For me, crepes ain’t worth the stress to make fresh. Just buy a little pack from store and focus on filling is my go to.
Cheese
This 100%…
It is so expensive/time consuming/finicky for a product that best case scenario is comparable to store bought.
Baklava. I love it. When my aunts make it it’s always amazing. But holy crap if it isn’t the most tedious, fiddly, obnoxious stuff to make. And that’s if you’re not also making your own phyllo dough… all like six miles of it that goes in a batch one vapor thin layer at a time.
That seems like one of those cases where the production is only worth it if it’s a group/family tradition to get together and enjoy everyone’s company while you do it.
Like…no part of my family makes baklava, but if I had a friend whose Greek or Turkish family met up once a year and made it, I would love to come help, as much for the experience as to learn about how to make it.
In my area where I grew up (if not my actual family) that food is pierogi: families will get together and make massive quantities of pierogi, usually with the grandmas of the families directing the process. Everyone goes home with dozens and dozens for the freezer.
From what I gather, it’s not worth making like…one dozen for a meal, but if you’re going to go through the process, you might as well make hundreds.
Croissants. Only really good when an independent coffee shop makes someone come in at 4am to start making them. Even the industrial ones at the big chains or supermarkets are pretty meh and it’s way too complex and time consuming to do myself but made right they are one of the best foods.
This is like a lot of pastry that uses laminated dough, having them fresh out of the oven as intended is completely different than supermarket. I dunno what process you were using but there’s some easier ones and I find they all freeze incredibly well. Once I froze a few full muffin trays of kouign amann to bring somewhere and popped them in an oven, turned out perfect.
Gyoza/potstickers/dumplings
I will inhale plates of em and the time it takes to wrap em made me both appreciate the food more and appreciate the premade ones so much more
In the same line, gnocchi.
Macaroons. I have made them from scratch. I can appreciate the sophisticated sublime expression of culinary caution it takes to split egg white, whip them until hard peaks, and then gently and precisely fold in the other ingredients to get the flavor you are after… But holy hell is it tedious with lots of potential for failure most of the way.
Alternatively, making cinnamon rolls from scratch. Not because it’s hard, just because it takes too long. I believe the recipe I was using allowed the dough to rise three separate times. Simple enough to make, but planning ahead for them to be breakfast is a 16:00 the previous day commitment.
Because I’m dumb, do you mean macarons? Or do you actually flavor your macaroons? If you do what flavors do you recommend for them? I assume something tropical to go with the coconut?
Macarons, mobile doing mobile things.
i have depression and adhd so it varies between every food and no food based on the rng going on in the ol’ endocrine
A lot of French cuisine. Not talking about laminated dough here which I’ve done many times. More so the complete modern French meal involving multiple reductions and real demiglace and all the techniques that seem to require a full restaurant process. It’s the one style of food I will go to a restaurant and happily pay for once in a while, I understand why it’s expensive to make and respect the skill it takes.
The other style I food I do this with is the very opposite, shitty fast food I can’t make at home.
mise en place ;) demi-glace you can make a couple of times a year in bulk and just freeze the little jello cubes, to have on hand whenever.
I don’t have enough meat scraps and carcasses coming through to make proper demi-glace or stock in the quantity I use so I prefer a dehydrated powder used in restaurant service for home use. My scraps usually end up in a single soup recipe.
And yeah I love making French stews and all that, and I make components of French meals, but I’m talking like a full contemporary French menu from appetizer to dessert. To me that’s a very simple menu, some basic ingredients of exceptional quality, each prepared in a way that makes them taste as good as they can using techniques it takes a lot of experience to get good at, with some experimental or playful element that isn’t too pretentious, then plated and presented in a creative way. That type of meal I will gladly pay for because it’s almost the fact someone else has imagined it and made it real that makes it worth it, like I wanna see what kind of tricks they’re doing that I wouldn’t have thought to do. Not only that but everything has to come together perfectly for it to work, and even if I know I can technically do it all, can I do it all at once by myself as a home cook? That’s why I respect the restaurant process for this style of food.
Puff pastry.
Removed by mod
100%. I’m still going to TRY making homemade for a challenge eventually, but when Costco sells perfectly good ones… Why would I make them other than as a project?
Find a French bakery and have one at about 7am
I really enjoy making laminated dough and find it’s just a bit of work here and there but never a lot at once. Similar to bread baking.
Cereal!
There’s a lot, most of which I make anyway for sake of cost/volume ratios, but in no particular order…
Tomato paste (love to use, can’t be arsed to make my own), sriracha (like it but don’t use enough for the amount I make), waffles (don’t crave them nearly as much as I used to), scotch eggs (love 'em, hate making 'em), pickled asparagus (which really sucks because they’re so good), lotus root chips (maybe if I had a fry daddy, air fried just doesn’t do it), chicarrones (lots off local places make 'em fresh and cheap), horchata (same), meat pies (there’s a local Brit shop that sells 'em), falafel (lots of local vendors), jalebi (way too much work)…
Chinese food. The common fast food type here in the US. Yeah, I can spend a bunch of time, work, and money to make orange chicken, boneless spare ribs, crab rangoon, teriyaki, coconut shrimp, and pork fried rice. Or, I can go 5 minutes up the street, and pay my favorite restaurant $20 for a big plate with all of that, with absolutely no work on my part, and it all tastes way better.
cinnamon rolls
Oh my God fuck cinnamon rolls and I love them. If any recipe involves a suggestion for getting unscented non waxed floss just to cut the shapes something is wrong with the level of effort they expect from me.
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/cinnamon-date-sticky-buns
These are great, done them about 10 times now, realized I didn’t hate making cinnamon buns I just hated the recipes. I dunno what it is with the standard “just like grandma’s” cinnamon bun recipes but it seems like an excuse for making it overly complicated.
Thank you for the recommendation. Well maybe I will try that for the New Year. Make it my resolution to make cinnamon rolls at least once.
The date puree for the filling I make extra and use it as a spread, so good. It’s still a process but it’s not a lot of work at once and cleans easy. The creator of this recipe is really good at teaching the indicators and not just measurements which is why I love this one in particular.
yes and you have to make them like 10 years before you actually want to eat them
Anything with a lot of Indian spices. I just buy the paste in jars.
I used to do this but after falling down a YouTube rabbit hole I can make a balti from scratch very quickly. Onions, garlic, ginger, chilies, tomatoes + coriander powder, turmeric, chili powder, garam masala, dried fenugreek leaves.
Throw in some chicken and finish with coriander (cilantro for the Americans)
Pastelles. Find some grandma who makes them by the thousand. Don’t buy Goya, they won’t be as good.
Apparently my cousin makes bomb pastelles using a freaking blender.
How are you supposed to get the blood in there using a blender??
Still tasted good tho.
