Adapting recipes

[snowwhite]

I've been reading Midnight Chicken by Ella Risbridger, and I mostly think that although it's an enjoyable and interesting read her palate doesn't match mine (too much salt and chilli in there for me).

But one recipe is kind of intriguing me due to the suggestions for adapting it. It's a fairly standard choc chip cookie recipe, involving melting butter, beating in sugar, an egg plus an extra yolk, then flour and bicarb then folding in choc chips.

The two variations suggested are:
Replace yolk with 2 tbs mashed banana, use 200g rolled oats and 50g flour in place of the 250g flour. Melt sugar and butter together, beat in banana and continue (this version would also have molasses sugar).

Replace 70g of butter with 70g chocolate, melt together and continue.

And although I like baking, these are bolder variations than I would have come up with - to make a double choc version, for example, I would probably just have taken out a spoon or two of flour and replaced an equal quantity of cocoa powder.

Are you good at adapting recipes? Do you have any (other) suggestions for variations on cookies, beyond just adding raisins / coconut / chopped nuts?

[HalcyonDaze]

The adaptations I do tend to involve avoiding allergens and doing standard substitutions that way.
If you do go on to various allergy sites they have loads of variations like the mashed banana one you mentioned.

[Liiisa]

Adaptations I do usually involve substituting missing ingredients with something vaguely similar that we have on hand. No rice? OK, I'll throw in a handful of couscous at the last minute.

Those adaptations are brave! I don't really bake anymore, but when I did I never really adapted baking recipes - I think baking is more precise and chemistry-like than just cooking, and too-adventurous a substitution could end up with texture problems.

[snowwhite]

This recipe is (apparently) very forgiving. It only specifies 'sugar', not which type... but which type you use will affect texture. Demerara for example won't properly dissolve completely probably, but that just means crunchy cookies.

I actually made them today (not with demerara), and they all spread and merged rather a lot and were over-the-top sweet (and I usually don't mind that). So I like the concept of a forgiving baking recipe, not not sure I actually like the result here, although the texture was good once they'd cooled. Hmmmm.

[ozziegiraffe]

I’ve used the same basic recipes for butter cake (4 oz butter, 4 oz sugar, 2 eggs, 8 oz SR flour, 1/2 cup milk) and cookies (4 oz butter, 4 oz sugar, 2 eggs, 8 oz plain flour) for so long I don’t need to look them up, and I still measure in ounces.
I vary by adding whatever I like. The chocolate cake version adds 2 oz sugar and 1/4 cup milk, and the cocoa is mixed before adding with boiling water and a tablespoon of either jam (raspberry or plum), honey or golden syrup. This makes the cake moist. But the flour isn’t reduced for the cocoa.