Yeah. You would have had to triangulate your way around to getting the information that is exactly the information that you knew already that it was.
"Sir, I need you to go to the oil that you used and check if it is non-hydrogenated or hydrogenated. It should be printed on the back of the label."
"What do you mean, I never had this problem before"
"Yes, I'm aware, they have changed the oil constitution recently. I'll be able to resolve this problem for you, I just need to know if the oil is hydrogenated or not."
"I don't see what that has to do with anything"
"Can you just check the back of the bottle, please? Then I'm sure we'll be able to get your recipe working again"
"Okay, well I didn't actually use oil, I used toothpaste because it was expired and I wanted to get rid of it"
"Aha! Okay, I understand sir. I'm glad we were able to get to the bottom of the issue you're having. So, if you make the recipe with toothpaste, it definitely won't taste the same or have a good consistency. I think if you switch back to using oil you'll find that the pancakes still taste the same as they used to"
"But I think I should be able to use toothpaste."
"Absolutely. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"
Oh, you already rebooted? Okay, well maybe your power cable is loose. Go ahead and shut down for me real quick, so you can unplug that power cable and plug it back in. Great, now that you’ve power cycled your computer, the problem is fixed? Glad I could help.
Dude, ages ago when I did tech support. A simple question like: "are the lights on your modem on?" was met with a yes. Then after an hour of troubleshooting you find out, in fact, no they weren't on the entire time and the modem was unplugged. Like, you lied, you never even checked. The real questions then become: why was the modem unplugged? Who unplugged it? What reason does one have for unplugging their modem?
Click the start button. The start button. It's on the bottom left. Yes, click it. You already clicked it? Don't click it again! You clicked it again? Okay, click it again. Now on the fly out click control panel. Wait, you clicked the start button again? Okay click it again. You know what? Fuck this shit, I quit.
I remember one call where the customer didn't know where the Start button was. I told them that it was the button on the lower left-hand corner of the screen. She said that she clicked it and everything went black. Turns out she hit the power button on her monitor.
After you click it, the Start Menu will appear. While the Start Menu is showing, there are some icons all the way to the left, and one of them is called Control Panel. Oh, you pushed the power button and it's off now? Okay... Push the power button to turn the computer back on. You already did? You pushed it again and it powered off? Turn the computer back on please.
Me: Please close all windows you have currently opened.
Costumer: Ok, one moment. leaves phone, comes back 2 minutes later.
Me: It will take quite long if you are not sitting in front of your computer, can you relocate there?
Costumer: I am in front of the computer, i just closed all windows just like you told me.
Me: dies internally
I had another client with ADSL, asked them what modem they used:
Client: "My modem is colorful and full of lights!"
seriously, tech support is funny shit if it doesn't happen to you.
I looked for the recipe this comment was made in, and in the comments, the original author of the recipe mentions replacing whole or part of the oil with applesauce which might explain why.
Yep. Applesauce can be used as a replacement for oil in cakes and some quick breads. I've done it on the rare occasion I've been short of cooking oil for a cake. Don't think I've ever swapped it in for all the oil though. It does give a bit different texture and flavor, I find it kind of pleasant myself. And youy will need to probably bake the cake for a bit longer too. YMMV based on your oven.
I personally would not use applesauce to fry in though. But perhaps Flying Squid's mother should experiment for use and they can report back to us on the results.
It's better as a replacement for eggs. I say this as a avid vegan baker, oil is oil. Results may vary, but there is no good substitute. And coconut oil is the best kind, IMHO. Worth the extra couple bucks.
I did not want to accidentally send more comments to the person in the screenshots way by posting a link. It was a recipe for brownies. Here is the comment made by the author:
The recipe with the comments is easy enough to find online though.
The other place had something like r' I didn't have any eggs' that was all people giving 1 star reviews to recipes where they substituted Triceratops horn for chicken breast, and it didn't work well.
That sub was hilarious! So many weird substitutions and people having no idea what the ingredients do for the final result. I actually learned a lot about cooking from that sub.
That is something that often bothers me with many recipes. Often I'm confused why they are using a certain weird ingredient I don't have access to or when they have a step that I don't understand its purpose of and the recipe doesn't explain its reasoning or its reasoning doesn't make any sense. I then have to improvise without any idea if the changes I'm making will significantly impact the final result.
Only very few online recipes I see explain why they are written the way they are.
You can replace SOME of the oil with applesauce. But replacing all of it (which I did find on some really shitty websites) will not work correctly.
Fat soluble flavors will be diluted by the excess water as well as not giving flour anything to bond to. Less flavor, rock hard baked good.
If you want to try using applesauce, use unsweetened applesauce and only replace (at max) 50% of the oil required for the recipe. Results may vary, I don’t see the use in lowering the fat content of a delicious baked good. I’m eating that shit full flavor, full fat, full sugar. Just eat less of it.
Outside of that tangent, the gall of this person to say “I followed the recipe exactly” when their very first sentence contradicts that completely.
Full fat, yes, but not full sugar. We cut the sugar to like 1/3 in most recipes and it usually comes out great. Most recipes I've seen use way too much sugar.
Fat is way more filling than carbs for the same amount of calories, so don't shy away from the fat. If you load up on fat and fiber, you'll feel more satisfied on less calories, so you're much less likely to sneak a taste of that sugary treat and totally reverse all the good you've been trying to do with reducing calories.
I’ve been replacing eggs with applesauce when making muffins for the past 15 years, and I love it. My friend is allergic to eggs, so he is able to eat them too!
It isn’t crazy that the poster did the substitution, it’s is common way to replace some ingredients. She just didn’t execute properly and blamed the recipe maker/poster instead of being self-aware.
Good on you for going the extra mile for your friend!
My dad is one of them. Always says that stuff does not matter. I once asked him if he followed the instructions closely and said yes. I did not believe him and so asked every point in the list individually. For every every instruction he told me that he didn't do that.
The amount of people that don't read instructions is ridiculous. They exist for a reason. I always read every manual for everything. Every car I've had, I read the manual front to back. My turtle's new fancy water filter, read it front to back. Furniture, tech, anything, you name it. I guess I'M the outlier so I must be the weird one.
I've literally had to write documentation at work for a single step procedure for help desk. It consisted of me screenshotting something, circling a button in red with a red arrow pointing to it because our help desk people are incompetent.
This isn't as crazy as it seems. In some bread and cake recipes, you can easily replace some of the oil with applesauce and have a successful bake. I've done this with muffins and banana bread to great success.
They're still being foolish as you need some fat for most bakes to work and using apple sauce introduces more fiber, protein and water instead of fat, but it's not a totally baseless substitution.
You say this, but then I used to read r/justrolledintotheshop. People outright fail at substituting engine oil for engine oil from time to time. The kind of person that would try applesauce probably wouldn't be doing more self harm than otherwise.
(Fun fact: putting gasoline in a diesel engine is way worse than putting diesel in a gas engine. In the latter case, it won't run until you replace the fuel with the correct stuff. In the former case, it pretty quickly destroys the engine.)
Baking is a science, not an art. You want cooking for that. You can't just randomly switch shit and expect it to work. If you must substitute, do some research first and expect to have to fiddle with stuff to get things to come out tolerable.
Baking is as much of an art as cooking is. It is just much less complacent with mistakes.
As soon as you get the notion of what to mix to achieve a given result, or which technique produces another, you can start throwing things together and see what comes out.
I burned, fumbled and messed up my share of cooking/baking and I regret nothing.
Yeah bread is an art, much like sculpture. You gotta learn to feel the dough and the air to understand what size of a scoche you need to give it and of what.
also much more punishing if you do make a mistake. Oh you added too much flour and the consistency is wrong? Well now you gotta add a whole new egg and a bit of everything :)
Applesauce is considered a substitute of oil when baking. There was a time that applesauce was cheaper and easier to come by than cooking oils. It's been done for a very long time.
Supposedly, but I assume you have to be familiar with baking with applesauce, and not just read somewhere that apple sauce can replace "oil, butter, or eggs" and just shoot for the moon.
This is probably sarcastic, but in case it's not: Applesauce is a vegan substitute for eggs, not oil. There is no substitute for oil as many oils are already vegan. You can definitely substitute animal-based fats like butter and lard for others like coconut oil to make a recipe vegan.
It was sarcastic/joking, but wow I had no idea! They seem so dissimilar, I never would've thought that would work. Didn't think I'd learn this much about baking today lol, thanks!
The OP graphic says "I followed the recipie exactly", which they did not, so somehow I doubt that "facts" matter to them, who are making hyperbolic claims for emotional appeals rather than descriptive purposes.
Blood can also be used as a substitute in baking. Pretty sure it's in lieu of eggs. Not curious enough to ruin a perfectly good batch of brownies though :(
That was a "fine enough" substitute before commercial egg replacers got as good and commonplace as they are now. I'll still do it for some recipes as I like the added apple flavor and moisture, but I generally use Ener-G Egg Replacer for replacing eggs in a dough mix and maple syrup for egg washes when vegan baking these days.
Apple Sauce is a mixture of pulp and water, what little fatty acids are available are tied up, so it does not function as an oil substitute. Oil and Water have completely different properties.
They are replacing some of the sugar with it, not the fat. I'm a fan of both normal and the applesauce variants, but you need to understand the science behind the normal ingredients before you swap them out for others. Baking is science.
Actually we replace eggs with it. You can also use a banana or something called a flaxseed egg, which is simply one part flaxseed and three parts water. Let it sit for ten minutes.
In the defence of this person, some recipes for desserts offer applesauce as a replacement for oil as a healthier option, like the mug cake I made literally 20 mins ago. This might be one of those