Baking a cake with recipe or Improvisation

[skeptic7]

This is a chapter from a fanfiction series. Its set sort of in the Teen Wolf universe.
Stiles and Peter are married and have adopted Peter's nephew and nieces. Peter is an orderly person who uses cookbooks and recipes and sticks to them particularly when baking. Stiles also bakes but will improvise a recipe.
The interesting thing is really the comments at the end where the readers discuss their baking styles.
Some people actually make up cake recipes as they go along. I wouldn't dare unless I was willing to throw away an unsuccessful experiment.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15468810/chapters/37299809

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[Mike Nolan]

I think as long as you know the key 'must do' and 'must not do' things and the reasonable ratios of major ingredients, it's fine to make up a cake recipe as you go.

[skeptic7]

I thought the idea was impossible when so little as 1/4 cup more liquid can turn a zuchinni cake into a dense soggy mess; and trying to avoid cutting butter into scones by using melted butter poured into buttermilk will turn dense and heavy; that just improvising a recipe would be impossible. I'm like the Peter character in the story and want to go off to gibber in peace. I can see that some cakes are more flexible than others and this seems to have started as a butter cake -- equal amounts flour, sugar and butter before the changes.

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--If you ever decide to pursue improvisational baking, look up Ratio:  The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, by Michael Ruhlman. Most of the first 85 pages are about the baking ratios of which Mike speaks.

When it comes to yeast breads, I am comfortable shifting around and substituting. I have been able to do more than I had hoped with quick bread and cake recipes where I need to substitute oil for butter. However, I accept that there are some recipes--those with lots of butter--for which I will not be able to create a less saturated fat version.

[Mike Nolan]

Ruhlman's ratio book is great, it arose from his training at CIA in New York, which is the subject of another of his books: The Making of a Chef. The ratios themselves only take up two pages.

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