48 Cooking Disasters Caused By Absolutely Awful Ingredient Swaps

When it comes to following recipes, the best advice that anyone can give is to read through the entire thing thoroughly. More than once, if possible! That way, you can avoid a ton of mistakes because you’ll know what to expect. You’ll know what specific ingredients you’ll need.

You’ll know what tools you should have available in your kitchen. And you’ll know the general time frame that your awesome cooking or baking marvel is going to require.

When you’re familiar with the recipe, you can prepare in advance. You can buy all the ingredients that you’re missing at home instead of having to rely on substitutions or rushing to the local store while you’re in the middle of cooking.

Not only that, but you can do a lot of the prep work in advance to save you some time. 

The r/ididnthaveeggs subreddit is a fairly large one, boasting 321k members from all around the world at the time of writing. The idea behind the group is very simple. It’s meant to gently poke fun at home chefs who leave terrible recipe reviews. First, they don’t follow the recipes. Next, they complain that the recipes are somehow to blame for their failed results.

The content shared by the members of the subreddit is great for a few laughs. And it’s proof that some folks will go to amazing lengths to blame everyone and anyone for their mistakes but themselves. Humility and the ability to take responsibility for one’s (in)actions are a huge part of being a mature grownup.

They’re also useful skills if you aim to grow as a professional in any field. If you only ever try to dodge any and all blame, you only end up slowing your own learning progress.

If you’re planning on being a member of this sub, then you’ve got to do your best to follow the rules as set out by the small but dedicated team of moderators. For one, everyone’s expected to behave in a civil manner. “We aren't here to mercilessly mock anyone; stay on the snark side of the snark/mockery line,” they urge everyone.

The moderators also remind everyone that not only should you behave politely when interacting with your fellow redditors, but you should also give some grace to the people whose reviews get posted on the subreddit. Gentle criticism and humor are fine.

Mean-spirited mockery is stepping over some boundaries. It’s important to remember that even delusional amateur chefs who can’t follow recipes are people, too. And everyone deserves at least some basic respect.

The type of content that gets shared on ‘I Didn’t Have Eggs’ can vary quite a bit. Probably the most well-known and common format is folks complaining about recipes after having made significant alterations that ended up ruining the entire dish. Other posts include reviews that are unhelpful or comically irrelevant, as well as reviews where someone severely misunderstood what’s required of them.

However, reviews where somebody alters the recipe due to personal taste don’t actually belong on this subreddit. What’s more, if the chef isn’t complaining about the recipe or the recipe itself remains largely intact, there’s not much humor to be found.

These types of posts don’t quite fit the idea behind the group, so they might end up getting pruned. But it’s very likely that the internet will never run out of bad recipe reviewers so long as common sense continues to be so rare.

The moderators running the group actually have a fondness for satire as well. If a bad recipe review is obviously satirical in nature, you can post it on specific days. Namely—Satire Saturdays.

In the meantime, all redditors are encouraged to never interact with the people whose reviews get posted on the subreddit. This helps avoid a lot of the potential emotional fallout if someone recognizes that it’s their review being poked fun at.

Which of these reviews did you find the funniest, Pandas? Have you ever tried substituting ingredients only to end up with an inedible disaster on your hands? Why do you personally think so many people have trouble following even simple and straightforward recipes?

Let us know what you think in the comment section at the bottom of the article. Meanwhile, for some more hilarity from r/ididnthaveeggs, check out earlier feature.

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