Online Recipe Frustrations

If I find another recipe on Pinterest that is based on a cake mix I will throw my mobile, iPad or Macbook to the wall! Pinterest is my source of inspiration (especially) for long-lost flavours of my childhood or whenever I need new culinary inspirations. It is one of the greatest time waster websites, and I keep telling myself that all the information on gardening, cooking or baking that I find will be put to good use.

So far the gardening tips have worked like a charm, especially since I am growing certain vegetables for the first time. The bread baking tips have not been too bad either, (especially the German recipes) and I truly enjoy making the fresh breads and rolls over the weekends for luxuriously long brunches. The greatest success has been with the cheesecake recipes, and so far I have tried a plethora of cheesecake manifestations, ranging from old-fashioned German and Austrian ones to New York Cheesecake.

However, I keep running into so many recipes originating from North America that are based on instant cake mixes or call for stick of butter and it drives me absolutely nuts. Give me grams or cups, but for heavens sake don’t give me one can of this, one packet of that, and one box if this cake mix. Another pet peeve in this journey is when the recipe calls for evaporated milk or condensed milk, neither of which you find here.

Do people no longer bake from scratch? This abominable concept of cake mixes was of course designed for people who lead busy lives or are not inclined to perpetuate grandmother’s old family secret, and I will not deny resorting to a brownie mix on ocassion. My mother banned such mixes from the house, and I followed suit for the most part, so you will never find instant pancake mix in my pantry, for example or even pizza dough. Not only do I make both of those from scratch because of the flours I prefer, but I can also control the consistency much better.

The older I get the greater the need to do everything as natural as possible, a return to basics and reacquaintance with textures and flavours that truly matter.