As a cooking teacher “for hire,” I now find myself often teaching someone else’s recipes or curriculum rather than my own. When I started at the cookware store years ago, the classes I taught were based on my recipes. In these classes I could choose recipes that allowed me to sneak in lots of technique. (My interest in culinary education is in teaching technique, not recipes.) Over the years that has changed. Today I’m stuck teaching the recipes sent down from the mother ship. These recipes are chosen by title to fit a class theme. The titles are mouthwatering, but the recipes are not necessarily good. The reason the store sponsors classes is to sell additional cookware to the students. If a student learns a little about cooking that’s okay as long as it doesn’t interfere with buying.

Teaching at the vocational training center is only slightly better. Here the students often choose their own recipes, usually from an Internet source. Since the students don’t have enough knowledge to understand by sight where a recipe needs to be modified or sometimes even radically changed, it often falls to me to try to help them “make it to shore when the boat is already partially sunk.” I enjoy the challenge, but I’m not sure the students gain any lasting benefit from the exercise.

I guess it boils down to my basic belief that you cannot learn how to cook from recipes. If you learn techniques and ingredients, you can cook without recipes. So when I have the freedom, I will usually modify the recipes I’m given in cooking classes to better fit my style and beliefs. Often the modification is towards simplicity. I work with a much smaller ingredient palette on each recipe than many cooks. I also like to simplify techniques. My classic example of a recipe I had to streamline was a short crust recipe that the store was using over and over again. The recipe used one-and-a-half pages of single-spaced typescript to describe the process of making the crust. The instructions had become so complex that they were impossible to follow. I simplified it to a few sentences. In addition, I discussed with the students the techniques, and the rationale behind them, encompassed in making a short crust.

Another problem I encounter when I have to work with the recipes of others is when the recipe’s author assumes that their personal knowledge or experience is universal. It’s reminiscent of my mother-in-law once giving me directions to a store that included the line, “Turn left where Nakamura Store used to be.” Since Nakamura Store was long closed and the building either gone or repurposed, these directions meant nothing to me. To my mother-in-law, they were very clear. Some recipes are that same way, and I have no ability to contact the author for clarification.

A couple of years ago, when my boss at the cookware store became sick, I was asked to teach a class called “Cookie Workshop” that she was scheduled to teach. Her training is in baking and all the recipes were from her. One recipe in particular caused me a number of problems. She knew what she meant when she wrote one instruction in particular, but it was meaningless to me. Luckily, I was able to talk with her and get the instruction clarified, because the recipe produced some mighty good cookies. (I believe her source for the recipe was her nonna, Helen. I’m not sure in what form the recipe was transmitted to her, but I’m pretty sure that a lot was unwritten.)

These “mighty good cookies” make a perfect, one-bite mignardise. The following recipe yields about 35 cookies.

Just like I expect the reader to know that powdered sugar and confectioner’s sugar are the same thing. In the last few years, manufacturers have put both labels on the box to help the consumer. For the vanilla extract, I do not specify Bourbon, Mexican, Tahitian, or Hawaiian as a source. It really doesn’t matter in this recipe as long as the reader uses real, and not imitation, vanilla extract.

I don’t call for the flour to be sifted, not because I expect the reader to automatically do it, but because most sifting of flour is unnecessary. Our grandmothers sifted flour to remove stones and bugs, but I haven’t found either in years. Likewise, any old fine salt, even table salt, will work. I never use a coarser salt like kosher salt for baking where there isn’t time or enough liquid to dissolve the salt.

Using the word “coarse” with the Turbinado sugar is a bit imprecise. I hope that the reader refers to the picture so they can see how coarse the sugar was that I used. Not all Turbinado sugar is this coarse. Any coarse sugar would work, this is just what I have readily available.

As to the instructions, I assume that the reader knows not to use the convection feature of their oven unless specified in a recipe. Although I use the term “parchment paper,” I really don’t like to. The commercial term is “silicone-coated pan liners,” and they come flat, 1000 sheets to the box. The little rolls of “parchment paper” available at supermarkets and cookware stores are a waste of money and a pain to use since the paper likes to roll up in the baking sheet. The flat sheets stay where you put them. I specify a rimmed baking sheet because this is easier to use than Grandma’s flat baking sheet.

The scoop referred to in the third instruction is what some people would call an ice-cream scoop. Restaurant supply stores, and some cookware stores, sell these in a range of sizes. Unfortunately, not all of them are marked with a size number, so I have to list a dimension in the recipe. I assume that the reader knows how to fill the scoop and scrape off the excess against the side of the bowl. (You do, don’t you?) I also assume that the reader will use a pastry brush with the egg white and not use a silicone-rubber brush designed for basting barbecued meat. (Possibly a poor assumption because in class when I ask for a pastry brush, I’m usually handed a barbecue brush.)

Once again. My notes don’t say anything about baking the cookies. I know to cook them until they are done, but I’ve had complaints in classes where say exactly that. So for this version of the recipe, I give an endpoint and an approximate time.

Lastly, do you need to be reminded to cool cookies on a rack so the bottom properly crisp up? I hope not, but I wrote it in there just in case you do.