# How do you invent recipes? if u do that...



## galit (Mar 28, 2007)

Hi,

I went to pastry school but unfortunatelly, I never got any idea of what to do if I want to come up with my own recipes. I know that everyone is making recipes based on old ones. Almost no one is inventing new things these days ...these recipes have been around for thousands of years...

But - how do you play with recipes? how do you add something and cut something else?
Baking is all about balance and science and I really want to find my way in making my own versions of recipes....

I would love to hear what your thoughts are!


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## scifimom (Apr 10, 2007)

I can't help you with coming up with fabulous ideas to take a recipe and turn it into something else, but I can help you with knowing how a recipe is affected if you add/remove ingredients. Get the book BakeWise by Shirley O. Corriher. Shirley was a chemist who became a baker. Her book goes into major detail on how and why ingredients affect each other. At least you will know that if you decrease the egg yolks you will change the texture.


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## galit (Mar 28, 2007)

I will look into this book!


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## lwp (Oct 28, 2005)

Doing something completely new is incredibly difficult at this point. Doing something in a new way is much more likely to happen. Cooks have been clever and innovative for as long as there has been cooking. New equipment, new ingredients, new knowledge can all lead to new ways of doing things and it's always possible to do new variations on a theme (alternate flavors, arrangements, etc.) but the base behind the concept has probably been done by somebody somewhere at some point. I do a lot of reading and researching on food history and just recently got a little kick in the butt about the origins of ideas myself. I was under the assumption that savory ice creams (something I experiment with frequently) were a cool, relatively recent innovation mainly to be found in upscale places. That is, until I found a 180 year old recipe for parmesan cheese ice cream. A simple thing but it drove home the point that doing something truly new is a monumental task and achievement these days.


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## ed buchanan (May 29, 2006)

Somewhere, someplace, by somebody , it's been done before, all we do is modify or alter it.


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## cheffzj80 (Sep 3, 2009)

Amen.... Don't try to claim you are the creator of something new... Because it has already been done. HOWEVER... that should never discourage us from trying to do something in a new way or with different ingredients. 

The key for me is understanding the science in the recipe. Reading into the reactions between ingredients. Recognizing the effect that each cooking method you use creates. 

After I feel like I have a certain recipe down pat I will modify it, again, and again, and again. Before I know it, a nearly new recipe is before me. I might feel like I've created an original idea... but low and behold... I'll run into it somewhere else at someone else's establishment. 

Be creative... Think outside the box.... Be proud of your successful creations... Your patrons will appreciate it.


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## m brown (May 29, 1999)

In order to create your own recipes, you must understand ratios, formulas and balance. Your culinary school should have shown you this!


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## nichole (Sep 16, 2009)

Well you can't really tell that you can do something like that. Eventually you can be creative. Do it on your own way, experiment, and you know how to measure stuff like this. So in other words, YOU can make your own recipe and procedure. By this you can call it on your own. :bounce:


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## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Recipe creation usually involves bringing standard techniques to standard ingredients in new ways. It starts with a very good idea of what you want to do. 

When I create recipes I usually do so with the idea of teaching two things: Specific techniques and how to create certain sorts of flavor profiles. In other words, for any given recipe my emphasis is as much on teaching basic cheffish technique as it is about the particular recipe. 

I believe that given good technique and a good palate, anyone can adapt or create recipes. Consequently, I try and impart enough knowledge so the reader can create food which reflects her specific needs or tasts -- whatever they are. Only occasionally will I write and post a recipe that is more about my own tastes than about teaching. 

Perfecting a recipe is something I learned when cooking in a restaurant where the bulk of the menu changed daily with very few repeats in the course of a year. Knowing how certain changes in ingredients, times, temperatures, amounts will affect a recipe is a big part, so is experimentation. Fortunately, they reinforce one another. The trick is to stay disciplined and have some idea of what you're going for, rather than adding ingredient after ingredient becaue it seems like a good idea at the time. 

This isn't a suggestion that you create or adapt the sort of recipes I do. Whether cooking, creating recipes or writing them, a specific focus makes it easier to do a good job. Happy accidents are all very well, but a plan and disciplined experimentation is surer. 

BDL


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## nick.shu (Jul 18, 2000)

I smell something dodgy here.


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## jonesg (Apr 6, 2008)

most bakers have a hard enough time mastering the established formulas.
doing it right would be something new for many.


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## galit (Mar 28, 2007)

your answers are so interesting and mind provoking.

I wish they taught balances, or even just more food technology at my school but that what I got so Thanks a lot for these feedbacks!


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## petemccracken (Sep 18, 2008)

Pick up a copy of "Ratio" by Michael Ruhlman TOMORROW!

It will give you the essential fundamentals to build on.


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## chefbillyb (Feb 8, 2009)

Recipe creation comes with thinking outside the box. The thing is we are all creatures of habit. Be the person that walks against the crowd. Look at all your culinary education as the vehicle that takes you down the road of creativity and the windows are your eyes of change. The only limits a person has in the creation of new ideas are the limitations they but on themselves. I don't think any artist would agree that every painting has been painted,or a sculptor would agree that every sculpture has been created ............Bill


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## bekazu (Sep 22, 2009)

For "new" recipes I start with one I have and set out to turn it into something different. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies are basic but a good example: Find a recipe that you like the basic flavor of but maybe not the crispness, or you want to layer flavors. Experiment and test with changing fats, flours, moisture content, whole eggs vs. yolks only or whites only, sugar type or extracts. Take note of how each change effects the overall product and keep the ones you like or revert to the original on the ones you don't.

Basically if you understand formula, ingredient function and baker's ratios you can teach yourself to "make" new recipes.


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