Do you have a recipe you just can’t make?

[gramercie]

My dad made the best French toast. He just had some sort of gift for it.

I know how to make it, but it’s just not the same!

[BlindAssassin1]

My gluten free lasagna is pretty good - have to cook the pasta sheets first otherwise its like biting into chip board.

My curries are always like a veggie stew that are both flavourless but with a hint of turmeric over the top.

[eyesbiggerthanstomach]

Flapjacks!

[flapjackfairy]

Sorry if a bit late to this but I haven't been on this thread for a few days.
I see lots of people struggle with scones well try the BBC good food recipe where you add slightly warm milk. It makes quite a sticky dough that you simple fold over a few times then simply pat flat and cut them out. Preheat the baking sheet before cooking and they are super easy. The best scones ever and you can add dry fruit , cherries etc to them if you want. They are slightly crispy on the outside but soft on the inside.
Delicious and only take a few minutes to make .
Honestly give then a go

[Packingsoapandwater]

@Commentutappelles

Pastry here too. I have the world's hottest hands.
Curry and all things curry ish. They are always poor relations of my local restaurant. I would love to be able to whip up a dal, but no, tastes like shite every time.

I am a competent cook and spent years trying to make recipes from Madhur Jaffrey, even when I knew from reading the ingredients and technique that it wouldn't work.

I could not figure it out; I researched the issue a lot to try and determine what was wrong. I've made really complex recipes from across the Middle East and Central Asia, but I couldn't make an edible curry to save my life.

Then I discovered The Curry Secret. You can get it on kindle. Basically, British restaurant curry is made in a very different way to practically any authentic curry recipe you will find. Everything is built from an an onion base sauce, and without that, you don't get that Indian restaurant taste. Now my curries taste better than the local restaurants.

I've found a cooking disaster is usually about a bad recipe or an oven that runs too hot or cold.

[Bouledeneige]

I'm fine with Yorkshire pudding, (Nigella Lawson has a brilliant and easy recipe). I'm also fine with gravy, pancakes and omelettes. The tip with omelette is to fry till the bottom is a lovely colour and then fold onto the plate so the looser less cooked top foods into the softer middle.

Not so good with meringues and getting them off the paper intact. There's a Recipe for a mousse loaf which I do (mixed white and dark chocolate) where one of the mousses always splits. It's the recipe. So I swap in a different recipe for that one and it always works. I agree about rosti too - it just looks grey.

[Millie2013]

Scones! Bloody scones. My 7yo daughter can make perfect ones.

[Cooltalkin]

If your scones don’t rise then make sure when you cut them that you don’t ‘twist ‘ the cutter as you press down . It should be a straight down action only . I don’t know the science behind it
And all your ingredients need to be cold , handle the doughs little as possible

[Guineapigbridge]

Rice on the stovetop.

(My microwave rice cooker is the best kitchen item I've ever bought).

[whathaveijustseen]

Struggled with scones until I realised I was rolling the mixture out too thin, really it needs to be a minimum of one inch

[ItsAlwaysSunnyOnMN]

Lasagne

Just never comes out right, too much sauce to little sauce, pasta sheets hard or too soft, sauce powdery

It’s one of ds favourite meals luckily friends will often cook it if we going round for dinner as he has told them how great theirs is and how rubbish mine is

Not great at gravy

Rubbish at all cakes

[Yesterdayforgotten]

Bloody meringues. I can bake pretty much every thing else under the sun so well!

[andannabegins]

@Leflic honestly Al's kitchen is the one for you too. Make the base gravy and then that is used as something to add into the spices etc to make the best curries ever. I have made so many now. I will never order curry in again

[andannabegins]

@Atalune

Gravy. It’s always a bit lack lustre and I never make enough!

An authentic curry- but this is lack of knowledge and practise rather than actually being bad at it.

If you want a curry like you get from takeaways (as apprise to authentic Indian food) check out ALs kitchen on your tube. I have made so many and they are genuinely better or at least as good as a takeaway

[Chewbecca]

best scone recipe
After gently mixing all the ingredients together, handle it very little, pat it gently and quickly into a round and cut, then refold.

fave yorkie recipe this is an eggy one. No need to rest the batter.

fab toad in hole recipe really easy.

I also have foolproof dauphinoise (Prue Leith, simmer the potatoes in milk/cream/creme fraiche before baking) and Victoria sponge (Jane Asher, same quantity of sugar, butter, flour as the eggs weigh, use a kitchen aid to get lots of air in) recipes that are not linkable to.

Perfect roast pots need King Edward pots. Par boiled and roasted in olive oil for simple, clean tasting roasties.

I’d love to teach home cooking basics!

[ReviewingTheSituation]

Toad in the hole.

I make the BEST Yorkshire puds, but TITH just doesn't happen for me.

I've tried countless recipes, the fat is always hot, I've used every pan/dish I own. But it never works. I've given up.

[Bakedtreat]

Yorkshires - always hit and miss.

[HuckfromScandal]

Tip for scones, warm the milk in the micro for 30 seconds first. My scones don’t like the milk too cold. And handle it as little as possible

[OhTheRoses]

They are a bit scarce in Surrey . Could buy Halal. I remember my dad bringing a kosher boiling fowl back from London and it was a thrill to see the egg with a shell and five or six more down to the teeniest yolk and they all went in. Just imagine. Going back to the mid 60s though.

[dotdashdashdash]

OhTheRoses kosher (or proper halal) chicken does taste better! She may have a point .

[OhTheRoses]

Chicken Lokshen. My mother says it's because I don't buy kosher chicken.

[Quarantimespringclean]

I also recently discovered the Paul Hollywood scone recipe With strong bread flour. It’s amazing - most of the time. But even using that recipe I still get the occasional batch that doesn’t rise.

Most of the time I’m a good cook. It’s one of my few talents and I,love to cook for friends. . Most of the things cropping up on here I can ace. I make great Yorkshires, pancakes, béarnaise, risotto, poached eggs, lasagne, paella, curry, various breads etc.

My two repeated failures are 1) biryanis - an Indian friend has tried to teach me and they taste OK because she’s coached me on the right spice mixes and the best basmati but the rice is always claggy, not light and fluffy. And 2) Mayonnaise. I would love to be able to whip up a delicious unctuous aioli but it’s always thin and runny.

I’m also not good at cake decorating. Anything more complex than a lemon drizzle is beyond me. I watch the beautiful things they make on Bake Off and am awe struck.

[dotdashdashdash]

Flap jacks. I am a good cook, a good baker. I can make almost everything everyone has mentioned on this thread without a recipe. But I cannot make flapjacks. You could build a house with mine!

[Nicklebox]

My brother in law gave me some tips for perfect rice when we stayed with them about 20 years ago basically lots of water start from cold and rinse well with boiling water at the end. I have been doing this ever since and always have good results. After Christmas this year the family all came over to us for a meal and i cooked rice, he asked me how i cooked it as it came out well and when i told him it was his tips that i followed he was dumbfounded lol. My sister in law makes perfect Victoria sponges and when i asked her what her method was she said she does everything really quickly with the hand mixer even adding in the flour I spend ages and carefully fold in flour slowly there's no justice

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

@BarrelOfOtters - have you tried the all-in-one method for white sauce?

Put the cold butter, flour and milk into a pan, and heat gently, whisking all the time, until it thickens. I don't even bother measuring the ingredients now - I use a biggish dollop of butter, tip in a couple of tablespoons or so of flour, and slosh in a generous amount of milk - if I want more sauce, I just make the dollops/tips/slosh bigger.

I have never been able to do white sauce properly, with a roux, but this method never fails me.

If the sauce doesn't thicken, I just whisk in a bit more flour.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

@Cavagirl

*gloopy mess!

I don't know, @Cavagirl - gloomy mess seemed pretty appropriate to me!!