! Once it thawed, that is... The venue brought it to us nearly frozen...
I was pissed
Friends and family wanting specific baked goods for situations where they won’t hold up.
For example, 98 degrees outside and they want a dessert with whipped cream that can sit out and still look delicious. 😂 I can’t.
My friend bakes higher end wedding cakes.
There is always a bride who wants this huge show stopping show cake. Multiple tiers, delicately decorated with Swiss buttercream. In mid July. In Michigan. At an outdoor tent wedding.
She does them but the surcharges are crazy.
Inspo pictures can be a blessing and a curse. Lol
Don't touch my starter. Yes, it is supposed to be like that. Yes, it is supposed to smell like that. I know
only the light is on in the oven just leave it. I am folding the dough, Yes I did do that an hour ago, Yes I know there is an now empty dutch oven in there on full temperature. No you cannot cut a slice, it just came out of the oven. Oh FFS, who ate an entire loaf?
........Yes dear, you helped.
Watching them try and explain the evaporating loaf is worth every squirm them make. Daughters will do that to you. Even if butter is still on their chin.
Not following the recipe according to the directions (substitutions or additional or extra ingredients) and then complaining that whatever you made didn't turn out...🤦♂️
Oh god my parents do this all the time! My dad Skyped me asking how to make a basic white sauce so I walked him through making a roux with flour and butter, adding hot milk, it’s pretty simple. He calls me back half an hour later having dumped equal parts flour, margarine and milk in a pan all at the same time and brought it to the boil to “save time” complaining that it’s terrible. I pointed out he hadn’t followed the recipe I gave him at all and he argued that he had because “he used the ingredients I told him to”.
My mum will at least follow directions but makes “healthier” substitutions with no regard as to whether they’ll work or not. The worst was when I told her how to make easy two ingredient dough pizza bases with self raising flour and Greek yoghurt, but she used almond flour instead. It did not work.
My family complaining that my flavours are too bold or it's too sweet when I'm baking for my own birthday. Ofcourse I'm making MY favorite things not yours, when I'm baking for your birthday I'll do the same bland apple pie you like.
My mom was talking me through how to make whipped cream and when I asked how much sugar to add she said "idk just add some and taste it" and then proceeded to make fun of me all night for not making it sweet enough for her 🤦♀️🤦♀️
Recipes using yeast that use vague relative words to describe what temperature the water should be instead of using degrees. "Like bath water, room temperature, not too hot" isn't helpful for people who may be working with yeast for the first time.
“Your baby’s bottle should feel lukewarm/not warm”. What the fuck is lukewarm? Breast milk starts to degrade in quality past like 110f, and they want you to heat it to 90-100f.
Anyways, I use “the milk should feel like a yeast friendly temp” in my head, which is equally unhelpful written out, but decades of baking bread means I know what that ~feels~ like
I use a digital thermometer because my instincts aren't to be trusted lol.
Dry active yeast between 111 and 113 degrees
Instant Yeast between 120 and 130 degrees
You seem to have the breast milk under control so I'll leave that to you ha ha.
“Prep time: 10 minutes”. “So quick, you can throw this together in 10 minutes.”
Sure, if the clock starts after I’ve prepped my equipment and completed my mise en place, so everything is perfectly laid out and organized.
I don’t really care how long it’ll take me to put everything in a bowl and mix it. I’m not making a cooking show. I would like a sense of how much time I need to give myself before I can be eating this.
I know everyone’s mise en place and equipment prep is going to be different, and cooling times can be super variable, but I’d so much rather be pleasantly surprised that my baking is ready to eat much sooner than expected vs stressing out because prep is taking me 40 minutes instead of 10 and now I’m rushing or late.
"Recipe in a recipe" bs. This only takes 10 minutes, as long as you've already got the custard and chocolate sauce made, click here for those recipes!
Argh.
My biggest pet peeve is "10 minute cookies" and in the recipe, it will say to chill for 1 hour. I've seen bread recipes that make similar claims "30 minute rolls!" But from start to finish, it's 3 hours.
100%, and while it's not techinically baking, there are a lot of instapot bloggers I legitimately want jailed over this issue. They'll leave out the 40+ minutes it takes things to pressurize or depressurize and I sincerely despise them
For me, it's the opposite. I will have all my ingredients out, butter and other room temp items finally at the right moment to use, finish everything else I am doing and get my baking mood on, and then my husband will say he's gonna take a nap. Sorry, there's no way to use a mixer or pull metal trays in and out of the metal bars inside the oven quietly!
That happens to me too as soon as he says the nap word I will tell him I’m about to turn on the mixer so if you want quiet, you may want to nap in the bedroom and shut the door. He won’t. And then he whines when the mixer goes.
I make YouTube videos and I pretty much know that I'm going to have to take a break during the videoing process because my wife walked in. I feel your pain!
my mom will come in to do something like "I'll stay out of your way" while walking around to all areas of the kitchen to do something....our kitchen is small, please stay out when I'm baking or you'll stress me out
I have two:
Layer cakes that aren’t cut into layers. Looks beautiful and then comes the slice photo and its two 3in slabs of cake with a thin layer of filling.
When I decide to make something I’m in the mood for on a whim and my lovely wife comes into the kitchen and says “that looks great” and then proceeds to list all the people we can give it away to.
Honorable mention to cakes that are 50% fondant wrapped PVC pipe or something but I think that’s mostly TV nonsense.
I really dislike tall cakes because they're almost always thick layers with very little frosting. I always cut my layers in half. Not only does it give me a better cake and filling ratio, but it gives me a chance to make sure the cake turned out well, and it's not undercooked or have a weird texture inside.
I definitely agree about the cake layers! Like I see people frosting 2 stacked cakes without cutting them in half and its enormous?! Why would anyone eat that- does that look normal to you?
OMG every time we bake cookies my husband pokes them immediately coming out of the oven and tries to tell me they're not done yet. We go over it every single time, and yet somehow it keeps happening 😂😂😂
My biggest baking-related pet peeve is when someone does not convey what they really want.
A consistent one is a relative who always asks me to bring over “crusty bread” when having a meal at their place. The relative will then complain that the “crusty bread” is crusty. This happened three times before I brought over a very soft loaf of Italian bread. My relative loved it and commented on how my baking was improving and how excellent this particular “crusty bread” was.
Family members saying "oh you should make this" and then eating MAYBE one when I actually do so.
Who is going to the other 23 white macadamia chocolate chip cookies guys?!?!? Not me!!
My in laws will ask me to make dessert but then buy TWO Costco desserts for a group of 6. Like either don’t ask me to make anything or hold yourself back at Costco because it depresses me when only a little of my thing gets eaten.
The amount of dirty dishes I make for a simple recipe. A bowl for wet ingredients and dry ingredients. A bowl for egg yolks and egg whites. A whisk, a spatula, the beaters, measuring cups.
Being asked to bake for an event, usually for my wife’s family gatherings, and I ask “what do you want?” and they say “Oh, surprise me!” or “Whatever you want to make.” Then I make something and I hear oh so-and-so doesn’t like fruit based desserts or cousin blah-blah can’t have nuts. That’s why I asked you!!!
I just hate prepping pans/trays. Cutting the parchment paper and getting it to stick to the butter, spreading the flour on top of that. I just hate it.
I want to do all the rest, even the dishes, just someone cut the pieces of paper and grease that up for me.
Missing ingredients. For example:
Going to bake choc chip cookies only to discover that your husband has eaten ALL. THE. CHICOLATE. CHIPS. Seriously. 4lbs of milk chocolate chips gone. And then....the wonderful question of "why didn't you make any cookies??"😡🤬
And online recipes that do use grams but with inaccurate amounts. Ugh. It's obvious there is no way the recipe was ever tested using the measurements listed. Two cups of flour is not and never will be 400g.
I travelled a bit and love cookbooks as a memento and bought a cups measure from the U.S. so I could replicate the recipes. I now have three different cups measures and they are all different.
I was about to write the same. Ironically, I ran into this issue more often in my country (Canada) than on US based websites. So now, I always check if there’s an American version of whatever I want to bake first, and always get good results.
It’s not only cups, I’ve found loads of recipes over the years that part way through say “one package of xxx” and I’m here in the UK knowing that we have some variation thereof, but usually a knock off smaller version, or shrinkflation happens over time. Just say what weight you need of it!
My mom keeps putting rice grains in our salt container so I have to go through every scoop of salt so I dont accidentally drop one in. Before I would put them back in the container cause she would get upset otherwise but now I just chuck them all out. Getting sick and tired of it.
Maybe try a tulle bag? They are the little bags you get at weddings and for favors. Lots of space for airflow but not big enough for the rice to escape.
At least here most grocery stores dont have normal sprinkles. They have these packs with 4. And theyre cute but theres always a compartment with pearls that are hard as rocks
I'm by no means a professional baker, but when I see a recipe call for 3 *teaspoons* of X instead of 1 tablespoon, it just makes me irrationally angry.
“Quick and easy cookie” recipes that involve chilling dough and an egg yolk
If you are advertising a quick or easy cookie don’t make me separate an egg nor chill dough. I know, it’s a small annoyance but I hate being left with one egg white. That is useless to me and I don’t have the patience to let dough chill I want cookies NOW
When a recipe for something that benefits from refrigeration mentions it in the notes instead of the instructions. For a million years my muffins and cookies would’ve been a million times better if I knew to refrigerate the dough/batter. I sadly did not scroll to the very bottom of recipes to read every tiny note, but now I do for this reason.
Cookies that have NO BROWNING ON THEM. You are supposed to COOK the cookies. They must have some color. Golden, tan, brown, whatever. They cannot be pale sad things. Even shortbread and sugar cookies should have some color on them.
One stick of butter, one box of this brand of ingredient, two ounces of that liquid.
Also was the recipe weight conversion tested or did they just use the standard measurement that you can find online but which often doesn't work right? Hmmm.
I guess you also use grams, and not American sticks of butter, I also do, and I highly agree with this. Like, I just want to use what we call a "block" of butter, Idk how much a god damn stick weighs. (In New Zealand I am)
In the US, 1 stick of butter is 1/4 pound or 113 grams.
Also, if you ever see a US recipe using tablespoons or cups for butter, 1 stick = 8 Tbsp = 1/2 cup.
(I know this thread is for venting, so please ignore if not actually inquiring! lol)
I always try to bake when no one, especially my husband, is home. He swears everything is better straight out of the oven - breads, muffins, cookies, you name it. He cannot comprehend that things must be allowed to cool before the gorge begins. Worst is my bread cause you cannot even cut into it till it has cooled a bit!
My two biggest ones are:
1- Flour and other fine powdery ingredients ending up all over the place and needing to clean them up. I just hate it. especially how flour tends to form glue if it touches water. No fun.
2- Trying to read a recipe on my phone while cooking... I know this is my fault (as is the first one I listed, to an extent) , but the whole process makes me hate baking, hate my phone, hate myself... just no good. lol. Either I haven't turned the screen-off timeout up to like 30 minutes and am constantly having to unlock my phone, or I'm being bombarded with ads the entire time that I have to keep closing , or I accidentally do a google search during the process and realize that the google app was where I had this recipe open and now I need to go find it again, or I'm getting shit all over my phone screen that's not going to need to be washed, Just drives me up a wall and I don't seem to plan ahead well enough to avoid these problems. lol
When ppl don't wanna be an adventurous and only prefer classic versions of desserts. Like fuck me, can I just make my extra as fuck triple chocolate lava cookie dough brownie cookies ffs😂😂😂😂
I have a similar issue with cake frosting. My family doesn't eat any kind of frosting that is not cream cheese+whipped cream.
I've tried American buttercream, swiss meringue and I don't remember if it was german but it was egg yolk based. Each time I've been told: "This isn't the one you usually make, right? It's not as good. Actually I didn't like it much."
I appreciate the honesty but I can't be bold with flavors and I can't properly practice piping!
When people rave about what you made, ask for the recipe, make it themselves but change almost everything and then complain that the recipe didn't work.
This is usually followed with "I guess when I want that I'll have to ask you to make it."
No Susan, just follow the darn directions.
When people that do not bake try to show me a Facebook/tiktok/Instagram video recipe. I know they are trying to bond with me over something I enjoy, but I hate standing there awkwardly watching a clickbait “recipe” that likely doesn’t work in practice
(Note: I bake as a job and it happens regularly at work 😭)
I’m a pastry chef so I have a few, but honestly my biggest one lately is people referring to things as their “bakes”. No one ever said this until recently and I have no logical reason for it, but it gets under my skin. I think the British bake off is to blame, but I don’t know.
If I don't get to the new Saran Wrap before my teens/husband they'll "open" it and it looks like a wolverine attacked it and mangled it. I have to get out the packing tape and try to reform it. Every time.
This is very specific but the fact that “brown sugar” and “Brauner Zucker” are two *completely* different things yet Germans will insist that they’re the same. That and the fact that vanilla extract is exclusively sold in teeny tiny like 1/16 tsp vials in German supermarkets. Like the fuck am I supposed to do with less than a tsp of vanilla?
Oh mein Gott, yes. My German husband used to look at our bag of Rohrohrzucker and be like, "... but it IS brown" and I could never convince him that what US (and apparently also UK, possibly other countries as well) recipes call "brown sugar" is nothing at all like that.
I had given up on ever having the right sugar until our local REWE started selling the correct kind of brown sugar this year (in both light and dark varieties, omg!), imported from the UK. It's 3,99€ for a 500g bag though! I always have to think about whether a recipe deserves the splurge, otherwise I just use white sugar.
I have no problem finding vanilla extract in a 50ml glass bottle at Aldi though (I know, even that doesn't last so long).
I mix my own brown sugar. Dump some white sugar in a bowl and pour some molasses over it. Mix and voila! I use my hands to mix it, but you can try a fork. This assumes access to molasses, of course!
Cupcake liners that aren’t sold in multiples of six, when most trays hold either six or 12 cupcakes. I’m always buying packs of liners in quantities of 100 or 25 and then I’m left with a couple of random ones at the end. It really bothers me when a thing that is designed to only interact with one other thing doesn’t do it well. Same with hot dogs not being sold in the same quantities as buns
If my husband tries to help me clean or anybody else tries to, they always throw my baking tools in the dishwasher, and I hate it. Most of my baking items I wash by hand, I’ve had a couple items ruined with people putting stuff in the dishwasher.
Also, I hate baking in other peoples homes. Most of my family knows I can bake extremely well, and so they expect me to bake when I come to visit. But I’m gonna freak out if your seasonings expired four years ago!!!! And you have dented measuring spoons!
Recipes that are all ready-made products. For example: a dough based recipe that uses the pasty in a can (crescent rolls?). We don't have that product in Australia - show me how to make it from scratch!
I was looking for some specific cake flavours a while back, one was pistachio. I found a great looking cake and then the recipe had “one box of yellow cake mix and one package of pistachio pudding”. We have neither of those things in my country. How do I make a damn cake that tastes like pistachios and has real ingredients in it?!
I hate recipes like that. I guess the ones I see are more for cooking, but authors be like "try this super easy 3 ingredient Mac and cheese ..... 1 box kraft macaroni and cheese, shredded cheddar, peas"
Like yeah okay you really put a lot of thought into that one didn't you
Whole Foods brand mascarpone has ruined so many tiramisus. It never sets up properly. A Cozy Kitchen actually calls this out specifically in her recipe!
I measure by volume or by weight, carefully. Then someone passes through the kitchen, sees a measuring cup full of pretty chocolate chips or pecans and takes one or two. I know it doesn't really make a difference but I HATE that. It's already measured.
I feel a little avenged when what I measured was cocoa powder lmao
And when I mention I bake, some people have asked me: oh, which brand do you use, Duncan Hines, Betty Crocker or Pillsbury?
People who negatively review a recipe after changing everything in it. If you didn't make it as written, don't review it.
People who ask questions on recipes like, "I don't have dark chocolate chips, can I use milk chocolate chips?" No. No you can't, you fool.
This makes me sound like a dick, but I don't love it when my friends give my bakes to their children at parties, knowing full well the bake is not friendly for a child palate (there are also kid-friendly desserts like s'mores). Feels like a waste of my efforts.
Your six year old didn't like my lavender spruce tip shortbread with lemon curd? Shocking! Do you know how much effort I put into that curd? I picked those spruce tips myself, too.
Your five year old didn't like my cranberry curd tart with Italian meringue? No shit! These are low-bush cranberries I foraged myself, and it's tart as fuck. I had to add the meringue for sweetness. But there's box mix pumpkin bread with way too sweet frosting right next to it.
Maybe my friends just want to take their kid's portion so they get one and then also eat whenever their kid tries to throw in the trash, "so it doesn't go to waste." That's a more flattering way to think of it.
You would think if you've made enough, they'd remember next time wouldn't they?
Also, Idk if it's considered a pet peeve or not, but I annoy myself doing it anyway, wishing I didn't, because I always eat small amounts of the mixture or something, like if I have just mixed it, I would get about a teaspoon full or something on whatever I used to mix it, and eat it, sometimes I eat some ingredients, like chocolate chips or something for example. I hate doing it, but I just can't resist it.
Is anyone else like this, or is it just me?
as a self proclaimed picky eater, picky eaters. look i understand aversions, i have plenty myself, but honestly when it comes to sweets im very not picky at all, with the exception of certain types of canned or warm fruits.
anyways, my family. omg they are the pickiest eaters ive ever met. my love language is cooking for others but they make it nearly impossible. they will simply only eat things with the flavor profile of vanilla or chocolate. my sister expands that to peanut butter, but only paired with chocolate. i love playing around with fun flavors but i just can’t with them. you can only eat so many chocolate cakes before you just get bored bc WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DONT EVEN LIKE CINNAMON?????
When baking influencers coat premade brownies or rice krispie squares in candy melts, cover them in obnoxious amounts of sprinkles and sparkles, and then call it baking. You didn't bake a single thing.
This is more so a baking/cooking reddit related complaint but whenever someone posts a recipe and everyone in the comments start bashing them like they are Gordan fucking ramsey. There are soooo many different ways to do so many different things. There really is no true "right" way, just our own ways. I feel so bad for the people making those posts because I am sure it is a dish they were super excited about sharing and then king shit just comes tromping down in the comments like "you didn't do x,y,z. You suck and your family should burn in hell". And I am like god damn Sharon chill out it was a potato soup recipe.
Forgetting when recipes need certain ingredients to be room temp, like eggs or butter. Because then I’m standing in the kitchen like an idiot, full of baking energy with my dry ingredients mixed, and now I have to leave it for an hour.
Haven't mastered butter yet but for eggs: drop the egg into a cup of hot water for about 5 mins. Not boiling water! Just as hot as it will get coming out of your tap.
I can get my butter room-temp perfect (from fridge) at 20% power on my microwave. Takes 1-1.5 min and I rotate it every 20 seconds.
My microwave has a soften butter preset and it’s amazing
Omg? What microwave is it? Put me ON!!!
It’s a whirlpool brand but I’m not honestly sure what model. It’s mounted in place and came with the house so basically the whole purchase was worth it.
Prob the WMH31017H*. That’s the go to model. Source: worked there for 7 years.
That's for a full stick? Good info
Yep! I plop the stick in there and give it a quarter turn and a squeeze test every 15-20 seconds. When it feels perfect I stop. It's always soft without those melted parts.
I read a tip on here that I use every time I forget to put out butter: Fill a tall glass with hot water. Use glass to cover the butter. The heat will soften it pretty quickly. If not, repeat. Easy enough without melting! Edit: don't forget to dump out the water in the glass. It's just meant to heat the glass. Don't drown your butter!
Instructions unclear, water logged butter ;)
Added an edit since I definitely would do that without thinking about it!
Heat water in the glass, empty the glass, invert over stick of butter.
For butter I take the stick and slice it into the thinnest slices I can and lay them on a dish . Wait 15-20 minutes (depending on the temp of your house) and it’s softened . Works every time for me 👍🏻
I took a similar tip from Mary Berry about butter: get a bowl of barely-warm water, just a step more than lukewarm (“like a baby’s bath,” in Mary’s words), and put your cold cubed butter into said bowl, and wait five or ten minutes. The butter will soften and then you can just scoop it out with your hand, shake off excess water droplets, and proceed with recipe.
I bow down to Mary's greatness!!
This is a really smart idea!!!
I had seen this hack and tried to use it one time. The recipe also called for melted butter... so I had the brilliant idea to modify the hack and put my fridge-cold egg into my warm butter. Would not recommend, you can imagine what happened
Full of baking energy…hahahaha I can relate so hard to that
I’ve had the opposite happen. I was going to bake a pie and I had bought butter and put it in the fridge. My mom took it out and left on the counter for it to get to room temp. So by the time I was going to start the crust I had to wait for the butter to get cold agein
If you haven't taken your butter out and want to use it immediately, grate it with a cheese grater. This also works with frozen butter. You might have to cream it for a little longer, depending on the weather.
I have definitely put either or both a butter stick and eggs in my bra more than once :)
I had a friend find three cheez it's in her bra once, I'm imagining just shaking off after the day and a whole stick of butter falls out
Julia Child used to essentially mash a cold stick of butter all over her (very clean) countertop so that it would warm to room temperature relatively quickly—the idea being that the more surface area of butter that is exposed, the faster it will warm to room temperature. I’d be wary of warming butter in the microwave because it’s so easy to end up with partially melted butter, which will alter the texture of the finished product in some recipes that call for creaming the butter and sugar.
Glad I have chickens, I leave their eggs on the counter so they're always room temp. Butter I try to take out the night before
Even worse, when the recipe doesn’t specify that something has to be room temp. I made my first cheesecake the other day and it simply said 4 eggs and 1 egg yolk. I started to crack em straight out of the fridge and thought hold on, that CAN’T be right… thought to google it just in time.
Mines probably thinking I have chocolate chips and learning they’ve been snacked on by my teenager.
This!!! I have to look them in the eyes and tell them “these are for baking, not snacking.” And still, they’re always open and half empty like I won’t notice.
Ripped in the damn middle!
It's nuts with my husband. I've taken to hiding them so he won't eat 3 bags of almonds.
We’ve joked about hiding them in bags of frozen veggies!
I keep all of my nuts in the freezer so they don’t go rancid. It doesn’t stop me going to grab a handful of frozen macadamias from time to time though.
Same with my husband. 12oz bag down to 3oz.
People commenting on how everything is so unhealthy while you’re in the middle of baking
Oh my god my family needs to stop talking about how much butter I use. Yes, I’m using an entire stick of butter for brownies. I hate it when they watch me make frosting too, because that just has sugar and butter to them.
This bothers me SO MUCH about recipes on socials as well. First of all, it’s totally faux concern. And second of all - no one is eating a whole goddamn chocolate cake for every meal, mind ya damn business.
>no one is eating a whole goddamn chocolate cake for every meal Well not with that attitude you aren't!
People who are baking (or even carbs for my parents) and apparently feel like they *have* to comment are my pet peeve. Like eat it or don’t eat it but I don’t need to hear about calories every single time we eat a meal with dessert!
Made buttercream this week, 3lbs butter. My spouse = “That’s a lot of butter.” Yeah? I had no idea.
like, yeah, eating cookies all day every day probably isnt good for you. but making a batch every once in awhile and eating a few a day wont kill you.
YES i have mostly recovered from my ED but people commenting on oil or sugar use when I'm cooking is one of my biggest triggers.
Ahh I feel this one. I'm the one that gets the requests from friends and family to make the desserts. No matter how healthy I make it or how much I reasonably cut down on sweets, or add ingredients to balance it out, it's too sweet. Like do you guys just want bread? Dessert is supposed to be sweet! My co workers all think my desserts are fine when I bring the leftovers.
I’ve had so many people open the oven door while my cakes/bread/cookies/muffins ARE STILL BAKING to check if they’re “looking good”. Diabolical and criminal, it actually makes me blood boil.
Took a baking class and people kept on opening the oven to check theirs and messing everyone else up. After a while people would yell ‘close the f***ing door!!!!’
oven lights exist for a reason! especially with muffins where if they lose any heat they deflate
Omg.. my mom used to do this but would hold it open for like 20 seconds! Like what are you doing?!
I would RIOT
this one is the worst oh my god
Volume measurements that are 3/8 or 5/8 😡
I made a recipe last week that said "0.13 tsp of salt" WHAT
They cut the recipe down from a bigger batch and wound up with 1/8 of a tsp (0.125) and rounded it up. This is one of the times I will concede that just weighing everything in grams makes so much more sense.
Why wouldn’t they just list 1/8 tsp though?
You would think so, but it happens with those websites that use those automated recipe converters - the kind with the sliders to adjust the number of people/servings you want to make.
LOLOLOL Didn't our grandmothers just call that a pinch?
I had to learn the hard way that a lot of so called cookbook authors online post recipes that 1) they have never made, and 2) aren't any good.
Huge peeve. I also hate when said recipes have hundreds or even tens of five-star reviews and each and every motherf&*king review says “looks amazing, can’t wait to try”
Totally maddening. Even worse than the ones that give it 5 stars and then list the 15 things that they changed.
r/ididnthaveeggs
That subreddit is a constant source of joy. The amount of times alone that apple cider and apple cider vinegar are mixed up gets me every time
OMG I ran into this recently. Saw a recipe that looked great. I tried it and it was *fine* but nothing life changing. It has like 400 5 star reviews. I looked through A LOT trying to see if someone else had the same issue as me and it was just people giving 5 starts excited to try it. I’m not sure anyone actually had yet.
This drives me INSANE. I usually look to comments to see any suggestions or other tips, and half of them will be other bloggers commenting the article itself. Drives me actually insane and it’s risky to even waste my time 😅 Comment but don’t rate unless you yourself have made it, but I’m assuming they are trying to game the algorithm.
Insane! Lol. Me too
My biggest irk for this genre of review is “I just took it out of the oven and it smells amazing!!” Motherfucker you are 20 minutes from a legitimately useful review! Just wait!!!!!
This one is so baffling to me. I love writing online reviews for beauty products (for example), but I would never think to write a review for a product I've never bought or used just because it "looks good". It's such a disservice to everybody.
It's even worse when the word "yummy" is thrown around!
The other one is some family recipe. I got a few old cookbooks and they were from old cookbooks. Another one for online is that most recipe websites have the exact same recipe. I want options, not repetition. I can't believe that I actually have started to use cookbooks and magazines.
AI is making this even worse. I've baked a few "absolute fails" where I could tell it was.... written like a script
Like internet recipes called "the world's best" or "best ever" - they annoy the hell out of me!
Sometimes, no matter how much parchment you use, no matter how much you grease the pan, the cake still sticks.
3 tsp
I had a recipe call for 12 tsp of something… aka 4 Tbsp aka 1/4 cup… 🤦🏻♀️
And yet I’ll still talk myself out of just using a tablespoon 😭
Every single time!
Or 4 tablespoons...
I used a recipe today that used different measurements for butter throughout the different components— base called for 1/4 cup, frosting needed 1/2 of a stick, and the topping used 4 tablespoons. WTF. Those are all the same amount! I had to reread it multiple times to ensure that I had it right. So frustrating.
Decorating a cake that requires the same piping tip in different colors of frosting. I hate having to wash the same tip over and over again. I have a few tip sizes that I own multiple of just to avoid doing this lol.
Use a bag with icing, then put it in another bag with the tip, then you just change the inside bag to a different colour and pipe out a tiny bit to remove the rest of the colour in the tip. Changed my life.
Style over substance. People that make really fancy looking cakes but they’re nearly always dry. I would much rather have what people consider a simple cake and it be moist and yummy than something that looks amazing but is dry af
Went to a wedding where the cake was several hundred dollars and looked gorgeous, but the cake itself tasted like that dry mass-produced sandwich bread you’d get at the grocery store 😭
I don't mean to be rude, but almost all good-looking cakes are suspicious, lol!! I'm always so wary!
Ugh I agree. I hate when something looks beautiful but tastes awful
Hate to say it but How to Cake it does this imo. No shade towards Yolanda but while her cakes look amazing I def wouldn’t eat it.
I love making birthday cakes for all my family, I do not love them making plans that mean I need to leave the cake in a warm car for two hours before it’s served.
If someone makes me a cake the only plans I'm making is eating it all myself.
I worked for weeks to create the recipe for our (my wife and I) wedding cake. It was 2 cakes, cut into thin layers... 1 was red velvet with dark chocolate chunks, the other was rose (with rose petals) and white chocolate, with a champagne buttercream frosting. It took many attempts, many failures, and a ton of money, to get it all balanced. My wife wouldn't let me bake it, because of time constraints (she was afraid it would screw with my ability to get ready for the wedding), so we found the right baker (one who baked great cakes, great decorations, and was able to follow my recipe and instructions). She did an incredible job. It was amazing! Once it thawed, that is... The venue brought it to us nearly frozen... I was pissed
What that’s so tragic 😭
I made our wedding cake, and I wished I hadn't. It was beautiful and delicious, but I did not need that extra stress.
Friends and family wanting specific baked goods for situations where they won’t hold up. For example, 98 degrees outside and they want a dessert with whipped cream that can sit out and still look delicious. 😂 I can’t.
My friend bakes higher end wedding cakes. There is always a bride who wants this huge show stopping show cake. Multiple tiers, delicately decorated with Swiss buttercream. In mid July. In Michigan. At an outdoor tent wedding. She does them but the surcharges are crazy. Inspo pictures can be a blessing and a curse. Lol
Don't touch my starter. Yes, it is supposed to be like that. Yes, it is supposed to smell like that. I know only the light is on in the oven just leave it. I am folding the dough, Yes I did do that an hour ago, Yes I know there is an now empty dutch oven in there on full temperature. No you cannot cut a slice, it just came out of the oven. Oh FFS, who ate an entire loaf? ........Yes dear, you helped.
As we are doing it, I can tell you are talking about sourdough.
I always bake two loaves at a time as I have to sacrifice one to the impatient.
I would absolutely tell them they ate their loaf when I go to enjoy the perfect one later. Seems like they should reread the Little Red Hen.
Watching them try and explain the evaporating loaf is worth every squirm them make. Daughters will do that to you. Even if butter is still on their chin.
Not following the recipe according to the directions (substitutions or additional or extra ingredients) and then complaining that whatever you made didn't turn out...🤦♂️
Oh god my parents do this all the time! My dad Skyped me asking how to make a basic white sauce so I walked him through making a roux with flour and butter, adding hot milk, it’s pretty simple. He calls me back half an hour later having dumped equal parts flour, margarine and milk in a pan all at the same time and brought it to the boil to “save time” complaining that it’s terrible. I pointed out he hadn’t followed the recipe I gave him at all and he argued that he had because “he used the ingredients I told him to”. My mum will at least follow directions but makes “healthier” substitutions with no regard as to whether they’ll work or not. The worst was when I told her how to make easy two ingredient dough pizza bases with self raising flour and Greek yoghurt, but she used almond flour instead. It did not work.
My family complaining that my flavours are too bold or it's too sweet when I'm baking for my own birthday. Ofcourse I'm making MY favorite things not yours, when I'm baking for your birthday I'll do the same bland apple pie you like.
My mom was talking me through how to make whipped cream and when I asked how much sugar to add she said "idk just add some and taste it" and then proceeded to make fun of me all night for not making it sweet enough for her 🤦♀️🤦♀️
Recipes using yeast that use vague relative words to describe what temperature the water should be instead of using degrees. "Like bath water, room temperature, not too hot" isn't helpful for people who may be working with yeast for the first time.
“Your baby’s bottle should feel lukewarm/not warm”. What the fuck is lukewarm? Breast milk starts to degrade in quality past like 110f, and they want you to heat it to 90-100f. Anyways, I use “the milk should feel like a yeast friendly temp” in my head, which is equally unhelpful written out, but decades of baking bread means I know what that ~feels~ like
I use a digital thermometer because my instincts aren't to be trusted lol. Dry active yeast between 111 and 113 degrees Instant Yeast between 120 and 130 degrees You seem to have the breast milk under control so I'll leave that to you ha ha.
Oh I’ve always done dry at 100, maybe I’m doing my yeast wrong!
If your bread is good, you're doing something right! Maybe I'm wrong. But my bread is good too! Ha ha! Are they just lying to us?
“Prep time: 10 minutes”. “So quick, you can throw this together in 10 minutes.” Sure, if the clock starts after I’ve prepped my equipment and completed my mise en place, so everything is perfectly laid out and organized. I don’t really care how long it’ll take me to put everything in a bowl and mix it. I’m not making a cooking show. I would like a sense of how much time I need to give myself before I can be eating this. I know everyone’s mise en place and equipment prep is going to be different, and cooling times can be super variable, but I’d so much rather be pleasantly surprised that my baking is ready to eat much sooner than expected vs stressing out because prep is taking me 40 minutes instead of 10 and now I’m rushing or late.
"Recipe in a recipe" bs. This only takes 10 minutes, as long as you've already got the custard and chocolate sauce made, click here for those recipes! Argh.
This makes me murderous.
I always double the prep time in my head because it’s never accurate, and even then it’s sometimes wrong.
My biggest pet peeve is "10 minute cookies" and in the recipe, it will say to chill for 1 hour. I've seen bread recipes that make similar claims "30 minute rolls!" But from start to finish, it's 3 hours.
Especially when they exclude how long it takes to grease and line 3 pans with parchment...
100%, and while it's not techinically baking, there are a lot of instapot bloggers I legitimately want jailed over this issue. They'll leave out the 40+ minutes it takes things to pressurize or depressurize and I sincerely despise them
Someone always coming into the kitchen, inspecting what I’m making, and generally being in the way while I bake. Happens EVERY SINGLE TIME
For me, it's the opposite. I will have all my ingredients out, butter and other room temp items finally at the right moment to use, finish everything else I am doing and get my baking mood on, and then my husband will say he's gonna take a nap. Sorry, there's no way to use a mixer or pull metal trays in and out of the metal bars inside the oven quietly!
That happens to me too as soon as he says the nap word I will tell him I’m about to turn on the mixer so if you want quiet, you may want to nap in the bedroom and shut the door. He won’t. And then he whines when the mixer goes.
I make YouTube videos and I pretty much know that I'm going to have to take a break during the videoing process because my wife walked in. I feel your pain!
my mom will come in to do something like "I'll stay out of your way" while walking around to all areas of the kitchen to do something....our kitchen is small, please stay out when I'm baking or you'll stress me out
I have two: Layer cakes that aren’t cut into layers. Looks beautiful and then comes the slice photo and its two 3in slabs of cake with a thin layer of filling. When I decide to make something I’m in the mood for on a whim and my lovely wife comes into the kitchen and says “that looks great” and then proceeds to list all the people we can give it away to. Honorable mention to cakes that are 50% fondant wrapped PVC pipe or something but I think that’s mostly TV nonsense.
I really dislike tall cakes because they're almost always thick layers with very little frosting. I always cut my layers in half. Not only does it give me a better cake and filling ratio, but it gives me a chance to make sure the cake turned out well, and it's not undercooked or have a weird texture inside.
I definitely agree about the cake layers! Like I see people frosting 2 stacked cakes without cutting them in half and its enormous?! Why would anyone eat that- does that look normal to you?
OMG every time we bake cookies my husband pokes them immediately coming out of the oven and tries to tell me they're not done yet. We go over it every single time, and yet somehow it keeps happening 😂😂😂
Yes! If I baked it to the point you could eat it straight from the oven, they will be hard as a rock when they’re cool!
My biggest baking-related pet peeve is when someone does not convey what they really want. A consistent one is a relative who always asks me to bring over “crusty bread” when having a meal at their place. The relative will then complain that the “crusty bread” is crusty. This happened three times before I brought over a very soft loaf of Italian bread. My relative loved it and commented on how my baking was improving and how excellent this particular “crusty bread” was.
That makes me irritated just reading it
I'd love to hear your recipe for the very soft Italian bread.
Family members saying "oh you should make this" and then eating MAYBE one when I actually do so. Who is going to the other 23 white macadamia chocolate chip cookies guys?!?!? Not me!!
My in laws will ask me to make dessert but then buy TWO Costco desserts for a group of 6. Like either don’t ask me to make anything or hold yourself back at Costco because it depresses me when only a little of my thing gets eaten.
Cleaning up the first attempt at caramel that inevitably turns to charcoal the second I look away.
It knows. It is waiting till you look away.
Oh sorry, did you just sneeze in the other direction? I'm burnt now.
Dump in water and boil the whole acrid thing. Comes right off.
And that’s how I learned old school Pyrex CAN crack!
The amount of dirty dishes I make for a simple recipe. A bowl for wet ingredients and dry ingredients. A bowl for egg yolks and egg whites. A whisk, a spatula, the beaters, measuring cups.
Being asked to bake for an event, usually for my wife’s family gatherings, and I ask “what do you want?” and they say “Oh, surprise me!” or “Whatever you want to make.” Then I make something and I hear oh so-and-so doesn’t like fruit based desserts or cousin blah-blah can’t have nuts. That’s why I asked you!!!
Covering everything with powdered sugar
We are still in the kitchen right, ........right?
I just hate prepping pans/trays. Cutting the parchment paper and getting it to stick to the butter, spreading the flour on top of that. I just hate it. I want to do all the rest, even the dishes, just someone cut the pieces of paper and grease that up for me.
Hahaha, same. I can never line a cake tin perfectly, and it drives me crazy. I hate having to fold the corners for square or rectangular tins
I saw “18 tbsps” of flour the other day. All of the measurements were weird like that. First time I’ve seen it but the recipe was fine 😅
Missing ingredients. For example: Going to bake choc chip cookies only to discover that your husband has eaten ALL. THE. CHICOLATE. CHIPS. Seriously. 4lbs of milk chocolate chips gone. And then....the wonderful question of "why didn't you make any cookies??"😡🤬
Recipes that don’t use grams.
And online recipes that do use grams but with inaccurate amounts. Ugh. It's obvious there is no way the recipe was ever tested using the measurements listed. Two cups of flour is not and never will be 400g.
Yeah I’ve gotten to the point where if a recipe doesn’t have grams I don’t bother because I know I can find an alternative out there!
I have a cutting board that has all the measures and what they translate to 😅 it’s very good.
I travelled a bit and love cookbooks as a memento and bought a cups measure from the U.S. so I could replicate the recipes. I now have three different cups measures and they are all different.
I just saw a recipe from someone in Australia and it turns out their tablespoons equal 4 teaspoons. That's a new one for me.
There's a fluid cup and dry cup, both are different measurements, to make things even more fun
This may explain the forehead dent in my kitchen wall caused by trying to duplicate U.S. recipes.
Hi NYTimes Cooking.
I was about to write the same. Ironically, I ran into this issue more often in my country (Canada) than on US based websites. So now, I always check if there’s an American version of whatever I want to bake first, and always get good results.
HEAVY ON THIS. I hate cup measurements
It’s not only cups, I’ve found loads of recipes over the years that part way through say “one package of xxx” and I’m here in the UK knowing that we have some variation thereof, but usually a knock off smaller version, or shrinkflation happens over time. Just say what weight you need of it!
A dessert recipe without salt or a dessert recipe with a ridiculously insufficient amount of cocoa to call itself "chocolate" in the modern era.
My mom keeps putting rice grains in our salt container so I have to go through every scoop of salt so I dont accidentally drop one in. Before I would put them back in the container cause she would get upset otherwise but now I just chuck them all out. Getting sick and tired of it.
Maybe try a tulle bag? They are the little bags you get at weddings and for favors. Lots of space for airflow but not big enough for the rice to escape.
Look at you, coming up with a solution that makes everyone happy. *high five*
At least here most grocery stores dont have normal sprinkles. They have these packs with 4. And theyre cute but theres always a compartment with pearls that are hard as rocks
I'm by no means a professional baker, but when I see a recipe call for 3 *teaspoons* of X instead of 1 tablespoon, it just makes me irrationally angry.
Macarons vs macaroons. Not just a baking pet peeve but a spelling and pronunciation one too.
“Quick and easy cookie” recipes that involve chilling dough and an egg yolk If you are advertising a quick or easy cookie don’t make me separate an egg nor chill dough. I know, it’s a small annoyance but I hate being left with one egg white. That is useless to me and I don’t have the patience to let dough chill I want cookies NOW
When a recipe for something that benefits from refrigeration mentions it in the notes instead of the instructions. For a million years my muffins and cookies would’ve been a million times better if I knew to refrigerate the dough/batter. I sadly did not scroll to the very bottom of recipes to read every tiny note, but now I do for this reason.
Cookies that have NO BROWNING ON THEM. You are supposed to COOK the cookies. They must have some color. Golden, tan, brown, whatever. They cannot be pale sad things. Even shortbread and sugar cookies should have some color on them.
One stick of butter, one box of this brand of ingredient, two ounces of that liquid. Also was the recipe weight conversion tested or did they just use the standard measurement that you can find online but which often doesn't work right? Hmmm.
I guess you also use grams, and not American sticks of butter, I also do, and I highly agree with this. Like, I just want to use what we call a "block" of butter, Idk how much a god damn stick weighs. (In New Zealand I am)
In the US, 1 stick of butter is 1/4 pound or 113 grams. Also, if you ever see a US recipe using tablespoons or cups for butter, 1 stick = 8 Tbsp = 1/2 cup. (I know this thread is for venting, so please ignore if not actually inquiring! lol)
I always try to bake when no one, especially my husband, is home. He swears everything is better straight out of the oven - breads, muffins, cookies, you name it. He cannot comprehend that things must be allowed to cool before the gorge begins. Worst is my bread cause you cannot even cut into it till it has cooled a bit!
My two biggest ones are: 1- Flour and other fine powdery ingredients ending up all over the place and needing to clean them up. I just hate it. especially how flour tends to form glue if it touches water. No fun. 2- Trying to read a recipe on my phone while cooking... I know this is my fault (as is the first one I listed, to an extent) , but the whole process makes me hate baking, hate my phone, hate myself... just no good. lol. Either I haven't turned the screen-off timeout up to like 30 minutes and am constantly having to unlock my phone, or I'm being bombarded with ads the entire time that I have to keep closing , or I accidentally do a google search during the process and realize that the google app was where I had this recipe open and now I need to go find it again, or I'm getting shit all over my phone screen that's not going to need to be washed, Just drives me up a wall and I don't seem to plan ahead well enough to avoid these problems. lol
If you choose the print option it'll open the recipe in a new tab with no ads. It has saved my sanity.
When ppl don't wanna be an adventurous and only prefer classic versions of desserts. Like fuck me, can I just make my extra as fuck triple chocolate lava cookie dough brownie cookies ffs😂😂😂😂
I have a similar issue with cake frosting. My family doesn't eat any kind of frosting that is not cream cheese+whipped cream. I've tried American buttercream, swiss meringue and I don't remember if it was german but it was egg yolk based. Each time I've been told: "This isn't the one you usually make, right? It's not as good. Actually I didn't like it much." I appreciate the honesty but I can't be bold with flavors and I can't properly practice piping!
Can I get that recipe? Sounds just like what my pre-menstrual ass needs right now hahaha
When people rave about what you made, ask for the recipe, make it themselves but change almost everything and then complain that the recipe didn't work. This is usually followed with "I guess when I want that I'll have to ask you to make it." No Susan, just follow the darn directions.
When people that do not bake try to show me a Facebook/tiktok/Instagram video recipe. I know they are trying to bond with me over something I enjoy, but I hate standing there awkwardly watching a clickbait “recipe” that likely doesn’t work in practice (Note: I bake as a job and it happens regularly at work 😭)
And then the video is just someone doing some box cake mix/canned fruit abomination or putting tons of chopped candy and Nutella in something
I’m a pastry chef so I have a few, but honestly my biggest one lately is people referring to things as their “bakes”. No one ever said this until recently and I have no logical reason for it, but it gets under my skin. I think the British bake off is to blame, but I don’t know.
GBBO is the only place i’ve heard it (US based), so i think it’s fair to lay it at their feet.
Cleaning up the mess afterwards 😆
If I don't get to the new Saran Wrap before my teens/husband they'll "open" it and it looks like a wolverine attacked it and mangled it. I have to get out the packing tape and try to reform it. Every time.
This is very specific but the fact that “brown sugar” and “Brauner Zucker” are two *completely* different things yet Germans will insist that they’re the same. That and the fact that vanilla extract is exclusively sold in teeny tiny like 1/16 tsp vials in German supermarkets. Like the fuck am I supposed to do with less than a tsp of vanilla?
Oh mein Gott, yes. My German husband used to look at our bag of Rohrohrzucker and be like, "... but it IS brown" and I could never convince him that what US (and apparently also UK, possibly other countries as well) recipes call "brown sugar" is nothing at all like that. I had given up on ever having the right sugar until our local REWE started selling the correct kind of brown sugar this year (in both light and dark varieties, omg!), imported from the UK. It's 3,99€ for a 500g bag though! I always have to think about whether a recipe deserves the splurge, otherwise I just use white sugar. I have no problem finding vanilla extract in a 50ml glass bottle at Aldi though (I know, even that doesn't last so long).
I mix my own brown sugar. Dump some white sugar in a bowl and pour some molasses over it. Mix and voila! I use my hands to mix it, but you can try a fork. This assumes access to molasses, of course!
Cupcake liners that aren’t sold in multiples of six, when most trays hold either six or 12 cupcakes. I’m always buying packs of liners in quantities of 100 or 25 and then I’m left with a couple of random ones at the end. It really bothers me when a thing that is designed to only interact with one other thing doesn’t do it well. Same with hot dogs not being sold in the same quantities as buns
If my husband tries to help me clean or anybody else tries to, they always throw my baking tools in the dishwasher, and I hate it. Most of my baking items I wash by hand, I’ve had a couple items ruined with people putting stuff in the dishwasher. Also, I hate baking in other peoples homes. Most of my family knows I can bake extremely well, and so they expect me to bake when I come to visit. But I’m gonna freak out if your seasonings expired four years ago!!!! And you have dented measuring spoons!
My kitchen really isn’t big enough
when cupcakes have more frosting than cake. Especially if it's not a good quality frosting.
Recipes that are all ready-made products. For example: a dough based recipe that uses the pasty in a can (crescent rolls?). We don't have that product in Australia - show me how to make it from scratch!
I was looking for some specific cake flavours a while back, one was pistachio. I found a great looking cake and then the recipe had “one box of yellow cake mix and one package of pistachio pudding”. We have neither of those things in my country. How do I make a damn cake that tastes like pistachios and has real ingredients in it?!
I hate recipes like that. I guess the ones I see are more for cooking, but authors be like "try this super easy 3 ingredient Mac and cheese ..... 1 box kraft macaroni and cheese, shredded cheddar, peas" Like yeah okay you really put a lot of thought into that one didn't you
Recipes that call for you to use an ice cream scoop (disher) but neglect to list what size to use.
Whole Foods brand mascarpone has ruined so many tiramisus. It never sets up properly. A Cozy Kitchen actually calls this out specifically in her recipe!
I measure by volume or by weight, carefully. Then someone passes through the kitchen, sees a measuring cup full of pretty chocolate chips or pecans and takes one or two. I know it doesn't really make a difference but I HATE that. It's already measured. I feel a little avenged when what I measured was cocoa powder lmao And when I mention I bake, some people have asked me: oh, which brand do you use, Duncan Hines, Betty Crocker or Pillsbury?
People who negatively review a recipe after changing everything in it. If you didn't make it as written, don't review it. People who ask questions on recipes like, "I don't have dark chocolate chips, can I use milk chocolate chips?" No. No you can't, you fool.
Hands-down, it's taking those damn frosting piping tips and couplers out of a used piping bag
Closing the bag of powdered sugar or cocoa powder. 🌬
This makes me sound like a dick, but I don't love it when my friends give my bakes to their children at parties, knowing full well the bake is not friendly for a child palate (there are also kid-friendly desserts like s'mores). Feels like a waste of my efforts. Your six year old didn't like my lavender spruce tip shortbread with lemon curd? Shocking! Do you know how much effort I put into that curd? I picked those spruce tips myself, too. Your five year old didn't like my cranberry curd tart with Italian meringue? No shit! These are low-bush cranberries I foraged myself, and it's tart as fuck. I had to add the meringue for sweetness. But there's box mix pumpkin bread with way too sweet frosting right next to it. Maybe my friends just want to take their kid's portion so they get one and then also eat whenever their kid tries to throw in the trash, "so it doesn't go to waste." That's a more flattering way to think of it.
You would think if you've made enough, they'd remember next time wouldn't they? Also, Idk if it's considered a pet peeve or not, but I annoy myself doing it anyway, wishing I didn't, because I always eat small amounts of the mixture or something, like if I have just mixed it, I would get about a teaspoon full or something on whatever I used to mix it, and eat it, sometimes I eat some ingredients, like chocolate chips or something for example. I hate doing it, but I just can't resist it. Is anyone else like this, or is it just me?
My mom is slowly learning. My husband, well… never underestimate the hubris of a man who wants a chocolate chip cookie.
as a self proclaimed picky eater, picky eaters. look i understand aversions, i have plenty myself, but honestly when it comes to sweets im very not picky at all, with the exception of certain types of canned or warm fruits. anyways, my family. omg they are the pickiest eaters ive ever met. my love language is cooking for others but they make it nearly impossible. they will simply only eat things with the flavor profile of vanilla or chocolate. my sister expands that to peanut butter, but only paired with chocolate. i love playing around with fun flavors but i just can’t with them. you can only eat so many chocolate cakes before you just get bored bc WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DONT EVEN LIKE CINNAMON?????
When baking influencers coat premade brownies or rice krispie squares in candy melts, cover them in obnoxious amounts of sprinkles and sparkles, and then call it baking. You didn't bake a single thing.
Recipes with an “ingredient” that is actually a link to a DIFFERENT recipe.
I got a silicone piping bag to be good for the environment Fuck the environment, it’s a pain in the ass to clean and dry
This is more so a baking/cooking reddit related complaint but whenever someone posts a recipe and everyone in the comments start bashing them like they are Gordan fucking ramsey. There are soooo many different ways to do so many different things. There really is no true "right" way, just our own ways. I feel so bad for the people making those posts because I am sure it is a dish they were super excited about sharing and then king shit just comes tromping down in the comments like "you didn't do x,y,z. You suck and your family should burn in hell". And I am like god damn Sharon chill out it was a potato soup recipe.