Not sharing recipes

[ThreeHousesNoHouse]

Aibu to find it annoying and childish when people don’t share recipes. As if it makes them special to be the only one who can make a dish.

Even giving a general direction is fair enough e.g. the chicken has paprika and cumin or ‘I put beetroot in the chocolate cake but it’s a family secret recipe so I won’t go into detail’ is fine.

My mil once told me the recipe for dh’s favourite stew she made ‘is somewhere on the internet maybe’ eyeroll.
At least own it and say ‘I want to be the only one able to make his favourite dish’.

It’s more weird when vague acquaintances won’t share. E.g. church bring and share, but won’t share the recipe.

If I make the cake at the next bring and share we will all know it’s Gladys’ recipe. If I make it at the school cake sale how will that affect Gladys?

To clarify I as pp said. No one would expect a professional to divulge trade secrets.

@ThreeHousesNoHouse I would totally tell you that information! I would not divulge the 2 packs of Coleman's Sausage Casserole sauce, 3 heaped ladles of lard and 4 crushed custard creams that I also added though.

I make a few dishes that other have tried, but they don't work. That's because I adjust the ingredients/ cooking times and temperatures according to how I think they're working, nothing to do with it being a secret.

""Damn you KFC" ~ that company is the worst for that ha ha

I get like that like why don't you just say I'd be honoured if someone wanted a recipe to something id cooked lol. But I also get annoyed when I say to someone (out of common courtesy rather than actually liking it) that the food was lovely and they start reeling off the recipe

"Errrrr no claudia I don't really like you sloppy cottage pie love I was only being polite" ~ note to self stop telling people you like their cooking to be polite

people often ask me for recipes and I will freely give them, but I do say I rarely follow a recipe directly, it's more guidelines than actual rules....like the Pirate Code! :o :o

and I know they think I am being difficult, but really it's how I cook

onions could be subbed for spring onions red onions or leeks
bacon lardons, subbed for ham, prosciutto, smoked/unsmoked streaky, maybe an odd bit of chorizo
tomatoes...might be fresh, tinned, passata, a few sundried in oil from the back of the fridge
...you get the gist, but folks who cannot manage without a recipe don't understand how people can work like that

Also am pretty good at working out how to make things from tasting the meal...a nice starter in a restaurant for example....dh is always asking me to make stuff he has had out.

Surely mash is a challenge of how much butter, cream, creme fraiche (trust me, it's delicious) salt and pepper you can get a few spuds to absorb.

Urgent question - where can I find @Soupdragon's amazing flapjack recipe? I can feel the need to bake coming on. (My mum used to use the Bero recipe and they tasted amazing but I can never get them th e same )

I’m thinking I should hold out more to retain a air of mystery but I think those days are long gone. You can add stuff like spices, raisins, chocolate (stir some squares through when the mixture is warm)... whatever. Tweak away.

250g porridge oats (the cheap type, not large ones),
150g Butter,
2 generous tablespoons (75g) Golden Syrup
half a tin condensed milk

baking tin, no bigger than about 18cm x 28cm

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees c
2. Line the baking tin with baking parchment.
3. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat and add the syrup. Keep gently heating and stirring until all is melted and mixed.
4. Add the condensed milk and mix. Bring to the boil for about a minute. If I'm honest, I just bung the milk in at step 3.
5. Remove from the heat and gradually add the oats, folding them in. All the oats should be coated, and the mixture quite dense, but still sticky. Don't add so many oats that the mixture becomes dry.
6. Pour the mixture into the tins and spread about so that it lines the tin to a depth of 2-3cm. Don't squash the mixture in, just spread it evenly.
7. Bake in the oven for about 15mins. You should take them out when they just start to go brown round the edges, don't leave longer than this. If they're still squidgy in the middle that's fine, they set on cooling.

TBH, it’s a MN recipe anyway as it came about when someone asked about shop bought ones having condensed milk in them and asked about a recipe. I found one on google and tweaked it til I was happy. I’ve never been able to find the original again.

It wouldn't exist without MN

But SoupDragon - do you know how enjoyable it is to say to people, these are SoupDragon's flapjacks? People of a certain age will always say, "Do they have blue string in them?"

Mind, I like the notion of taking a saga approach and explaining that the Ur-flapjack was MN but various adaptations through generations have lead to the splendour of the present day SoupDragon flapjack. :)

Thank you SoupDragon. As a quid pro quo if you want a recipe for chocolate rolo caramel muffins then let me know!!

Thanks @SoupDragon I've heard of your mythical flapjacks but never seen the recipe before. I'll give them a try this week.

In exchange for all the lovely recipes shared so far I can offer up the https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/easychocolateecake31070 I've used this chocolate cake recipe for years including when I was making wedding cakes for a living. I've been asked for the recipe umpteen times and can't imagine not sharing it - why wouldn't I? I tend to add a spoon of coffee granules to the boiling water at the end and be warned, it is a very wet batter so springform tins should be avoided as it just drips through!

Oh and to the PP who posted the Pinterest link to the fudge recipe on a gravestone - genius!! I think I may have the choc cake one put on mine!

They’ve taken that recipe down @Balloondog 🙁

Hope you’ve got it saved!

Panic over, tiny typo in your link!

I once “invented” Lindor muffins. Basically shove a whole Frozen Lindor into a chocolate muffin before baking. Make a topping by making buttercream with melted Lindor in.

Having googled a phrase from the flapjack recipe I now know it appears in several places online in blogs. One person has tried to pass it off as their own.

I once “invented” Lindor muffins. Basically shove a whole Frozen Lindor into a chocolate muffin before baking. Make a topping by making buttercream with melted Lindor in.

There's a place round Charing X/Gerrard St. in London that sells 'gourmet doughnuts' at £4+ each. Some of the £4.50+ ones are basically a doughnut with 6 squares of a chocolate bar on top of the icing as decoration (for all I know there is some chopped up in the batter but I don't know). Squares of chocolate. Broken up Oreos (I think). And a couple with Rolos on.

I could make a fortune...!

I have never heard of people not sharing recipes before. I can understand corporations like KFC guarding their receipes for commercial reasons but surprised at people being so far up their own arse they won't give a family receipes out. I thought some of the responses about not sharing was a joke and then realised people were serious.
Completely bonkers. It's only something to eat not a question abiut national security!
Thankfully I have friends who say ' oh, it's a Jamie Oliver one but I added.......' or 'I'll jot it down before you go ( and do so)

In the US it makes me laugh when people do this because so many family recipes seem to be made of a mix of brand-name tinned soups. So invariably, you'll find the secret is "I use 50% Campbell's Cream of Mushroom and 50% Heinz for the gravy". Could just be the midwest though...

My best recipe for perfect Yorkshire batter when you don't have scales:

For every 1 egg add 4 tablespoons plain flour, 4 tablespoons water, 4 tablespoons milk. These quantities make 4, and they rise like champions.

My grandmother was an amazing cook. Every recipe she reluctantly shared was obviously not what she cooked because it was not the same. It wasn't a matter of her using shortcuts, she was a Croat and everything was from scratch.

I love baking and if someone asks for the recipe to what I've baked I feel quite honoured. That said there was a work colleague who used to make amazing mince pies people used to order them by the dozen for Christmas and she used to charge only £1.50 per dozen and she used to make in excess of 80+ dozen. She used to book 2 days a/l to get them done, it was her pastry it was delicious so one day I asked her for the recipe. She laughed and walked away. Well this made me all the more determined to discover it for my self , so went on google and after trying out a lot of various recipes came across Paul Hollywood's mince pie recipe and voila exactly same crumbly melt in mouth pastry

People really do this? It’s making me chuckle.....

I often try out new recipes on my work colleagues and they often ask for the recipe. I run a cooking blog in my spare time so I just send them a link If they ask. Recipes should be shared, no recipe is original, it’ll have been done somewhere before.

I've literally never come across this. Sounds bizarre. Why would someone not share a recipe? Sounds petty.

It makes me happy when people ask for a recipe after eating something I’ve made and share them I do. I plan to put together books of favourite family recipes to give to each of my children when they move out, those foods are part of so many good memories for them! Two years for Christmas a few years back, I made and sold caramel/chocolate/roasted almond covered apples to help with paying for Christmas, but even while doing that I still gave the recipe away to those that asked for it. 😬 They’re quite a lot of work though, so I wasn’t worried about anyone I knew trying to compete with me!