Making up new baking recipes--help?

I often make up recipes (and if they turn out I try to remember exactly what I did and write it down!) While I've never made up a cookie recipe, I have done so with muffins and cakes.

What I do is take a look at the proportions of the main ingredients of a recipe that I like eg - 2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup fat and 1/2 cup liquid (and I'm sure that there is a chemistry equation somewhere with the right amounts but I don't know it). If I want to make it low fat or low cholesterol, I'll either change the proportion of fat ie half a cup to 1/4 of a cup and make up the liquid either with a fruit puree or yoghurt.

If the recipe does not call for baking soda and I introduce an acid (like fruit puree, yoghurt, buttermilk, juice, cocoa, honey or molasses etc) I will add about 1/2 a tsp or so.

If I want to make the recipe chocolate, I will add cocoa, perhaps 1/4 of a cup but decrease the amount of flour by 1/4 of a cup.

If a basic muffin recipe that you like calls for 2 cups of flour you can change part of the flour to another grain - like corn meal, or whole wheat or bran etc, but be careful of the amounts introduced - a great recipe that calls for 2 cups of flour which is changed to 2 cups of bran is likely to suffer greatly in texture and you'll end up with fibrous hockey pucks. Try maybe 1/2 and 1/2.

Sugar can be changed to other sweeteners like honey or molasses but I'd adjust the total amount of liquid and perhaps add extra flour and extra leavening since these sweeteners are very moist.

I think that you just have to do some trial and error runs and maybe take a look at some sites that have to do with the chemistry of baking. You will probably have a few failures but then the birds and your dog will be happy.

Trial and error. There are certain basic rules such as liquid to flour ratios and rising agent ratio. I would probably start with a cookie that has the same basic properties you want in yours and modify it from there, marking down every change you make. You will probably have to make it and modify it a few times before you are happy.

Trial and error. There's no way of telling new things until you try them out for yourself.

Keep notes of what you do because nothing is more annoying than getting the result you want but not knowing how you did it. Find out what the ingredients do in a recipe - why they are there; understand the way they interact. You can experiment by using different sugars, fats, flours and flavourings. Try doing a chart type thing that also records the differences each change has on the recipe. Taking photographs helps, as does getting family/friends to taste what you have prepared. If you decide that you want to market the product then all the notes/photos can help you prove that the recipe is one that you have developed.

Basic ratios are a good guideline, but they can be messed with. I've made cake-like cookies by increasing liquid and egg, and shortbread like cookies by decreasing them.

Shape can make a difference to cookies as well. Instead of rolling flat and cutting cookies, roll the dough into balls and dip them in stuff.

Decoration makes a huge differece too. Icing is as variation happy as cookies, as are fillings and chocolate/caramel drizzles.

And yeah, definitely write down as you go. Take pics even. Recipe experiments make for great blog fodder.

icerose said:

Trial and error. There are certain basic rules such as liquid to flour ratios and rising agent ratio. I would probably start with a cookie that has the same basic properties you want in yours and modify it from there, marking down every change you make. You will probably have to make it and modify it a few times before you are happy.

Click to expand...

This.

I frequently change recipes, including for baked goods. I usually start with a good, reliable recipe and modify from there - it's much easier than starting from scratch.

I've done a few other things to make "new" recipes. One was to find all recipes I could that were similar to what I wanted to do, and make a chart of the ingredients and proportions. I averaged, picked and choosed, ignored and added, then came up with a wicked ass 3 bowl sour cream chocolate cake that I gave a friend for her birthday.

Another method I've used is demanding inspiration from people. If you could have any cookie you wanted, what would it be? Someone told me they wanted a cookie that was like a "creamsicle" icecream. I claim all rights to the creamsicle cookie because according to the people at work, they really do taste just like them. A perfect summer cookie.
http://www.authorskitchen.com/blog/2011/7/12/cookies-on-demand.html

I do something like kikizaru, except I take 2, 3, or 4 recipes and average them. For example if I wanted to make chocolate cream cheese cookies I'd find a chocolate cheesecake recipe, a chocolate meringue cookie recipe, a brownie/cream cheese swirl recipe, and anything else that involved chocolate and cream cheese. Then I'd look at what ingredients all or most of the recipes shares, and what ingredients were only in one or two, and guess about what that ingredient was contributing.

jennontheisland said:

I've done a few other things to make "new" recipes. One was to find all recipes I could that were similar to what I wanted to do, and make a chart of the ingredients and proportions. I averaged, picked and choosed, ignored and added, then came up with a wicked ass 3 bowl sour cream chocolate cake that I gave a friend for her birthday.

Click to expand...

This is what I do, too; it's how I made awesome coq au vin last year, was by reading several different recipes and picking the bits I liked/thought sounded like they worked best/sounded the most traditional (I'm not usually interested in modern "updates" of classic recipes). I checked several cookbooks and websites and made notes, then added what I know about cooking etc., and ended up with a dish I think was pretty traditional (although no, it did not include chicken blood, because I have a thing about chicken anyway and that was just too much to ask of me) and definitely yummy.

I do that a lot, actually. I'll combine recipes or modify them after reading a few that sound good in the same "family." Just yeah, make sure you take notes!

Even more than cooking, baking is about chemistry. There are a lot of good books out there that give you the basic ratios, and the underlying chemical principles, which is where I start from when creating new recipes. I like Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking or any of the Rose Levy Beranbaum "Bible" series.

Learn the correct dough texture of your cookies and you can do a LOT of playing around. I bake cakes by eye, taste and batter-feel. Also, remember melted butter as opposed to cold butter will result in a more fudgey, heavier final product.

If you want a fluffier cookie, try adding both baking soda and baking powder to the dough. Of course the amounts depend on which the actual recipe calls for, but in my chocolate chip cookies I usually have a tsp of baking soda and a scant 1/4 tsp of baking powder. It makes the cookies rise higher and makes them more cakelike and fluffy.

Worth a try, anyway.