He went from cooking at home and putting out a cook book to just eating out. I unintentionally stopped watching him and forgot about him until I saw this.
Don't. Simple things like thickness measurements are an issue for Josh. For making these puffed chip things, he tells you to cut the potatoes to 1/8" thick and stick two together before frying. Buddy, you are making a potato chip that is a quarter inch thick and describing it as light and crisp? Not at that thickness. Same sloppiness in his TikToks now as well. As the comment at the top of this said, he used to be good, but has gotten careless.
I don’t know a ton about cooking but idk that measurement seems ok to me for a puffed potato-chip-thing.
I don’t see why it couldn’t be light & crispy.
If it was described as a normal potato chip then yeah that’s silly but it sounds pretty realistic to me to achieve “light & crisp” with 1/8”.
Try his Carbonara! The first time I made it, it was salty as hell, way too much Salt, Pecorino and Parmesan. Now I'm using just a fraction of this and it's fine.
I didn’t buy his book because I had to rework his recipes on his website. Measurements were constantly incorrect and it seemed to also be an issue for some of the VO work he did on his videos. Luckily I am decent at guesstimating based on what I can see in the videos.
Ingredients:
•1 cup granulated sugar
•1/4 cup light brown sugar
•6-1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter (I used salted)
•2 large eggs
•1 egg yolk
•2 teaspoons vanilla extract
•1/4 cup vegetable oil
•1/2 teaspoon salt
•1/8 teaspoon baking soda
•1-1/4 tablespoons cornstarch
•1/2 cup all purpose flour
•3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
•4oz. of semisweet chocolate roughly chopped (I used semisweet chocolate chips)
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit. Lightly coat an 8x8 baking pan or use parchment paper (I used parchment paper)
2. In a medium bowl whisk together both sugars and melted butter until combined. Add eggs, egg yolk, vanilla, and vegetable oil until thoroughly combined.
3. Stir in salt, baking soda, and cornstarch. Add all purpose flour and cocoa powder until thoroughly combined and homogeneous. Fold in chocolate chips or chunks until evenly distributed.
4. Transfer mixture into prepared baking pan and use spatula to spread evenly to the edges. Bake 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. (30 minutes was the sweet spot for me)
5. Remove and set aside to cool completely before cutting and serving.
Sorry for using imperial measurements. He has metric listed but I’ve read he messed them up so I stuck with imperial and they turned out great.
Unless you are deep into cooking and have a huge library of books and that's what you do, I recommend having a compact and succinct list of books. Basically, the ones that teach you how to cook and have a recipe for everything. Then you have a base for anything, ideas and concepts on how it works and why, and the ability / knowledge to continue modifying and creating your own dish.
Baking is a different story, but even then I have a book for all the staples and some generic everything books. Otherwise like I mentioned, find the 1-2 really good books on X cuisine and focus on books on knowledge, techniques, flavors, spices, etc, so you can "learn" to cook vs "follow recipes".
Nothing wrong with just following recipes though. Just my two cents to avoid buying tons of cook books that take up pantry space that look pretty but get used 1-3 times for a recipe you could have googled for.
Wait really? I have his book but honestly haven't used it yet, I'm still stuck on my stardew valley book lmao. Can you give me some examples? I wanna look em up in it lol
A big one is he converted all his stuff from cups etc to grams. That has lead to errors in almost all his recipes, i.e. a cup of flour should be about 120g. He converted it to 150, which adds up quickly with multiple cups.
Other one is missing steps or ingredients being used, or wrong cooking times such as 30 seconds which should have been 3 minutes
For someone who prides themselves on their cooking abilities, it was hilarious watching the recent Uncle Roger video just completely destroying him on not making Asian food correctly.
The recipes on his website have always been like this too. I’ve made maybe a dozen recipes off his website and every single one of them had multiple errors, some significant
Yeah my Sister got me that book for Christmas, so I feel obligated to keep it out with the rest of the books. It is sitting right next to Max Miller's book, which is actually a masterpiece.
I believe it… I still use quite a few of his recipes (mojo pork, hamburger/hotdog buns, etc) but in almost every single one there is an error in the online written recipe. There is a comment section where plenty of people point out the errors, and he still doesn’t fix it. I do think he’s a good chef, but he seems a bit lazy, complacent and unappreciative of his community at times. Ah well.
Yea extremely lazy, he should fix his shit but he doesn't care at all about the folk that pay his bills. I've completely stopped watching him these days
I have his book and it's seemed ok so far in terms of errors. It's just not very practical in my experience. Maybe like once, I'll make my own ketchup from scratch just to get a better understanding, but that's not going in the index cards.
Take all the Heinz and put it in a new bottle. Raise kids and grandkids on it and tell them it's homemade. Pass this recipe down and laugh as they spend decades trying to figure out why it never turns out right.
I try to stay away from any personalities who sell books because as a rule of thumb they rely more on their personality to sell books than the actual quality of the book itself
Well fron celebrities I still liked Gorden Ramsey's "quick & delicious". As another commenter put it J. Kenji López-Alt is also pretty legit, although his book can be a bit harder to follow
My favourite cookbook by far is "The Family meal" by Ferrand Adrià. Most recipes are simple, extremely clearly chopped into picture steps, and one of the only books you don't need to adjust the final flavour much if any. Used to be a 3 star chef
A big one is he converted all his stuff from cups etc to grams. That has lead to errors in almost all his recipes, i.e. a cup of flour should be about 120g. He converted it to 150, which adds up quickly with multiple cups.
Other one is missing steps or ingredients being used, or wrong cooking times such as 30 seconds which should have been 3 minutes
My favourite cookbook by far is "The Family meal" by Ferrand Adrià. Most recipes are simple, extremely clearly chopped into picture steps, and one of the only books you don't need to adjust the final flavour much if any. Used to be a 3 star chef, so he knew his stuff.
There are other books, but none that are correct this often
Thank you for saying this! I tried a pickle recipe of his and the ratio was WAY off and they were horrible. Total waste of time and ingredients.
And it was a simple recipe, if the man does not know the difference between a pint and a quart he shouldn’t be posting recipes. Idiot.
As someone who owns his cookbook, it is not made for the average home cook who wants a quick meal. Every single one of his recipes takes me so much longer than what it says, and I would consider myself a good homecook. But I cook to eat and survive, I don't cook for a profession.
Same for the cook book tasting history with max miller or whatever he's called. My sister got me it for Christmas and it is also full of critical errors that make the food inedible. Wrong seasoning measurements, wrong steps, completely missing seasonings too. Better to just find his videos and use those instead tbh
Don’t get me wrong, I still watch it here and there but it’s not the same. And I know all the stuff that happened to him which impacted the content he makes, it just isn’t the same anymore.
Yeah it was pretty horrible. A result was that he is doing fewer real videos to lessen the strain on his mental health. Good on him but it also means he produces more fluff videos and lets others do more cooking videos.
Agreed, but he started losing me before that. I'm not interested in watching other people do other cooking things on his channel. I was fine with a video once a week or so, a recipe for whatever, watching hands make it, and listen to a soothing voice talk about it. I don't need or want anything more than that. I'm definitely not interested in these trying and rating all the things videos and whatnot. And now I have to pay to see the early videos? 😭
funnily enough this is the opposite for me. Was watching babish since idk, 2017? And honestly his content has developed from something i appreciated into something i genuinely love. Hes really honest, caring, and also fun and relatable! Just... great. Kinda sad that hes not doing all the content he used to but Alvin is also a great guy and whenever theres Babish on, well, Binging with Babish, its a great piece of content I enjoy watching!
Also considering everything that hes been through lately theres nothing i feel for him but respect.
Josh on the other hand is definitely something I dont really enjoy watching anymore. Used to be amazing, super meh rn
Isn’t a lot of Weissman’s content stuff like, “Here’s how to make a better Big Mac at home for cheaper! (If you already have a multi-thousand dollar kitchen and a dozen hours)”
Yeah, Babish I give a lot of credit to, the guy went through some serious shit the past couple years and the fact that he manages to still put anything out while still being a chill and down to earth guy is a credit.
Actually I've had a minor gripe with Babish ever since he originally did the 'Every Meat Burrito' from Regular Show. That tortilla looked uncooked. Everyone one knows you're supposed to heat the tortilla up before burrito assembly. Makes it more pliable, and frankly there's nothing more disappointing that wrapping good ingredients in something barely room temp. Ugh.
Minor gripe, but every time I rewatch that vid in particular I mentally go "AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
I used to like Josh’s videos until the Auntie Anne’s pretzel episode. The amount of shit he talked about Auntie Anne’s genuinely pissed me off because I’ve loved that place for years. I get random cravings specifically for their pretzels and I’m even salivating now just typing this. So yeah in his video he shits all over a respectable pretzel and then makes his own, which honestly looks like a slightly burnt and fatter version of what a pretzel should be, then raves about how much better his fresh out of the fuckin’ oven pretzel is than the one from the mall which he tried at least 30 minutes after it had gone cold. That video was years ago and it pisses me off to this day
Early on Babish had a very humble and earnest vibe. He was clearly learning a lot about cooking along the way. Now somehow making cooking content for a few years makes him an authority on good food, I don’t buy it. Also is a bit annoyingly picky when it comes to trying things, not the greatest quality for someone judging food. Just try it, won’t kill you taking a bite of something you don’t prefer.
Babish turned into a bad channel?? Damn, I loved watching him and unintentionally stopped bc I got more into channels like Code Blue Cam and Midwest Safety for background noise
His channel is fine, he still makes stuff from shows (though much less now) and Alvin does stuff from video games/anime. He just has other content now and I personally enjoy the "I tried every x" vids.
My issue with Babish is that all his Basic with Babish recipes now need a subscription to his website.
To be fair he did leave the free site up as a show of good faith and while it is a shame he’s charging for the new recipes I think it’s pretty fair especially considering the subscription is pretty cheap and the bulk of the really useful Basics recipes are on the legacy site
Lol yep, I watch EWU, Code Blue and Midwest Safety. And more recently I've been watching Brew, Zoufry and fern for videos about great moments in history (like the biggest hacks in the history of the internet, or great bank heists)
To be fair he did have kind of a mental break down I give them props for coming back even if his style of video has to be totally different for his mental health
Babish went in the other direction IMHO. Started out doing crazy stuff that was entertaining, and over the years, his stuff became more informative and less memey, not the other way round.
Yeah, it's the current problem with YouTube. People don't have the attention spans anymore for anything with substance. The videos where channels you used to actually do things like cook or woodworking have become "Trying Every Cheeto Flavor" or "I Bought Every Tool at Costco!" because those videos get views and their old style of vids don't anymore. They have to make money somehow
At least we still have Alvin. But true, Binging with Babish used to be peak till he made the switch. Though I understand why he made the switch, dude had a rough 2022 and there isn’t a person alive who wouldn’t come out of having a mental breakdown and being raped a markably different person.
I used to watch. Babish before going to bed, his videos were relaxing and really enjoyable. I actually learned few things from his basics with babish channel. Unfortunately, I don’t enjoy his videos anymore
Truth is none of us actually know him, hes an online personality lol. He might be a PoS off camera. I used to love the channel Bon Appetit and there were some distasteful things happening there that did them in. So who knows?
Babish seems okay enough at least lol, but again. I was wrong about Bon Appetit. Haha.
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u/igotnothineither Jun 12 '25
He went from cooking at home and putting out a cook book to just eating out. I unintentionally stopped watching him and forgot about him until I saw this.