Hello here,

this question is silly, but I still have to ask since it doesn't hurt right?

My question is, how important is to follow a recipe as it is without adding or skipping steps? lets say that the recipe you want to try is a regular cake recipe that it has some extra ingredients in (which is the reason why you want to try this one), however the recipe varies in the order of adding the ingredients or in the steps you need to follow in order to make, would you just add the new ingredients to your original recipe and follow your steps (since you already know how to make a regular cake) or would you follow the recipe exactly as it is so you don't mess up? does it make any difference when you use the ingredients of a cake or cookie recipe and make it your way?

I hope I've explained myself here. It's a little complicated to explain my question.

Thank you all in advance! :)

Personally, I follow a recipe exactly the first time I try it.  If there are things I don't like about the recipe as written, I will experiment with changes after that to get it to a point that I like the entire recipe.  Have to admit, however, I've only done this with savory dishes, not cakes.  For me, it's harder to detect what needs to be changed in desserts.

I often will adjust the order I do stuff in in cake recipes if I feel it doesn't work the way it is, but like gerle I always do it as written the first time.

For instance I had a carrot cake recipe where if you did it in the order stated the sugar would clump together and it was really difficult to smooth out, so i adjusted the order to make it easier.

Very similarly a chocolate cake recipe where you were supposed to melt chocolate with water causing the chocolate to go stiff and not mixing in well at all! So again I adjusted the order for it to be a smooth liquid mix to add to the dry ingredients.

I always do it as written first, never assume I know better than the recipe writer until it doesn't work properly while doing it.