I have a garlic intolerance so I DIY spice blends for grilling/smoking. Interestingly enough, I can eat other veggies from the allium family (e.g. onions). I also really enjoy dry rub wings vs the messy traditional sauced wings.

I've googled garlic free dry rub wings recipes many times and come up blank as far as truly replicating the flavor of the original sauced buffalo wings. The best I've done is find a reputable dry rub wing recipe with garlic in it and just leave out the garlic. It's good, not great as it doesn't truly replicate the original flavor of sauced Buffalo wings.

I was on X/Twitter and decided to ask Grok to create a garlic free dry rub buffalo wing recipe. It started with the premise of recreating the original buffalo wing recipe (franks and butter) in a dry rub, it's output explained the logic behind each spice, and created a truly unique dry rub recipe that I've never seen anything remotely like it.

I decided to try Meta's AI, and it took a different approach. It searched 12 to 15 popular BBQ websites, didn't find exactly what it was searching for, found a consensus on a good recipe, and substituted onion powder for the garlic. In other words, it took the same path that I had previously taken.

This past weekend, I bought the two ingredients that have never ever been in my pantry as an adult (powdered vinegar and powdered butter), bought some wing drummettes, made the Grok recipe, and cooked up a batch. It was better than the dry rub recipe I had been using, but not as good as sauced buffalo wings.

I haven't tried the Meta AI recipe yet.

Question:
Have you ever used AI to create a recipe and then made the recipe?

Choices:
Yes - it was a success
Yes - it was merely OK
Yes - it was a disaster
No
Other (explain in comments)
I just like to vote in polls

 

No, don't see any reason after all all AI is going to do is the same as a Google Search.
I don't believe AI is creating anything from scratch.
True, recipes vary so I do look over a number of recipes including Grandma's and other sources online or other and may follow or make it my own.
Experience is not something AI can replicate.

I actually do. I say, “give me directions on how to smoke xxx on a Traeger. Start from preparing to serving, include times, internal temperature targets, and grill temperatures. Assume I know nothing.”

That’s how I cooked my ribs yesterday. I also ask it for minimum and optimal times for marinating or resting the meat. I asked the difference between marinating in apple juice versus pineapple juice plus beer.

Of course, I also use YouTube and the Traeger App for how to’s.

I asked somebody’s AI what temp to bake a cast iron pan when using vegetable oil to season it.

Answer: Between 200F and 450F.

I can’t see how I could possibly trust it for something as complicated as a recipe. Maybe one for disaster.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
No, don't see any reason after all all AI is going to do is the same as a Google Search.
I don't believe AI is creating anything from scratch.

That wasn't my experience with Grok, but it was my experience with Meta. I've done the Google search on it 6 or 8 times over the past year, and Grok really surprised me with a recipe I hadn't seen anything remotely similar.

Grok literally took every ingredient in traditional buffalo wing sauce (i.e. Butter and Frank's red hot) and converted to a dry ingredient. I'm not talking powdered butter plus cayenne pepper either. It went through every item in cayenne pepper sauce (e.g. vinegar), had a substitution, and quantity. Even had a range on the amount of cayenne pepper depending on how spicy I like. In other words, some logic behind it.

Additionally, unlike Google there wasn't any weighting based on SEO or how much a business spends advertising with them. A good analogy would be Terlingua world championship chili recipes. The Grok one looked like the 1990 world championship recipe where it just states the generic ingredient (e.g. onion powder), and a Google search would look like the 2024 world championship recipe with Mild Bills onion powder, Fiesta cayenne, Mild Bills champion, etc.

I’ve used Grok for several recipes and lots of generalized cooking instructions (like time and temp for grilling drumsticks, for instance)

I asked Grok for a basic scratch made pancake recipe, and it is fantastic. It gave me a good base for chocolate chip cookies without white sugar and using coconut sugar instead. I asked for a few tweaks and by the third iteration that recipe was really good.

It’s generated recipes for canning jams like mulberry, or strawberry with honey and strawberry with agave. It remembers our preferences and now avoids white sugar totally where that would otherwise be normally included.

I’ve been extremely pleased with Grok generated recipes.

I’ve even listed off some ingredients u have on hand and asked for suggestions on what to do with it.

Yes, I’m a fan of this use.

Absolutely: Here is one I did recently. They are WAY better the next day cold right out the fridge.

Red Velvet Cream Cheese-Stuffed Cookies

Cookie Dough Ingredients

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (Dutch-processed preferred)
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
1 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ tsp red gel food coloring (more vibrant than liquid)

Cream Cheese Filling

8 oz cream cheese, room temp
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Optional Finish

½ cup granulated sugar (for rolling)
Powdered sugar (for dusting after baking)

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
No, don't see any reason after all all AI is going to do is the same as a Google Search.
I don't believe AI is creating anything from scratch.
True, recipes vary so I do look over a number of recipes including Grandma's and other sources online or other and may follow or make it my own.
Experience is not something AI can replicate.

I'll disagree a bit. Not replacement for experience. Especially in something like baking. But there is a reason it's called Gen-AI or Generative AI. It can create new recipes based on the million or whatever recipes it's been trained on in it's LLM.

quote:

It can create new recipes

Thinking, rather, 'cobble together unproven mixes of food ingredients and cooking procedures'

I would trust an AI-generated recipe as far as I'd trust its 'legal precedent' research.

I don't have the robots do shit for me.

yes. i had chatGPT turn a sugar cookie recipe i liked into a lemon sugar cookie recipe. it was on point.

To transform the soft and chewy sugar cookie recipe into lemon sugar cookies similar to Pepperidge Farm’s Ojai cookies, you can adjust the ingredients as follows:

Adjusted Recipe:
Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups (318 grams) all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup (226 grams) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cups (250 grams) granulated sugar

Zest of 2 large lemons (about 2 tablespoons, finely grated)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 large egg

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract (optional, for more pronounced lemon flavor)

For Rolling:

1/4 cup granulated sugar

(Optional) Add some lemon zest to the rolling sugar for extra flavor.

Instructions:
Preheat Oven: Set to 350°F (175°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.

Mix Dry Ingredients: Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.

Cream Butter and Sugar: In a large bowl, beat softened butter, sugar, and lemon zest together until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes).

Add Wet Ingredients: Beat in the egg, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and optional lemon extract until well combined.

Combine: Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mixing until just combined.

Chill Dough: Refrigerate the dough for 30-60 minutes for easier handling and better flavor development.

Form Cookies: Scoop about 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough (or use a medium cookie scoop), roll into balls, and coat in rolling sugar.

Bake: Place on prepared baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the edges are set but the centers appear slightly underbaked (for chewy cookies).

Cool: Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Also used it to make a spice rub blend for a pork butt and predict smoking times. Turned out good. Was spot on. But a pork butt is pretty hard to screw up. LOL

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:

quote:

It can create new recipes

Thinking, rather, 'cobble together unproven mixes of food ingredients and cooking procedures'

I would trust an AI-generated recipe as far as I'd trust its 'legal precedent' research.

Really? From a risk management perspective legal advice and recipes are not even an apples and oranges comparison. I'd suggest asking the question, "what is the worst that could happen?" before trusting AI, Google, or forum advice. Then, adding in common sense if you decide to proceed with AI.

For my recipe it was $7 in chicken drummettes wouldn't taste good. Add in a little common sense and only try the recipe when you're cooking for yourself and have a solid back-up (eg leftovers in fridge). I certainly didn't invite the King of England to dinner and try an AI recipe.

Bad legal advice can cost tens of thousands of dollars, cause untold stress, and take years to overcome. Use AI help generate intelligent questions to ask your attorney.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
... Then, adding in common sense if you decide to proceed with AI.

Now that it seems we're morphing the thread into, 'Have you ever used AI to create a recipe, used common sense, and then made the recipe' I can have no objection. As a starting point for someone who knows cooking and has that common sense, fine. There's no harm-no foul if AI screws up making a funny meme image or causes a laugh by suggesting something ridiculous or dangerous to a pro who recognizes it as a blunder. AI does nothing if not make its output look authoritative to a neophyte...even if that output is comically wrong.

quote:

Bad legal advice can cost tens of thousands of dollars, cause untold stress, and take years to overcome. Use AI help generate intelligent questions to ask your attorney.

No quibbles. That said, I didn't say the consequences of using AI for legal reference and recipes were equivalent, I said the trust to put in them was.