Recipes that don't work!! Grrrrrr.

Try watching 'How To Cook That' on YouTube.
She may not have the recipes you want but she's a fantastic cook and great at debunking recipes found online etc.

I am too old and too lazy to try and follow new recipes these days. I rely on my old favourites. I no longer use my oven . I have my slow cooker, my Mini Vortex air fryers (2) and my microwave. Sponge pudding is delicious cooked in the latter. Bread and butter pudding and creme brûlée are done I the microwave . I do concoct my own recipes o=ccasionally which involves using up left overs!

kittylester

And, to add insult to injury it contained 8 sliced garlic cloves and 4 peeled, deseeded tomatoes.

You'll be safe from vampires then!

The only recipes I find that work without fail are Delia Smiths. Nigella Lawson cake recipes - fail everytime.

Gwyllt

Mine is a cheap and cheerful one from Lidl. The bigger capacity. Was reluctant at the idea but find it really useful. Don’t know if more expensive one are any better or just have more knobs

I mainly bought a more expensive one because it has a big capacity and a griddle plate which gives nice stripes to grilled steak. Also a temperature probe which is great for joints, especially if cooked at a low temperature.

Love air fryer if I am doing a batch of cooking though will use oven . Also slow cooker use boiled bacon joint- chicken chasseur or any casserole slow cooker succulent. I am a simple cooking person no fancy stuff have to admit never make a dinner party hard work!!!

I think the proportion of recipes fully tested is actually quite low. The photographs are rarely accurate representations. Steam from hot food, lights drying the dish out, and other factors all affect the look of a photograph. Thus food is often cooled and glazed with inedible washes to make them look good.
Having said that, the quality of ingredients we buy and the performance of our ovens can vary hugely.

I have a pear and gingerbread upside down cake in the oven. The recipe called for a 20cm cake tin. Ha! The mixture was too much for that size of tin. I had to tip it all into a bigger one. It won't be quite as good because the sticky toffee layer has become mixed into the rest of the cake. We'll see what it's like in approximately 30 minutes.

Stick to our reliable favourites : Delia, Hairy Bikers, and whatshername ( tv Queen)

Have had so many disappointments with newspaper recipes that I just ignore them now no matter how tempting they look

Many years ago I had a friend who made up recipes and sent them in to a newspaper. The more bizarre they were the happier she was. Really couldn't believe the newspaper actually printed them.

Plunger

The only recipes I find that work without fail are Delia Smiths. Nigella Lawson cake recipes - fail everytime.

I must admit that I have absolutely no faith in Nigella Lawson. Many of her recipes are really basic so would presumably work, but they'd be for everyday things that I'd make anyway from well-know tried and tested recipes of my own.
However I love Nigel Slater, Delia Smith and the sainted Mary Berry - their recipes always work.
Many other cooks (some from long ago) also seem to test their recipes including Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson and her daughter Sophie.
Another irritating thing is when the index of a book is incomplete or wrong when you want to find a recipe.

LauraMeredith

Many years ago I had a friend who made up recipes and sent them in to a newspaper. The more bizarre they were the happier she was. Really couldn't believe the newspaper actually printed them.

They’ll the ones I did then 🥴

I cooked belly of pork in our air fryer. It was as tough as old boots. I was trying to recreate it from Côte Brasserie which IS always meltingly soft but they cook using the sous vide method.

Oh dear I’ve just put a boneless pork shoulder in the oven on 120 fan with onion, carrot and celery around it plus a Kallo stock cube in some hot water - not feeling optimistic now, it’s the first time I’ve tried this. (Will it be the last?!)

So sorry that you had a cooling failure.
I've had a few disasters and it always seems to be for an important occasion !
It is why I stick to my own tried and tested recipes .
Never again will I attempt a cake devised by Nigella Lawson - much as I like her .
A friend and I felt really frustrated with a Delia Smith cake .

New recipes can be tricky even if you follow to the letter. No matter how many I cut out, write down, print off the internet, given by friends, new cookbooks… I STILL stick to my tried and true recipe box. I’ve made those hundreds of times, they’re never fail. I feel like a Master Chef.

Always fun to try a new recipe though - it’s going to be either a winner or a dumpster fire. Sometimes you give it a second chance with your tweaks or substitutions.

When something is a total failure it’s always $$ down the drain. Ouch 😓

I've only cooked pork belly strips, on a layer of sliced potatoes and onions, slowly for about an hour, lid on roasting tin until the last 20 minutes to brown it.

We had loin of pork the other week, uit was just right and the crackling was very good.

The cake turned out well. Only thing missing was the sticky layer on the bottom. Husband and son have had second helpings.

Most of my recipes are from old 1960's Marguerite Patton cook books with my more recent tweeks to basic recipes. For baking I use either the Bero or Stork booklets and they are so reliable. for me. I suppose I'm lucky that most of my my visitors tastes are for nostalgia, and they love my cooking/baking

Some recipes appeared on Facebook that replaced flour with oats. I bought all the ingredients and a cake tin for a breakfast recipe but it was vile. Might as well have made a bowl of porridge and added fruit to it. The rooks enjoyed it, though. I then tried a ZOE app recipe for breakfast pancakes made with ( yes, you guessed it…oats again). They just stuck to the pan. When I read the comments ( yet again after I’d made them…I always make that mistake) people said they were just a gooey mess! Being me I had to eat them as I hate waste. I ate the oat cake a couple of times before I gave it to the birds but found myself dreading breakfast time!

I used to work for a cookery writer who wrote her recipes on scraps of paper while she cooked, so they were very accurate. They often turned up on my desk in a very messy state, covered in blobs of what she had been making!

For anyone trying assorted recipes, the BBC FOOD site has masses of tried and trusted ones, usually with reviews.

Even if you find a recipe from someone else, it's worth checking if that BBC site has something similar.

Of the 'celeb' chefs, I'm pretty sure that Mary Berry and Delia Smith ones have all been thoroughly tested. If you're OK with the more 'throw it together' type dishes, then Jamie Oliver does some decent 'quick' ones, also the Hairy Bikers (RIP). James Martin should also be OK, though I'd likely swerve anything from foreign climes with any ingredients that need faffing about to find??!

[Oh, that point re ovens is a good one, they are notorious for having temp variations!]

Using Mary Berry's Baking Bible I made her Very Best Scones, weighing the ingredients exactly. They looked lovely and were very light. Unfortunately they left a metallic aftertaste. I guess this came from the baking powder. I could have another go but don't know how much I would need to reduce the baking powder to get rid of that taste.

I'd likely swerve anything from foreign climes with any ingredients that need faffing about to find??

Those are just the recipes that appeal to me! 😂