Recipe Hacks: fake news of cooking videos

February 24, 2020 8:32 PM

The fake 'kitchen hacks' with billions of views (BBC video) -- most are deceiving, and some are dangerous, from suggesting that you put molten caramel on a spinning whisk, or dunk strawberries in bleach. But apparently First Media now states that they only showcase recipes that work, unlike a prior statement made to Food scientist and YouTuber Ann Reardon (previously) that "whether the recipes worked or not was never their concern." Reardon debunks fake TroomTroom and 5-Minute Craft videos, and exposes dangerous 5-Minute Crafts & So Yummy how-to videos, but also makes 200 year old candy recipes from The Complete Confectioner (Archive.org).
posted by filthy light thief (54 comments total)

"All of our recipes work, come to our LA studio and we will prove it (no you won't be allowed to document that on any way)"

Suuuure...

I don't get this. Why bother with this extensive fraud? There are approximately a billion cool things you can do on a kitchen. These people are clearly doing cool things - just look at what they're producing. Why lie about how you're achieving it?
posted by Dysk at 1:22 AM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

What is the obsession with bleach these days? I can't think of a worse substance to mix with foods or bodies, and yet it's seen as this magic ingredient.
posted by adrianhon at 1:25 AM on February 25, 2020 [3 favorites]

Approx 30 years ago my mum's friend worked at a Mid Range UK Supermarket which was carrying, as part of a promotion, free recipe cards from a very famous Lady Chef.

After a string of complaints about one of the recipes failing, they had to create an in-house team to practice cook, and if necessary edit, all the recipes coming from this famous chef before producing the cards for the public. Turns out she just, kinda, made them up without checking?

I guess that's the analogue version of this.
posted by AFII at 2:16 AM on February 25, 2020 [6 favorites]

Turns out she just, kinda, made them up without checking?

I guess that's the analogue version of this.

I posit that this is worse - unlike your chef, these guys can't be unaware that their recipes don't work, because they produce videos of them in action. Videos that must be actively faked as a result (when they could just be publishing their method for faking it as the actual recipe).

Without checking isn't great, but it isn't the same kind of active, willful deception as what is going on here.
posted by Dysk at 2:48 AM on February 25, 2020 [13 favorites]

None of this is about creating food. It's entirely about creating clickbait that tickles the part of viewer's brains to get them to watch.

A secret "hack" that makes cooking seem fun and easy, Things melting, changing shape and form seemingly magically, no boring waiting or tedious steps, "easy" to do at home with impressive results.

The food is just the medium.
posted by Karaage at 3:29 AM on February 25, 2020 [14 favorites]

This is the worst combo breaker I’ve ever seen.
posted by Etrigan at 3:36 AM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

free recipe cards from a very famous Lady Chef.
The worst part of this is that I'm pretty sure I can guess which chef this is, because I know that her recipes don't work & aren't tested. Among home chefs it's lowkey common knowledge that you kind of have to hack them until you can get them to work, and that even the ones that are more or less fine tend to have wildly off quantities/serving counts, which is a sure sign that she didn't make them even once.
posted by Acheman at 3:44 AM on February 25, 2020 [3 favorites]

Who's the famous lady chef? Give us a clue!
posted by Chaffinch at 4:04 AM on February 25, 2020 [8 favorites]

Is this Dunning-Kruger in action? Because I watch these videos and they look like parodies. Like, "we taught an AI to make recipes and then did them," or "we let a six-year-old tell us what to do."

Here's how to make an egg bigger than before! Okay, but why?
posted by explosion at 4:33 AM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

"Molten caramel on a spinning whisk" is liquid, hot caramelized sugar being drizzled on electric mixer beaters. Is this a bad idea? You're taking liquid at 320 degrees F., and potentially spattering it over everything in the area. A glob large enough to retain heat that gets on your skin will leave a painful burn, made worse in the short term because this is sugar, it's sticky, and it might stick until you can wash it off under a running tap.

I've worked with caramelized sugar, and I've gotten small burns. You don't want it to spatter on you.
posted by gimonca at 4:40 AM on February 25, 2020 [8 favorites]

As per that BBC video, my partner and I have been talking about Hot Corn for a week and a half.
posted by gc at 4:40 AM on February 25, 2020 [3 favorites]

If it's the lady chef I'm thinking of, she did some recipe cards for Waitrose about 10 years ago that were also spectacularly awful. And her scone recipe only makes 12 if you like scones that are one inch wide.
posted by dowcrag at 4:40 AM on February 25, 2020

Because I watch these videos and they look like parodies

After the first couple 5-Minute Crafts videos I've seen, I thought they were quite clearly parody/satire of actual crafting videos, maybe it's not obvious enough to most people, or I'm overestimating the intelligence of 5-Minute Crafts?
posted by AzraelBrown at 4:47 AM on February 25, 2020 [3 favorites]

I like how Fox's video starts with a "hack" that could easily be accepted at face value (Who knows how flan works? Not me!), goes to one that's clearly fake if you think about it for even five seconds (What's the consistency of melted gummy bears after they cool back down? Could it be....gummy bears?) and finally the one that's just obviously ludicrous (WARM CORN).
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:47 AM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

Everyone is being awful coy about this "lady chef" considering we're talking accusations of her recipes not being reliable, and not like something that is likely to see legal action for defamation.
posted by Dysk at 4:50 AM on February 25, 2020 [18 favorites]

I’m just noting that Delia Smith worked for Sainsbury’s in the mid-90s.

I’ve only ever used her Yorkshire pudding recipe, for which precise serving sizes are a moot point as one can never have too many Yorkshire puddings.
posted by edd at 4:55 AM on February 25, 2020 [3 favorites]

Look when you leave gummi worms in the back of a hot car in Texas in the summer you get gummi slime. Everybody knows this.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:56 AM on February 25, 2020 [5 favorites]

I will say that I have made some of the recipes from Tasty (and its terribly-named offshoot, Jewlish), and - if you click through and follow the printed recipe rather than the video itself - they've all come out pretty good. So not all clickbait videos are fakes, I guess.

Meanwhile I adore Ann Reardon's videos and I accidentally clicked from the FPP video to this one and now I have a pineapple spiralizer in my Amazon cart help me.
posted by Mchelly at 5:04 AM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

How is Dave not the real hero here?
posted by NoMich at 5:08 AM on February 25, 2020 [4 favorites]

I really can't fathom how Dave eats some of the things he's given.
posted by bonehead at 5:11 AM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

Google: "Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Google's motto: "Do the right thing".

How Youtube runs every part of their business: "hey yeah about those ideals funny story but no"
posted by mhoye at 5:13 AM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

Here's how to make an egg bigger than before! Okay, but why?

I remember watching through that for the first time wondering what would be the end result of all these steps. It was a.. big horrible egg. I kind of like how absurd some of these are. They're like those memefood videos of chickens drowned in cheese, wrapped in a kilo of ground beef, wrapped in cheese and bacon again etc. Insane.
posted by Chaffinch at 5:35 AM on February 25, 2020

Judge peoplecorporations not by their words but their deeds.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:35 AM on February 25, 2020 [3 favorites]

Is this where we can talk about the chicken roasted in FIVE+ STICKS OF BUTTER?

Not overtly dangerous, perhaps, but it even gives me, an inveterate “you can never have too much butter” person, a bit of a horrified pause.
posted by angeline at 5:44 AM on February 25, 2020 [7 favorites]

I’m just noting that Delia Smith worked for Sainsbury’s in the mid-90s.

Her complete cookery is very reliable - I use it for anything roasted or traditionally English. My friend made her Guiness Chocolate Cake and it was great.

So I'm going to assume it's that other chef whose recipes I've never used.
posted by jb at 5:45 AM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

Is this where we can talk about the chicken roasted in FIVE+ STICKS OF BUTTER?

The butter just runs off and presumeably cooks into the rice. Is that even a thing? Even fried rice is boiled first right?
posted by Chaffinch at 6:00 AM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

The coffee creams look so delicious. I also like the look of the almond candies, but I'm allergic to almonds - maybe could make the peanut version? (Aka peanut brittle).
posted by jb at 6:15 AM on February 25, 2020

Yeah but you don’t cook rice in butter, you need boiling water and butter has a habit of burning. You can slip a knob of butter into your rice for flavour.

The thing is that if you want magic food that requires no work and tastes delicious, slow cookers are genuine alchemy.
posted by Merus at 6:15 AM on February 25, 2020

What is the obsession with bleach these days? I can't think of a worse substance to mix with foods or bodies, and yet it's seen as this magic ingredient.

You certainly shouldn't consume it in large quantities, but it can save lives in small amounts.
posted by solotoro at 6:47 AM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

Is this where we can talk about the chicken roasted in FIVE+ STICKS OF BUTTER?

How you gonna drop Chef Club's name and not at least MENTION the hot dog waffles or the cheese-stuffed Hot-Cheeto-coated turkey? (Warning: Facebook, autoplaying video, not safe for appetites)
posted by Mayor West at 7:01 AM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

My god I'm hungry
posted by Chaffinch at 7:13 AM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

My son and I fell into a spate of these a while ago. I think he likely was attracted by one of desserts, possibly one of the Gummi Bear related ones. So we watched a bunch of them and yeah I assumed they were parody (like that corn one, I mean how else can you possibly interpret that) but it is kind of hard to tell. At least the ones we watched, they all sort of skirt along what could be an actual recipe. Like the ice cream frosting / icing one - you can actually make a cake out of ice cream by adding cake ingredients (that was one of the first cakes my sister made when she was in Brownies and we thought it was pure MAGIC) so why try to make it into icing? And it certainly isn't rocket science to make a simple icing sugar frosting. Or the Gummi Bears layered parfait thing? You could just use gelatin (which when I was a kid I also thought was magic), so why bother with melting a pile of candy? Just plain weird. There's actual magical things you can do in the kitchen, like Merus mentions the slow cooker can be magic - throw a can of condensed milk in one, cook it and you got the easiest dulce de leche! I guess they somehow make money from the clicks? Is that how it works?

Our favourite ones we watched, however, were the "life hacks" I guess you'd call them. They were all sort of personal grooming "tips" - like if you are out of deodorant, rub a lemon on your armpit! Hilarious. To their credit they have been weirdly useful as a didactic tool to illustrate what not to do for my young son à la Goofus and Gallant. The cooking ones certainly serve a similar purpose I think as well (when making lasagne, always wash your hands after handling a dog).
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:41 AM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

Is this where we can talk about the chicken roasted in FIVE+ STICKS OF BUTTER?

That still comes out of the oven visibly dry!!

(presumably, if the video isn't outright faked, that's what the rice cooks in rather than water -- in all the juice that left the chicken)
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:01 AM on February 25, 2020

... just noting that Delia Smith worked for Sainsbury’s in the mid-90s.

It cannot be Delia. Her recipes are nigh-hella awesome. Is her methodology too complex? Less than stellar? Flawed? Some. But her craft is excellent, as one might tell a poor bun easily compared with the other cook, whose name I've completely forgotten, sorry.
posted by rpophessagr at 8:14 AM on February 25, 2020 [3 favorites]

So we watched a bunch of them and yeah I assumed they were parody (like that corn one, I mean how else can you possibly interpret that) but it is kind of hard to tell.

Geico made a few of these for Facebook, and the comments were full of people taking them seriously.
posted by Mchelly at 8:20 AM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have to admit I’m baffled by the other cook possibility. The only one that really springs to mind only appeared on the cooking scene a little too late to be counted as thirty years ago?
posted by edd at 8:20 AM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

OK I'll put myself out there for suing. It was Delia.
Just because all the recipes in a cook book work, it doesn't mean it's the putative author who actually checked and cooked 'em.
posted by AFII at 8:48 AM on February 25, 2020 [5 favorites]

My kiddo loves to bake but really prefers online recipes to books BUT ALSO won't just stick to sites like Allrecipes that at least have ratings. Anyway, we've had a least one recipe go "blurp" and just not work, and many many that made, at most, 6-8 servings of the thing. And others that were wildly overcomplicated/time-consuming.

It's been a lesson for the kiddo, for sure, but also has made me very cranky and caused fights between us when I read over what they want to bake and say "This is not going to work, kid," and they don't want to listen.

Thanks for nothing, shitty Internet faux-chefs.
posted by emjaybee at 9:30 AM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

You can cook rice in butter. There’s an old lowcountry recipe for red rice from Charleston Receipts that my ex MIL used to make and it is, basically, rice cooked in bacon grease and tomato paste. It’s amazing. So good.

I like these videos, particularly the craft ones, because they’re just so bizarre. You can tell they won’t work or if they will then. . why? I sadly hadn’t thought about people actually trying them and the story of the child who died in China is horrifying. At the very least they all need big disclaimers.
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:36 AM on February 25, 2020

OK I'll put myself out there for suing. It was Delia.

That's a little shocking to me. Her Complete Cookery Course is really reliable, and with instructions on technique, etc. We became so reliant on it that our roommate once made a houserule: "Do not dis Delia".

That said, sometimes success changes people and they stop being good at what made them successful - like when best-selling authors whose strength was tight plotting stop listening to their editors and their books get longer and longer and more turgid (ala J.K. Rowling or Steven King).

Her Guinness Cake (made by my Delia-loving roommate) was very yummy.
posted by jb at 9:52 AM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

Don't forget the olive!
posted by Thomas Tallis is my Homeboy at 10:52 AM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

basically, rice cooked in bacon grease and tomato paste

Yeeees? I’m very surprised and intrigued! Does the rice actually soften up?
posted by clew at 10:59 AM on February 25, 2020

Butter is ~20% water. It should not be surprising that rice can be cooked in a sufficient quantity of butter.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:02 AM on February 25, 2020

Here's">the recipe -I had to take a picture from my own copy because all the ones online are tarted up with sausage and real tomatoes and celery and suchlike modern foofaraw. No, bacon grease and sugar, that's what you need. My ex MIL kept a coffee can of bacon grease in the fridge for stuff like this. Heaven.
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:10 PM on February 25, 2020 [5 favorites]

Pressure cooker rice loses little water to steam and is about 1:2 by volume rice:water... so, 1:10 rice:butter if the butter is 1/5 water. When done, the equivalent of 2c cooked rice in 8c butter. I like butter but that seems messy.
posted by clew at 2:12 PM on February 25, 2020

no modern foofaraw like celery

and if you don't buy your coffee in cans, where do you get your useful cans?
posted by clew at 2:13 PM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

Exactly! Also, looking at this, she didn’t have a rice steamer - she would just put it all in a casserole dish, cover with foil and put it in the oven for about 40 minutes.
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:16 PM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

OK I'll put myself out there for suing. It was Delia.
Ha! I knew it. A lot of her recipes aren't bad per se, but they sure as hell aren't tested.
posted by Acheman at 2:52 PM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

Any of the name Chefs, Smith, Lawson, Oliver, Stewart are corporations, brands, not people. The trick is to go not too far downmarket and lose track of quality.
posted by bonehead at 3:09 PM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

wait, are you telling me the egg isn't bigger than before?
posted by rifflesby at 5:36 PM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

The egg is definitely bigger than before. What are we even talking about?!
posted by sjswitzer at 6:04 PM on February 25, 2020

Tasty (being a subcompany of Buzzfeed) does have a very active YouTube channel where they show the process of developing those recipes and the chefs talk about their work. So in that way there is a little more vetting involved.
posted by divabat at 8:38 PM on February 25, 2020

Here's">the recipe [link to awesome Red Rice recipe]

What do you think the volume is of the can that is being used to measure the water in that recipe? I assume it is from the paste?

I collect old cookbooks and recently I picked up a church cookbook from the 50's and one of the recipes requires "13 cents worth of dried coconut".
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:05 PM on February 25, 2020 [5 favorites]

Maybe these fake cooking hacks explain where Kay's Good Cooking get's inspiration. I think she gets her ideas from other YouTube channels.

Maybe nothing explains Kay's Good Cooking, to be fair.
posted by asok at 3:03 AM on February 27, 2020