BakeClub Blog
What makes a good recipe?
Using a bad recipe is a mistake often made by home cooks. Once you know how to spot the difference between a good and bad recipe, you're well on your way to baking success.
Believe it or not, there are a lot of terrible recipes out there. They can be confusing, missing important elements, contain ingredients that aren’t balanced proportionally and/or have an odd combination of flavours. If you don’t have a good recipe to start with, the results aren’t likely to be spectacular. This is by no means a reflection of your baking ability and you shouldn’t be disheartened.
Quite simply: bad recipe = disappointing result.
So how do you tell a good recipe from a bad one?
A good recipe will be easy to follow and never leave you feeling lost. When you read through it, everything should be easy to understand and it should all make sense. If it doesn’t, just avoid it.
It’s wise to use recipes from reputable sources, such as books, magazines and newspapers. There are many websites and blogs with good recipes too, but you need to be discerning. Who wrote the recipe? Do you trust their ability? Can you source all the ingredients? Will you need to convert any measurements?
Also ask your friends and family where they get their favourite recipes from and when you find one you like, make a note of where it came from so you can easily come back to the source when you need another one.
Our Make Me a Baker program includes a whole module dedicated to "Recipe Know-how" (which includes how to read recipes and write your own) so that our bakers learn how to identify the difference between a good and bad recipe and confidently get the most out of every recipe.
