I’ve noticed the opposite, people post reviews like:
I changed this, modified this quantity, replaced that, used another cooking duration, it was great, 5 stars.
Really helpful… /s
One of the few things I miss on Reddit is a sub called “Ididnthaveeggs” or something like that. Basically a whole sub of the bonkers substitutions people have done. It was always a good read.
1/5 stars
I didn’t have sugar, butter, vanilla, or baking powder, and I substituted the milk with cheddar cheese. Also, I don’t have an oven, so I just used a frying pan on the stove top. It turned into an omelet! Would not recommend this cake recipe.
7/11 with rice
It might sound totally insane but this is barely an exaggeration with some of the ones you see submitted there (and I mean ones that aren’t jokes).
They will absolutely make tons of substitutions and still rate the recipe based on it. It’s infuriating and should be illegal.
This is outrageous. Where are the armed men who come in to take the substituters away? Where are they? This kind of behavior is never tolerated in Boraqua. You cook like that, they put you in jail. Right away. No trial, no nothing. Bakers? We have a special jail for bakers. You’re leaving out ingredients? Right to jail. You’re editing Michelin Star recipes? Right to jail. Right away. You’re whisking too fast? Jail. Slow? Jail. You’re adding too much butter for cakes, pastries, you right to jail. You undercook flan, believe it or not, jail. You overcook quiche, also jail. Undercook, overcook. You make an appointment with the food delivery and you don’t show up? Believe it or not, jail, right away. We have the best cooks in the world, because of jail.
Cooking flan at all should be jail so I believe it.
I mean, it still requires heat to caramelize the sugar before mixing ingredients. I’d say that it’s cooking by loose definition, or are you arguing that flan should not be made. No judgment either way. I’m just curious.
Jail is too lenient! Death penalty!
[Door to walk-in oven slams shut]
“Hello, Kaeyghleigh, I’d like to play a game. Next to you are two buttons. One will set the oven to 80F for 350 minutes, the other 350F for 80 minutes. To survive, you’ll need to follow instructions carefu-- [whooshing noise as the gas flames flare up in the oven]. Okay, that was fast.”
I tried to make fried eggs but I didn’t have eggs so I replaced them with ice cream.
0/10 hot ice cream soup isn’t fried eggs!!
But the ice cream obviously had no yolk. So I used yellow mustard.
How did I not know about that sub! I love hearing about those idiots
How did i not know about that sub? I would love hearing those idiots
Honestly one of my favorite subs ever. Would be nice if we had that one here
Be the change you want to see in this world.
Carrots having way too much sugar is wild to me. Like what do you eat except kale?
More kale
I mean, carrots do have a lot of sugar as vegetables go, but it’s like 5% sugar by weight. If you’re cutting out stuff with that low of a ratio, you’re probably taking a low sugar diet a bit far.
I wouldn’t eat a raw carrot either unless I’m looking for a sugar shock but this is like one ingredient of a cake, a fucking CAKE!! What else did you supplement?
I wouldn’t eat a raw carrot either unless I’m looking for a sugar shock
Are you literally out of your mind? Sugar shock from A CARROT??
Are you sure you’re not confusing “a raw carrot“ with “a big bag of candy”? It’s a common mistake in some cultures, I bet 🤷
I’m not an expert on that but I’m pretty sure I was joking
Upon further consideration as well as evaluation of your supplementary information, I have concluded that you were in fact joking.
I have furthermore decided that your joke was funny and that I’m a bit of a doofus for going all in on my “they’re super serial” hypothesis.
Have a lovely day 😁
serial like serial killer or dr. house?
Serial like Al Gore about manbearpig.
Traditionally carrots were used as the main sweetener in carrot cake. Something developed during lean times when honey, fruits and sugar weren’t available. So assuming this person was looking for a “low sugar cake” recipe, they may have found a carrot cake recipe that only used carrots for sweetening.
… and then they removed the carrots to reduce the sugar content further. So yah it’s going to be an awful cake if there is zero sweetness in it. Like, just make a savory baked good at that point.
Carrots as sweetner is sad…
They’re making a cake, you don’t want sugar in cake!
Red kale is actually kinda sweet
I asked you for directions to Santa Monica but I decided to drive to the Mojave instead and there was NO BEACH AND NO OCEAN.
2/5 stars, wouldn’t recommend Santa Monica
Carrots have way too much sugar?? To go in a cake?? Wut
What’s wrong honey? You haven’t finished your kale cake.
In my grandparents’ region (south-east of France), there’s a traditional pie made with leafy greens: tourte de blettes, that is to say “chard pie”.
My grandmother calls it tourte d’herbes (“herb pie”), it’s very good, there’s definitely sugar in it!
… now i’m hungry.
fun fact is that chard pie can be made either sweet or savory
Yes, the savory kind is very different but good too. I love chard.
Kace
Kake, by KDE
Someone probably tried to install Linux on a cake
Kacke - which is coincidentally a German word that describes the look and taste of said cake very well.
Cachu (pron same as above), a welsh word that is even more appropriate
That’s insane, pronunciation and meaning are indeed very similar.
If carrots have too much sugar for you, sweety, don’t bake a fucking cake.
So in cooking, I tend to do this sort of thing all the time, but not in a dumb way - for example, when I roast a chicken, if I want a more Asian spin on it, I’d sub out my usual herbs de Provence + fresh parsley/sage/rosemary/thyme for chili crisp, ginger, sambal olek, minced Thai basil, and a bit of cilantro, or something like that.
But in baking, there’s actual chemistry involved with almost everything, so you do not want to fuck with that unless you actually know what you’re doing…
Also I’m so shy to ask the author from explanation when I change a little thing. I know I’m not an expert so maybe for this recipe preheating my oven was actually very important…
But at the same time there’s a difference between making an informed/educated guess on a valid swap vs what these people are doing, which is one short step from “I didn’t have cinnamon sticks so I got some sticks from the tree outside my house”
when I roast a chicken, if I want a more Asian spin on it, I’d sub out my usual herbs de Provence + fresh parsley/sage/rosemary/thyme for chili crisp, ginger, sambal olek, minced Thai basil, and a bit of cilantro, or something like that.
Where pepper?
Anyway; cooking is art, baking is science.
any site worth their salt would remove these reviews as they aren’t based off the product posted since they subbed items
They substituted the salt with nutritional yeast.
0/10, tasted like floury paste.
“I tried playing my DOOM: The Dark Ages copy for Xbox but I don’t own an Xbox so I put the disk in my Nintendo 64. The game didn’t even launch wtf this game sucks”
You forgot the bit where they cut the disk so it would fit in the slot, and are also upset that the store won’t return it anymore.
There’s a sub for this on the other site, called “Didn’tHaveEggs”. It’s funny as.
Damn I must’ve missed out on that one on other site
funny as what
as
They forgot the *.
It’s funny as <wildcard>, meaning funny as anything!
Funny as fuck. The last word is implied.
“as” is short for “as shit” it’s like “af” but instead it’s “as”
Either way we’re having a good time.
Where I’m from we say “funny as” missing off the “fuck”.
I’ve heard Kiwis say “sweet as” to mean something similar to “it’s cool”-- can’t remember if there were other adjectives instead of sweet but I think so.
I know Brits that say that too, sometimes including the F word, sometimes not.
I must’ve done the fucking wrong if it’s supposed to be funny.
Different people find different things funny?
They were making a joke.
Ah. Went over my head.
I know. All good.
Thank you. It was one of my favorite subs but I couldn’t remember the name.
I’ve replaced the celery in the raw celery recipe with pizza. Why am I not losing weight?
It says 10 calories per serving! What gives!?
I’m doing keto, but with muffins.
In the 60s of last century (IIRC, was before my time) there was a product called “Millical”, a powder to be mixed with water that provided (according to knowledge back then) every nourishment for the day with a total of 1000kcal (hence the name) per “day pack”. Basically a diet powder. Best comment was “It tastes boring, so instead of water, I mix it with cream.”
It’s like that Marie Callender Pie incident lol
I didn’t know this meme until now, and this image is my favourite. Can’t stop laughing.
“I grilled this pasta for hours and hours, but it wouldn’t go soft!” (Terry Pratchett, “Opera”)
Do people just substitute things that look similar?
I didn’t like egg whites, so I used soap instead. Ew, it tastes like soap!
chef_the_kiss ★☆☆☆☆
I replaced the vanilla extract with balsamic vinegar and it tasted like a disgusting overcooked salad! Why would you let me do that?
somebody wants a mud pie!
Next time maybe mention I shouldn’t use soap in the recipe?
I’m guilty of this. For my pesto recipe I replaced pine nuts with peanuts, olive oil with sunflower oil, basil with spinach, cheese with nooch, but kept the salt, pepper, garlic and citric acid. It’s not exactly pesto anymore at that point, but for a struggle meal it could be a lot worse.
Technically what you made very well could still be “Pesto”, since the word refers to how it’s prepared not what’s in it (shares the same root as Pestle). The basil, pine nut, olive oil, and cheese recipe you were following would be Pesto alla Genovese
Well that’s explains why supermarket “Pesto” is allowed to be completely devoid if olive oil. I hate it so much, it tastes wildly different with sunflower oil than with olive oil.
Oh, I’d use olive oil if my wallet allowed it. But I did quit coffee not too long ago, maybe I should make olive oil my new luxury item.
For sure. I make pesto sometimes with dandelion leaves, olive oil, and walnuts. Any oil you like the flavour of, any bitter green, any nut. Garlic, however, is mandatory.
Ah, but did you then complain that the recipe was bad?
Seeing as I was frankensteining the recipe from several sources, I wouldn’t even know where to complain if I had wanted to, so no.
I wouldn’t even know where to complain if I had wanted to
gold
Like it’s definitely a different thing, but it’s the same general concept, gonna have a wildly different flavor but fill the same kind of culinary niche.
Replacing carrot with kale in a freaking carrot cake is like replacing basil with potatoes.
There are worse ways to riff on a recipe, I don’t know what nooch is but the rest at least sounds like possible replacements. You’re right it wouldn’t be pesto, but I don’t think I’d hate it.
Nooch is nutritional yeast. It’s probably the most expensive ingredient in the recipe hah, but it goes a long way. Even though I’m not vegan, I’ve dabbled with vegan substitutions and nutritional yeast was probably the best part of that journey.
Well those ingredients are way more similar to eachother than “eggs and mashed banana”
Only if you replaced the peanuts with raisins, the basil with pine needles and the olive oil with teriyaki sauce would you have a case for being guilt to this degree.
Actually banana for eggs can work if you know what you’re doing. In many baking recipes, the egg is used as a binder. Pectin (found in fruit) can work as well, but you need to alter the recipe in very specific ways to make it work.
Tell me you’re vegan without telling me you’re vegan ;-)
The hard part is not having every cake taste like banana bread. But I can confirm that it works if you know what to do.
Yep! Got it in one :)
What in the poverty is “nooch”? Also, peanuts have too much flavor and spinach too little compared to their counterparts. I can’t even imagine what that tasted like. Along with the rest that just sounds like sour garlic peanut butter. No thank you.
It’s not a poverty thing, it’s a vegan thing. It’s Nutritional Yeast, which tastes kind of cheesy
It still probably tastes more like pesto than what you get in a jar from the supermarket
Unrelated but if anyone wants to try pesto 2.0, sub the basil for wild garlic and half the pine nuts for cashews, it’s a delightful taste sensation.
Nooch has so many delicious uses.
I got pretty addicted to vegan parmesan. Such a simple and easy thing to put together but oh so tasty.
I’m really loving the last one there. Somehow “shots” is their preferred unit of measure. Most cookies don’t have any liquid ingredients, either, so milk is kind of a wild addition. Then they blame the recipe for being chunky, which I assume is due to the banana that they did a shit job of mashing. The cherry on top is that there is a rating out of five stars at the top (looks like they gave five stars?), but then they throw in a rating out of ten at the bottom. Should have given a thumbs up rating, but I assume the thumbs are busy in their ass.
Sugar is a liquid ingredient
The fuck kind of sugar are you using?
Hey since no one apparently answered you:
In baking, you typically have “dry” ingredients and “wet” ingredients.
Sugar is considered a wet ingredient in the world of baking. In chemistry parlance, it’s hygroscopic so it is mixed with other wet ingredients before adding the dry ingredients.
Gatekeeping is whack. It took me 60 seconds to give you the real answer.
Thank you. This excellent explanation also shows that SpaceNoodle’s reply has absolutely NOTHING to do with what the original commenter was talking about above (measuring cookie ingredients in “shots”), so who knows what SpaceNoodle’s smoking, but I think I’m good without whatever liquid they’re using instead of sugar in their cookie recipes.
Oh wow thank you. Keeping this in mind will help me remember to stop mixing in the sugar with the dry ingredients before reading the rest of the recipe, then having to throw out all of it because I find out that the sugar should’ve been mixed with something else. This is something I’ve done way too many times cause I’m an idiot.
Everything can be a liquid with the appropriate conditions.
I do love me some supercritical sourdough bread
I can see you’re not a baker
No, Dr. “Rather than explaining a patently ridiculous statement, I’m going to make a second vague statement in an effort to make other people feel stupid for kicks”, I’m not a professional baker. I’m a chemistry teacher.
So, since “I can see you’re not a chemist” (see how pretentiously shitty that sounds?) and you are apparently just about as good at following recipes as the numbskulls here, let me teach you something: while you may be in your baker’s la-la-land with your hard-won recipes and art, if you used simple syrup (or as you call it “liquid sugar”, Chef Cordon-Bleu-At-Home) in ANY of the recipes here (or virtually any online mass-consumption recipe, I have yet to find even one that calls for it) instead of actual sugar, your shitty cookies would be more runny than Yoda’s diarrhea in the swamps of Dagobah.
Now, either let’s see a common recipe made for lay-people that calls for simple syrup in cookies, or kindly fuck off with your sanctimonious gatekeeping pretense.
Not sure why the person you’re replying to is refusing to explain. Assuming they’re not a TOTAL idiot, I’d guess they’re alluding to a baking rule of thumb for mixing order. Maybe they learned this rule but they don’t actually understand it well enough to talk about it?
Generally, you include sugar with the “wet” ingredients while baking. It’s a timing thing, it tends to incorporate better and dissolve a little if you mix it with your butter, oil, milk, eggs, etc. Once that’s all mixed in you add your “dry” ingredients like flour and baking soda / powder. Those are easy to over mix so you add them last minute.
Sugar is not a liquid ingredient, it’s just a rule of thumb, the person you’re replying to is being annoying.
Thank you for the excellent explanation. It’s such a shame that some people are apparently categorically incapable of explaining themselves, and feel the need to gatekeep instead to feel superior.
This interpretation makes it clear that their comment was a complete non-sequitur, since it is NOT a liquid, and thus is not a “liquid ingredient in cookies” that might be measured in “shots”.
🙄
“Wet” and “liquid” are not the same word
(For the confused: with baking you put ingredients in specific orders. Sugar is usually included with the wet ingredients)
What on earth do these people think recipes are
Suggestions, clearly.
They kind of are if you understand what role these ingredients play and why. I was able to make an easy substitution in an oatmeal cookie recipe because the nuts I was adding were primarily bulk as was the oats so the substitution worked out fine. If, on the other hand, I replaced oats with more raisins that might not have worked because the raisins would add more moisture.
You can replace like for like provided they are doing the same job
They kind of are if you understand what role these ingredients play and why.
“If”
Yeah and especially for baking recipes. Like they say cooking is an art and baking is a science. Unlike with cooking you can’t really deviate from a baking recipe unless you know what you are doing other wise it is a guaranteed failure.
