on not following recipes

With the exception of cakes and some kinds of breads, most recipes are pretty flexible. I drive Laurel nuts with the fact that I seldom follow recipes to the letter and often don't measure some of the ingredients. But I think that most people who spend a lot of time in the kitchen do begin to get a "feel" for things and just "know" what will work and what won't and where a recipe might be improved upon or varied.

Sometimes following a recipe to the letter is, in fact, the wrong thing to do.

If, for instance, one always finds that by following a recipe exactly, cookies come out too hard and a bit overbaked, then either the oven tends to run a bit hot or the cookie sheets are too dark (and perhaps one might consider replacing part of the butter with shortening, which gives a softer texture).

I know that when baking most items, I need to run our oven 5-10 degrees below what the recipe calls for and be vigilant about the baking time. The exception is pizza where I ignore recipes altogether and get the oven at hot as it will go - around 550F - and use a baking stone for a crust that, even if thicker, is very crispy on the outside and a slight bit burnt in spots on the bottom. But that's exactly what one wants with pizza.

In any case, I'm hardly a fountain of advice on this sort of thing, but as things seem to work for me, I'll note them here.