Creative Comfort: Putting Your Own Stamp on Classic Recipes

As a baking fanatic, you probably have several go-to recipes that are perfect for any occasion or are the perfect comfort food when you want to whip something up quickly that really hits the spot. These staple recipes are well worth mastering so you can always have a sweet treat to count on, but they also serve as great foundations for experimenting in the kitchen if you’re in a creative mood. Playing around with new flavor profiles or adding a tasty twist to traditional desserts is a good way to explore and create new favorites that are purely your own. Keep reading for some of our best tips on how to put your stamp on classic recipes, just like the pros.

Convert Your Favorite into a New Form

A great place to start with recipe experimentation is taking your favorite recipe and converting it into a brand new form – think cake pops or mini donuts. Mini-sizing a dessert is a fun and easy way to start with experimenting, plus there is something about mini desserts that just take it to a whole new level. They are different, exciting, and a simple way to change up a recipe. For example, mini eclairs are chocolate coated, cream filled, bite-sized joy. Unlike full-sized, there is no chance of losing some of the filling during a bite—truly magical. Another way to change the form of dessert is by switching from cake to cookies or vice versa. Take carrot cake, for instance – have you ever tried making it as cookies? We transferred the warm spices and comforting flavors of the classic springtime dessert into a cookie form, then added a matcha vanilla frosting as a fun and functional twist.

Add a New Ingredient You Have Been Wanting to Try

Do you have your eye on any trendy new flavors you’ve been seeing as you scroll through Instagram? Flavors like matcha, spirulina, turmeric, and even freeze-dried raspberries lately have been used in recipes as functional flavor twists, but also as a natural way to change the color of your food. Incorporating these dry ingredients can be a simple way to change up a recipe, in flavor or color. We recommend experimenting with a sample of your mixture first to see how the added element will impact your bake so that you can perfect the proportions ahead of a full bake. With liquid ingredients, we recommend adding small quantities first and increasing slowly to learn how adding liquid changes the texture or moisture of your recipe. You may find that you need to decrease the amount of other liquid ingredients in the recipe to preserve the ratio of dry to wet ingredients.

Try a New Form of a Standard Ingredient

You may be surprised at how much of a difference changing the form of a standard ingredient can make. For example, the switch to fresh grated ginger from powdered ginger could give your recipe a completely different ginger flavor. While we agree vanilla extract is sensational, we also suggest playing with different forms like vanilla bean paste which can give your bake a creamy element, as well as visually enticing bean-specks. For dry mixes or recipes that already have a lot of liquid, vanilla powder may be the way to go. Learning how these forms impact your baking through hands-on experience will give you another skill-badge to add to your collection. It’s just one idea worth experimenting with on your way to becoming a flavor master.

Match Up Flavor Profiles

Mixing and matching contrasting flavors can lead to discovering your new favorite pairs whether that be sweet and tart, rich and earthy, sweet and spicy, or anything in between.

• Sweet and Tart: Simply adding a vanilla honey meringue to a classic key lime pie creates a newfound delight. Our recipe mixes up the zesty and tart classic by adding floral, sweet tones from honey and pure vanilla bean paste that blend perfectly with the citrus dessert. Another intriguing twist on this classic is adding lavender, which brings soft floral notes to balance out the tangy lime.
• Rich and Earthy: Rich, dark chocolate and herbs like basil or sage can make a surprisingly delightful pair. Try out these flavors next time you make chocolate candies or brownies.
• Sweet and Spicy: There are many ways to add a bit of heat to any sweet treat, and vanilla pairs perfectly with all of them. The natural, flavor-enhancing properties of vanilla bring out the best of both sides, adding a complexity to the sweetness and mellowing out spices.

Practice Makes Perfect

Remember to be patient during your experiments with different flavors, ingredients, and techniques. The best part about baking is the creative journey! Playing with new flavors should be a fun experience in the kitchen and perfecting your own twist on a classic may take a few test batches. You may even find your new favorite ingredient or flavor pairs that are a “matcha” made in heaven!

We’ve included some of our favorite reinvented classic recipes below, let us know what new recipes you’re making using #NielsenMasseyInspires. We love seeing your creativity!