Overheard my neighbor say she never measures ingredients, just eyeballs everything

She made these perfect cookies last weekend. I asked how. She said she learned from her grandma and just goes by feel. I tried that with a cake yesterday. Came out like a brick. Guess some people have the touch and some don't. Anyone else try winging it and regret it?

2 comments

2 Comments

bettyhunt16d ago

Oh honey, you saying "she learned from her grandma and just goes by feel" got me. My grandma was the same way, but I think people forget grandmas had YEARS of experience before they started eyeballing things. They already knew what a cup of flour looked like because they measured it a thousand times. I tried being brave with a batch of brownies once, just tossing in stuff like I knew what I was doing, and they turned out so dry I could have used them as doorstops. You probably need to keep measuring until you've made that cake a dozen times before the "feel" kicks in. Maybe start with a boxed mix and get comfortable adjusting that first?

elizabeth_gonzalez16d ago

Wait, are you telling me you actually tried the "grandma method" without the grandma experience? I did the same thing with a batch of biscuits once and they came out like hockey pucks, my dog wouldn't even eat them. It's like we think we can skip all those years of practice just because we watched someone else do it a few times, but that feeling in your hands really does take forever to build up.