No recipe today, quite the opposite. My passion for baking has made me join many groups on Facebook related to cookie decorating, macarons, patisserie in general. One of the most common requests in those groups is “I want to start baking macarons… please give me a foolproof recipe”… or… I want to make decorated sugar cookies, but I want a cookie recipe that won’t spread, and the BEST Royal icing that will be easy to work with. Similar requests for bread baking, or pie crust, or laminated dough… Basically they believe that “the best recipe” is the answer to all issues. Guess what? It is not. Just to give one basic example, you can make macarons using three very different methods for the meringue (French, Swiss, Italian), and they will ALL work, if you add to it the one key ingredient no one lists in any recipe: PRACTICE.
About a year ago, I fell for something I saw advertised. A cookie recipe that was so good that you could only get it by paying for it through the author’s etsy shop. I was so intrigued, that I confess I did pay. I paid almost $20 to get ONE recipe for cookie dough, which is probably the price I pay for most cookbooks I own. It turns out that magical recipe was almost exactly the one I’ve been using for a long time, with minor differences. It taught me a big lesson. It is NOT the recipe. It is your experience, the “feel” you develop for something once you do it over and over and over.
Royal icing is tricky. Consistencies need to absolutely perfect depending on what you want to do with it. I’ve been decorating cookies on a regular basis for at least 3 years and I can tell you that every single recipe out there will work once you get used to it, once you PRACTICE. No recipe will replace practice. Some recipes tend to attract a lot of attention, because all of a sudden a group of seasoned bakers start praising it and then those who are just beginning their baking journey will try it. If that fails, they assume THEY are the failure. Trust me, most recipes can work if you allow yourself to get acquainted with the different steps, and commit to practicing it. Yes, I do sound like a broken record today…
Do I have recipes I consider excellent and tend to go back to all the time? Yes. My Grown-up Spicy Chocolate Cookie dough is one. My default French macaron recipe is another. But even those, it took me MANY attempts at making and optimizing it, until I felt comfortable with them. I now add different flavorings to the chocolate dough, omit the chipotle, take it into different directions with orange or cardamon, but the overall procedure is the same and I am confident about tweaking it because I have made it more than 100 times. If my dough behaves different one day, I can tell, and I can do the adjustments because I got the “feel” for it. No recipe gave it to me, it was just practice. Over, and over.
Sugar cookies are another example. Some recipes omit baking powder and add cornstarch. I am quite fond of that basic approach. After trying many different versions, for my particular goals, a little bit of baking powder is a good thing, but not as much as most recipes call for. Yes, baking powder makes the cookies rise UP, which is not a bad thing. But it also gives them a rounded edge I don’t care for if I am decorating with Royal icing. I rather have a more flat surface all the way to the edge. Omitting baking powder completely is perfect in that sense, but the texture of the cookie suffers. So I use 1/4 tsp of baking powder for a nice compromise (a favorite recipe of mine is this one, but I vary the flavors all the time). It works for me, but it took me months of tweaking, observing the results and testing again. And again. Another whole universe is stamped cookies in which keeping the design is a must . Different molds behave better with some recipes than others. No single recipe will be a winner. But once you commit to finding what works for you, it will all fall in place.
Bottomline is, every time someone begs for the perfect recipe and expects success, I tend to roll my eyes to the ceiling a bit. You want the perfect recipe? Be ready to work for it. You have to make it happen in your kitchen, with your oven, your ingredients and for your personal taste. No one, absolutely no one can do it for you. Baking is one of the most rewarding activities, if you enjoy the path. Including the failures, the mistakes, the less than stellar results. Don’t expect the perfect recipe to be handed to you, instead make it materialize. Work with it, and above all, make your path fun!
ONE YEAR AGO: Pfeffernusse
TWO YEARS AGO: Clay Pot Pork and Tomatillo Braise
THREE YEARS AGO: Vegan Chocolate-Dipped Cinnamon Cookies
FOUR YEARS AGO: Lemony Barley with Shrimp and Spinach
FIVE YEARS AGO:Black Rice with Roasted Cauliflower
SIX YEARS AGO:La Couronne Bordelaise
SEVEN YEARS AGO: A Special Birthday Dinner
EIGHT YEARS AGO: Duck Confit for a Special Occasion
NINE YEARS AGO: Tuscan Grilled Chicken and Sausage Skewers
TEN YEARS AGO: Celebrate Wednesday with Pork Tenderloin & Apples
ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Salmon Wellington
TWELVE YEARS AGO: The Green Chip Alternative
THIRTEEN YEARS AGO: Weekend Pita Project
FOURTEEN YEARS AGO: Let it snow, let it snow, eggs in snow
Bewitching Kitchen 
These cookies are absolute perfection! So beautiful!
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Thank you!
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Bravo! You’ve nailed it! In this age of Instagram shots, highly stylized food images everywhere, and a seemingly unending quest for “the best”, too many folks want shortcuts so they too can have “perfection” first time, every time. As a boulanger, I too feel your discomfort when I’m asked to share “the best recipe” for baguettes or a high-hydration dough. I’ve stopped doing so, as too many people have expressed disappointment when their first (and usually only) attempt fails to meet their expectations. To reiterate, I applaud your directness and hope that someone will see your point about practice and experience.
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thank you SO SO much for your input…. In bread baking I think everything is even worse, because practice is even more important, particularly if you talk about higher hydration dough, so I hear you…. Baguettes are the final frontier, in my opinion, as shaping them is so important and I am 100% sure a first, second, third attempts will never be the best, and that’s a GOOD thing. Practice, only practice makes perfect, or almost perfect….
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I was just going to say exactly this! I’m not a dessert baker, but I’ve found that bread-baking can vary a great deal from day to day, making the same recipe behave differently due to many factors. I live in the Colorado Rockies at almost 9,000 feet of elevation, and the physics of baking is very different up here from sea level. Even the humidity (very low!) up here matters to the dough. As Sally says, practice is the magic ingredient, and there are no shortcuts.
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Exactly!!!!!
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I agree, it has taken me many years to perfect recipes and lots and lots of practice. Very well done article. Thank you for sharing.
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thank you for your feedback!!!
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As in life, practice makes better. You absolutely gave the ‘best’ answer. I see those same posts and frankly, have grown a little weary of them, especially pertaining to macarons. When I see someone make a very saturated color macaron for the first time and it doesn’t work, they always ask, ‘what did I do wrong?’. How about working with a basic, no color option till you understand what macaronage is supposed to look/feel like? FWIW, this attitude is not limited to baking. It exists in all fields, sports, subjects, activities, etc. Did Roger Federer win Wimbledon the first time he played tennis? Don’t get me started… oh wait, you already did. 😉
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Oh, I LOVE NOTHING BETTER than get you started!!!!!! 😉 totally agree with you on the macarons over-saturated with color, that is one shortcut for failure if you’ve never made macarons…
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Absolute Truth, with all things worth achieving.
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indeed, probably works for everything, painting, knitting, photography – there is no shortcut. Do the work, expect to fail, fail again, and keep going!
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YES, YES, YES!!! There is no substitute for practice and experience! Your cookies are a continuing miracle, and both of your blogs are a total delight! Your macarons are a true marvel, too, as everyone can see in the example in the photograph here!
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You are sweeter than the sweetest macaron with ganache filling!!!!
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This makes so much sense to me. And I do think Instagram has messed with people’s brains!!! I’m not a baker, but the same philosophy applies to cooking.
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Yes, Instagram with its fast reels of professionals creating beauties in seconds and leaving a speedy, simplified recipe in the body of the post, are misleading many.
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With respect for your basic message, I had good luck with the linked “Neat-Edge Sugar Cookies” recipe (but noted that the directions in the linked recipe don’t ever tell you to add the baking powder). That said, getting royal icing to exactly the right consistency takes some effort and time. I’m sure that it would become less painful if I did it more often.
This whole topic reminds me of the question I asked about how often members of the Fans of the Great British Bake Off Fans bake. Answer: the best bakers bake multiple times per week, which is probably what’s required to maintain developed skills. This, in turn, reminded me of the claim that it takes “10,000 hours” of meaningful practice to develop world-class skills in anything (I like to think of this as 20 hours/week for ten years to express it in a more intuitively understandable terms).
As it turns out, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch (TANSTAAFL).
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oh, there is a boo-boo in THAT recipe? That is insane – I will check it out tonight… Yes, TANSTAAFL BIG TIME!
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So many people want to be spoon fed an exact formula and process without doing any research or practice of their own. I am more of a bread baker than cookies but I see the same thing on my bread baking groups…so much so that I have begun to pull back a bit from participating in them. I am always happy to help and share but do some of the work! There are so many variables involved that even an exact formula and process will have different results !
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yes, bread baking definitely a perfect example of practice being a must!
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Good post! Experience is priceless with baking and decorating and cooking in general. So too, there is nothing wrong with sticking with tried and true recipes. I recently tried a recipe for a cookie on another site that was supposedly great. No. Bland. I even made it again with adjustments to flavor. No. It is the cookies texture. I shall place that recipe in the circular file. It was not me; it was their recipe.
You do beautiful work and I am very pleased with all the recipes I have tried via your posts. I look forward to your posts and ideas.
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Yes, no doubt that some recipes lack something and are plain “bad” – I’ve had a few of those, and it is a shame, but it does happen. So basically it makes the practice even more relevant, because truth is, a bad recipe will never work, but “the perfect recipe” will only get there if you work with it to “perfect” it in your kitchen.
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THIS! In 52 years of baking, I have “my” perfect recipes that will one time or another will just not work out as well as before. Is it my botching a technique, or,the age of the flour?, mis-measuring? Usually I don’t know, but doing it again, often figure out what made the difference. Baking is “scientific” in that proportions, ingredients and their interactions are specific, usually, to a recipe, but there are so many variables in ambient temperature, humidity, oven regulation, human forgetfulness or clumsiness or even what brand of ingredient is used. So, accept that imperfection will happen and, usually, it will taste good. Most folks don’t bake their own goods, so be proud of yourself if you do.
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PERFECT! my feelings exactly…… why would anyone believe perfection can be achieved without work?
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Hurrah! You can learn to make anything if you are motivated to make it. You may have your grandmother’s vague recipe or some tome by a famous chef. You still have to measure, interpret, taste, adjust, perhaps work with different materials. There is no one right way to do anything in the kitchen.
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oh WOW! Long time no see!!!! great to have you here….. Agree with you 100%
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So great to hear such support for your post. It was needed to be said. Not that Instagram, marketing “geniuses”, and others give a hoot, but those of us who have done this for years and/or for a living know this post is spot on.
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I am quite pleasantly surprised by the feedback too. Normally I don’ t get that many comments and often feels like a lonely job to write the posts and publish them – so in a way this gives me energy to keep going!!!!! another 14 years? who knows?
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Sally, this is one of the best articles you have written and all of your articles are spot on, informative and a great aid to the experienced, novice and professional. I often think, helped along by Tic Tock, Instagram, etc. that people actually think you can perfect baking in one try. And, as you said, they leave blaming the recipe or the author. I look forward to each article you send out….. especially the baking or dessert ones. I know you have a wonderful profession outside of this, but you could easily be a pastry professional. Don’t go anywhere – we need you and your inspiration.
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I had to make a screenshot of your comment – when I feel discouraged I will read it! THANK YOU! I don’t intend to stop blogging, I am feeling a second wind actually (can one have a second wind after 14 years??????)
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Oh my everything looks so beautiful you are a true artist. Such perfection which, sadly, makes me despair that I will ever be able to do even the most simple decorations. Thank you, nevertheless, for your inspiring posts
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Plus, once they get the “perfect” recipe, they change it and wonder why it didn’t work out!
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ALthough, sometimes that change is a good one. Sometimes not.
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Exactly!! Even though I’ve been baking so long my hair is gray, I still can’t make a decent 15 second icing. Why? Because I don’t making it often enough. I know this. Because I don’t like the taste of royal icing, so don’t bother to try and perfect it. (I keep vowing to try egg whites instead of powder, but forget).
This is like someone commenting on a recipe saying it’s awful, while also sharing all the substitutions they made. Ugh!
Baking is both science and art. You aren’t going to get the Mona Lisa on the first try. Also, looks and taste don’t always go together…I’m looking at you Pinterest and instagram. Now that everyone is so into those I’ve gone to parties with beautiful baked goods that taste so awful I’ve snuck them into the trash. If it doesn’t look good you are only halfway there. If it doesn’t taste good, you’re still only halfway there.
Wonderful post Sally!
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Thank you for this post. People ask me for the bread recipe I use and of course I give it to them. And then I tell them it’s the technique more than the recipe. No recipe can include all the tips and all the tweaks in response to weather or flour variations or other conditions. Or individual oven peculiarities. Now I can just refer them to this post and then invite them over to bake with me.
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such a great post, Sally – and wonderfully well said. It is SO true. And as a recipe writer, it is teeth-gritting time when someone tries one of the recipes for the first time but either changes lots of the variables in their first go (and wonders why it doesnt quite work out!) or wants perfection immediately without being prepared to work at it
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