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My nana's cookie recipe was just scribbled on a napkin
Found it in an old cookbook last weekend. She wrote "bake til they smell done" no temp or time. Has anyone else inherited a recipe with weird instructions like that?
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lopez.quinn7d ago
Honest question - did I always think recipes needed exact temps and times? Yeah, totally. Used to stress over precision. But this thread is actually making me rethink everything. Your nana's "bake til they smell done" thing is kind of genius. She was basically saying trust your senses, trust the process. That's way more about knowing your own kitchen than following a manual. Kinda cool when you sit with it.
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uma_ellis8d ago
Idk, I kind of love that though. Sounds like she knew what she was doing and trusted your instincts more than a timer.
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mila_murphy218d ago
Honestly, that might actually be a security feature from her generation. A lot of Depression-era and WWII cooks wrote recipes that way on purpose so if someone stole the napkin they couldn't replicate exactly what she made. Like my great-aunt wrote her cornbread recipe as "flour until it feels right" and "butter the size of a walnut" because she said anyone who needed exact measurements didn't deserve her secret. Your nana probably had her cookie recipe memorized down to the second, so the napkin was just a reminder for herself, not a set of instructions for strangers. She was lowkey gatekeeping from beyond the grave and honestly that's kind of iconic.
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