How many people does it take to make the perfect brownie? How long does it take to film a season of America’s Test Kitchen? Join us every week as we explore the Secrets of the Test Kitchen.
All the recipes that come from America’s Test Kitchen go through a 12-step process before they appear in our magazines or on television. The key: Every recipe has to be approved by both our editors and our volunteer home cooks (sign up here), who prepare our recipes in their own kitchens and provide feedback on what worked — and what didn’t.
Based on feedback from home cooks, recipes are remade and re-tested in our kitchen and then sent back out for testing. Often, the changes are minor, but sometimes feedback from the surveys can completely change a recipe.
Rarely recipes don’t make it out of the test kitchen because they don’t live up to the expectations of our home testers — and we mean rarely. Test Kitchen Director Erin McMurrer said that in her 11 years working at the Test Kitchen, there are only 10 Cook’s Illustrated recipes that haven’t met the Test Kitchen’s standards and were either never published or completely overhauled.
What happened? Here’s the scoop on a few.
Chicken Pot Pie
When Test Cook Andrea Geary was originally assigned the Chicken Pot Pie, it was designed to be a no-holds-barred, everything-from-scratch recipe: breaking down a whole chicken, creating your own stock, making your own gravy and baking up your own biscuit crust. The resulting recipe, with richly flavored sauce and tender chicken, was a huge hit among the test cooks.
The finished recipe was sent out to the volunteer home cooks who then tested the recipe themselves. The result? The home cooks loved the final product – but nearly half said they’d never make it again.
The problem? This from-scratch pot pie took too long – at least 3 hours from start to finish. As much as they loved the finished product, home cooks said they couldn’t foresee wanting to use three hours of their day – and multiple pots and pans – to make the recipe again.
So Andrea went back to the drawing board and cut down the total cooking time to one hour, by adding ingredients like mushrooms and tomato paste to increase the umami in the dish. The result: our well-loved Chicken Pot Pie with Savory Crumble Topping (recipe is free until Aug. 16).
Butterscotch Pudding
When Test Cook Yvonne Ruperti first tried to develop a recipe for Butterscotch Pudding back in 2008, it was a hit with the test cooks. But once it went out to home cooks in the surveys, it didn’t rate well.
The problem? The recipe required a candy thermometer for making your own caramel, and most people did not have one at home. Despite continued attempts to retool it and make it easier, home cooks continually found it too difficult and the recipe was eventually abandoned.
Word about the Butterscotch Pudding recipe leaked from the Test Kitchen and it quickly became the stuff of Test Kitchen legend – fans had heard about this delicious, unpublished recipe and wanted to try it for themselves. This year, Test Cook Dan Souza was able to overhaul the technique to create a version that was easier for home cooks. The final recipe survived the home cook test and will be published in the January/February 2013 issue of Cook’s Illustrated magazine.
Fudge
In 2007, Test Cook Dave Pazmiño was assigned a monumental task: a consistent, perfect old-fashioned fudge recipe that seemed to come right from a seaside fudge shop. After four months and 150 batches, amounting to 1,000 pounds of fudge, Dave finally arrived at the perfect old-fashioned fudge recipe.
The problem? Once the recipe was sent to home cooks to be tested, two problems quickly emerged: The recipe failed in a humid kitchen or when attempted with a cheap candy thermometer. The recipe wasn’t foolproof enough for the Test Kitchen’s standards.
Dave was back at square one when inspiration struck: leaveners. After running a few experiments with baking soda, he was finally able to create a no-fail fudge that could be produced without a candy thermometer. “My final recipe is utterly reliable and takes just 15 minutes to prepare,” he writes in Cook’s Illustrated. “It was worth the long, long wait in the test kitchen.” The result: The 15-Minute Fudge. You can also find the original, never published Old-Fashioned Fudge online (both recipes are free until Aug. 16).
Is there a recipe that has given you trouble in the past? Let us know in the comments for a chance to win a copy of Slow Cooker Revolution. The winner will be notified by email on Tuesday, Aug. 7.
About the Author: Marshall Bright
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I can never make an angel food cake that doesn’t fall flat. I have tired various recipes, including ATK. I still have a very flat, flavorful angel food cake. Help!
Fudge has been on my list of troublesome recipes forever. I’ll try this one. Peach pie was always troublesome until I learned from ATK that I should cook the peaches first to get the liquid cooked down. That was the key that made peach pie a regular summer dish in my house.
I’ve NEVER had any luck with fudge, no matter what I do, how closely I monitor it, or how many different recipes with different techniques I try. My mom doesn’t much care for the texture of my pralines either, but there’s no accounting for taste.
Sometimes Swiss meringue buttercream gives me trouble, namely the sugar doesn’t fully incorporate and it’s still a bit gritty, but other than that, who cares?
I’ve made baklava a few times, but it ends up dripping with syrup in a way that other baklava never does (whether I get it in a restaurant, or a store, or wherever). I’ve checked other recipes and the proportions of syrup to pastry are about the same. Is there a “drain excess syrup” step that is never mentioned in the recipes?
Streamlining this dish may not even be possible….but I’ve tried making authentic, creamy, dreamy burrata before, and it was a soupy mess. I was so incredibly disappointed, because warm burrata with extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and cracked pepper, served with garlic rubbed, ciabatta crostini is my idea of heaven
How about publishing the original Chicken Pot Pie recipie? I would be really interested in trying the 3-hour version.
I have yet to make the perfect stovetop mac and cheese from scratch. Either the flavor isn’t right or the texture isn’t creamy enough. And I’ve always wondered… is there any possible way to reheat a cheese sauce without it curdling? It has curdled on me every time. Sad to say, I have yet to be satisfied with my homemade mac and cheese.
I’ve had quite a problem making Kraft Mac and Cheese, as my family likes to remind me every holiday I cook…though the may have a point since my ham glaze could have been fashioned into a shank and I may have put a pound of butter instead of a stick into the sweet potatoes one year.
Zucchini bread!!! Getting it moist enough, balancing the nutmeg flavors, do I add applesauce? And most times it collapses! I have a lot of zukes growing in my garden and I will need to remedy said issues so I can get back to baking some bread for my family and especially my boyfriend who loves zucchini bread and keeps hinting about wanting some. I could really use a well balanced recipe for zucchini bread.
Personally, I’d be thrilled if you’d publish both versions of a recipe. On the days I feel like being in the kitchen I would make a pot pie from scratch, but on the days I need to be “down and dirty” I’d use your modified recipe. Give me the options! Let me decide what to do with them.
And, as always, thank you for all the kitchen does give us – such wisdom would otherwise take years of home experimentation!
When i was growing up my great aunt made fudge: sugar, cocoa (the recipe from an ancient book called for unsweetened chocolate), dairy, a tiny amount of cream of tartar, vanilla and butter. It’s a finicky recipe, best made when the humidity is low, but the method is almost identical to the “old-fashioned chocolate fudge” recipe.
We didn’t stir the syrup, and only dipped into it drop some into a glass of cold water. We fished into the glass with our finger to ball the syrup up to see if it formed a “soft ball”
I must be a kitchen geek because I have a ThermaPen and a clip on candy thermometer. Looking forward to seeing the butterscotch pudding recipe!
I’ve always struggled with banana bread – finding something flavorful that doesn’t turn out like a brick. I’d also love to find an alfredo sauce that can be reheated the next day as leftovers.
I love to cook and try new recipes, but get intimidated by recipes that call for cooking with wine since I know absolutely NOTHING about the differences in wine or which ones are suitable for cooking with. Any help you can give would be GREATLY appreciated!
I have yet to find an always works recipe for penuche, a candy that my mother made for years at Christmas. Ingredients included coconut, nuts, etc. I have her original recipe on a card–dry disaster. We used it for ice cream topping as a crumble.
I would love to make perfect lemon meringue pie that is not too sweet (more adult taste) ie tart sweet, high meringue that does not separate, and that sets perfectly. I would also love to make apple pie like you can get in Japan (ie Fujiya Restaurant apple pies) with puff pastry shell on top. Apple filling tart sweet. I find American apple pies tasteless and too sweet.
I have tried to make old fashioned pull taffy, and need help. I am only going by memories from my grandmother and I. I cant wait for more recipes.
For Kasja:
Do you grease your pan? I remember seeing their show on television, where they baked one in a greased pan, and one in a non-greased pan. The non-greased pan allowed the batter to cling to the sides of the pan and rise higher. The one baked in the greased pan was about 1/2 the height.
Would love a recipes for an authentic UK ‘Steak and Kidney Pie’.
English Muffins (even ATK’s Family Baking Book!) always come out as hockey pucks at worst, or as biscuits with nary a nook or cranny at best.
Hi Heidi, we had similar questions about what types of wines would work best for cooking! To sum up the test results: A good bottle of cooking wine is likely to be made from a blend of grapes and can be had for about $10. The wine should have good fruit flavor, medium body, and little or no oak flavor. In the kitchen, this wine should be cooked just below a simmer with aromatics and not treated to a hot boil. While this technique is not necessary in recipes that already call for cooking wine slowly with aromatics, as in a stew, it makes all the difference with wine intended for a pan sauce or a quick tomato sauce. For reds, we recommend blended (nonvarietal) American and Australian wines, or a French Côtes du Rhône. For whites, we prefer clean, crisp, dry Sauvignon Blancs to sweet Rieslings or heavily oaked Chardonnays, which can dominate subtle flavors.
Penuche fudge.
Don’t know why – i can follow 7min fudge, 15m fudge, all fine… but penuche? fails me.
Hey everyone– thanks for sharing your kitchen woes! It looks like a few of you struggled with fudge as well– congratulations to this week’s winner Timmy. Everyone, we’ll continue having a weekly give-away as part of our “Secrets of the Test Kitchen” series. You can find them all here- http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/topics/secrets-of-the-test-kitchen/.
Thanks for the gift ATK! I don’t actually own a slow cooker, but if I know your books, it will more than inspire me to invest in one.
Thanks for the help with the using the right wine in recipes! Now I just have to brave going to the store and hunting among the numerous varieties for the right one! Thanks again!
One more thing…how long will and open bottle last? And how should I store them after they are opened?