If you consider that the low cost ingredients are also worst for your health and the more expensive are better, the 2.8 is multipler is not that much, also you can remove some of the most expensive or the one that make no different. This will probably drop the 2.8 to a 2 and you get the same result. 2 times more expensive to be healthy and not see a doctor? The is a reason why your fatty/obese friend likes more the bad food, that's why she have such problem, her food problems make her do the wrong choices too. Whould you pay 2 times more to not be like her? Your choice :P Also povery in America is linked to obesity for a reason .. more cheat = less healthy.
I would recommend, ask more questions about the perception of the samples before you reveal monetary value. Value can alter subjective enjoyment DRASTICALLY, thiss is extensively researched with wine tasting experiments. Ask quesstions like, which is more enjoyable, which feels more "natural", which feels more luxurious, which tastes more "wholesome". Many people associate "natural" with "cheap" or "simple" even though in reality its usually the other way around, and they also asociate "wholesome" with natural, and paradoxically, more expensive with more enjoyable even though Natural not necesarilly tastes better for most.
i personally feel ingredients are more about quality than cost. cost and quality are not always related either because sometimes you are just paying extra for a brand because its "trusted" or "popular". Ingredient quality is not always about flavor as well. sometimes people may just prefer less preservatives or whatever else may be abundant in some cheaper products
Mass production can result in both cheap and high-quality ingredients. Just because something is hand made or took more labor to produce, doesn't automatically mean it is of higher quality and often means there's less consistency. Most people would like to assume if they are paying a higher price for something that it means it's also higher quality but that isn't always the case.
@@aj-sz8mu Noticing little things you may or may not like, such as the oily batch several of the group mentioned before knowing what the difference was can help. it may not work hand in hand with quality, but finding preferences is a start
...Yes? Better ingredients (higher quality) taste better. The point of the experiment was to find if higher costs correlate with higher quality. "Are Expensive Ingredients Better?".
Regarding Vanilla, it is also worth noting that when it comes to the expensive vanillas, the origin of the vanilla can make a nice impact. Nielsen Massey's Madagascar vanilla, which is what you used, is a great all-purpose vanilla. However, other vanillas like Ugandan, Indonesian, Tahitian, or Mexican can all make a noticeable impact on your recipe. For instance, Tahitian vanilla is very floral, which you would want to use for icings, dairy, or no-bake applications because the floral notes get lost during the high heat of baking. I made sugar cookies with Indonesian vanilla, which holds flavor well in baking and buttery applications, but Indonesian vanilla is quite smoky and the smoky flavor was very overpowering. Would make for good chocolate chip cookies, but not plain, vanilla sugar cookies. Ugandan vanilla is somewhat chocolate-y in flavor and is good for all-purpose uses, but might not be ideal for a plain, vanilla frosting. The origin of vanilla you use can totally add or detract from the recipe you are using, which I find to be a lot of fun as I mix and match what vanillas I use (which are also Nielsen Massey) to take the recipe just the little, extra mile. It might be fun to do a comparison video with a baked and non-baked application to see whether people perceive or prefer a certain origin of vanilla for their food.
same bro this is a nice foodie info dump for next time, gonna be useful when making soda syrups and desserts. you got any more on vanilla paste, extracts, powder?
@@AnniCarlsson True, and even in cases where they use real vanillia beans, many cheap vanillas add vanillin, the main flavor/fragrance component of vanilla (and all that's used for imitation vanilla) to make it "stronger" just like OJ has perfume added to it to make it all taste the same, since different oranges and even different growing conditions alter the flavor profile enough that consumers get upset. They don't have to list it as separate as it's a "natural flavoring" Fun fact, vanillin, is "natural" because the easiest way to synthesize it is from wood pulp, namely the lignin they take out to make high quality paper-- it's what makes low quality paper turn yellow.
I've been working on my choco chip cookie recipe for a few years now, and the biggest difference I've noticed with cheap vs expensive is the vanilla, chocolate chips, and butter. None of the other ingredients seemed to make a difference.
Good butter is the core of cooking when it's involved! I often will go cheap on many ingredients because they are literally the same(All cheese is packaged in the same places!), but I will never, ever skimp on butter. People notice my cooking tastes great even if it's simple, and I tell them it's the butter.
dont discard the power of flour, while most brands of AP are similar there really bad ones and there are some exceptional ones, something missing also from this video is usually quality doesnt always reflect on price brand power can make a mediocre product more expensive and make you miss a really good product because it is maybe a dollar or two cheaper but the quality is like 50% better...
Crazy how you are no longer on "The King of Random", yet you're now more in the spirit of Grant's channel. We love you and hope you continue doing exactly what you do.
If we are sticking with the budget cuts theme, we should go with everyday meals. Basic vs brand -hot dogs and hot dog buns -pancakes -Peanut butter and Jelly Sandwiches Spaghetti and meatballs w/sauce
With pasta, it also makes a massive difference. Especially if you're using the Italian method of emulsifying the pasta sauce with the starch from pasta water instead of cream or butter. Lower quality spaghetti will have a smoother exterior thanks to being extruded through Teflon, while more expensive pasta will be extruded through Copper discs, showing a rougher surface. This rough surface and available starch is essential to making a proper creamy Italian pasta sauce. Now, if you're the kind of person to use ready-made sauces or like to douse your pasta in cream, it's not worth paying the higher price point.
@@gristlevonraben Anything that you aren’t cooking will probably have the most noticeable difference, as a significant amount of the flavours in cooked foods come from the chemical reactions at high temperatures.
Honestly, notice how one guy thought that they were the same, one girl liked the cheaper one, and the other girl liked the expensive one? If you didn't tell them there was a difference, both cookies would end up tasting the same to them, I'd bet. If you told them from the beginning that one was expensive and one was cheap, I guarantee that people's minds would start playing tricks and all of them would claim they like the expensive ones better. Even if there is a difference, it's not like it really matters. At the end of the day, both are just chocolate chip cookies. Try doing this again but tell people the cheap one is really the expensive one. Even if there is a noticeable difference, I doubt it would warrent spending extra money when both are just chocolate chip cookies at the end of the day.
That’s what’s known as the placebo effect and also I’d say confirmation bias. The placebo is where your brain causes you to think something tastes feels etc because you tell yourself something. Confirmation bias is where you think you know something and convince yourself something based on what you think.
The way my mind works now, I'd side with the cheaper ones unless they were somehow absolutely terrible. I've not always aimed to be frugal, but the older I get the more I do it. It's a good thing, too; I've wasted a lot of money.
No, they would not end up tasting the same. The smart girl was actually showing the rest of the group the inside of the cookies, pointing out how one was a better quality made, from whole ingredients. The big girl LOVED the cheap, crap cookies, and couldn't care less about the quality of the ingredients.
I mean, two girls liked the expensive cookies, one girl liked the cheap cookies, and one guy couldn't tell the difference. It is still in favor of more expensive ingredients.
I have memories from my childhood when the food didn't taste right and my mom went "it's the same ingredients as always". She didn't lie. What she didn't tell me was that she was struggling financially and had to buy cheap ingredients instead of the brands she used to. I didn't figure it out until I was there myself, trying to make the food for my kids last until the next paycheck.
You are an amazing and strong momma! I think your kids see you try. I felt that last sentence as I grew up pretty poor myself. Both my brother and I knew growing up that my mom tried her best to 'hide our poorness' and give us kids as good experience of childhood as possible. dang I gotta call my mom now and tell her I love her.
@@shoki5271 Yes they did in some cases. Ketchup was a thing they tasted the difference in, and the cheese. I also added more cheap veggies into stews and such and they pointed out that it wasn't the same anymore. The ham tasted different too. Even I disliked it.
i think some of the ingredients are worth going the expensive route, like the butter, but others are 100% okay going the cheap wrote, like baking soda or salt. unless of course you’re going real fancy and topping the cookies with a finishing salt, which in case a good flakey salt might be worth it...at least a mid range one
This is my line of thought as well. I splurge on good quality vanilla, chocolate chips, butter, and and sugar (cause I tend to use Swerve/Truvia baking blends) when I make cookies from scratch. Also, resting the dough before baking is a trick I use regardless of cheap/expensive - the flavors develop in a way that's just amazing.
@@AmarettoRawr Pretty sure, but don’t quote me on this, that expensive vanilla is only noticeable when you are making something that you want to taste like vanilla (so not chocolate chip cookies). A lot of the subtleties in the expensive vanilla is lost otherwise and a cheaper vanilla extract will provide similar results. So making a vanilla cream frosting? Expensive vanilla. Chocolate lava cake? Cheaper stuff is fine.
With the butter, the cheap vs expensive options might have different levels of butter fat as well. That's going to have an impact on the end result. Generally higher amounts of butter fat have nicer results in baking. With chocolate chips in cookies the main thing you'd be going by is taste preference, but the cheap options generally have higher ratios of sugar (and milk solids with milk chocolate) that can sometimes burn easily. Cheap chocolate chips aren't necessarily going to taste bad either, but many of the cheapest brands do simply because of poor processing and low cacao percentages. With flour, things like protein percentage are going to have more impact than product price. With brown sugar (ie compact, not raw sugar), I'd argue it's more of a brand thing than a price thing. There's one brand I used to get that tasted like it was burnt, that I only found out wasn't what brown sugar generally tastes like when I tried a different one (ironically cheaper just because it wasn't a big name brand). Also worth noting that some cheap vanilla essence brands are synthetic vanilla flavouring - not bad or anything, just not exactly like actual vanilla essence. Imho if you're going to go expensive with vanilla, you're better off just buying a good vanilla paste.
Absolutely on butter. Butter has a massive impact on flavor. I personally almost only use Kerrygold butter in most of my cooking, and if I have to lower down it's Land O' Lakes. People notice, even if they don't realize it's the butter than makes such a huge difference. Also like another person said, quality vanilla is a really good way to step up your game in baking as a whole. Eggs and good flour can also make a difference. I've noticed sometimes with a dirt cheap flour that things tend to be more grainy, but don't overpay. Get a good middling quality flour. With the fancy stuff you're mostly paying for artisanal things or organic/non-gmo, which are not applicable to 90% of recipes.
It's nice to see someone using one on one direct substitutes and not, like a few other youtubers do, things like cheap white bread versus an artisanal sourdough loaf.
Nate, what you have been doing on this channel reminds me of the early days of TKOR. Just creating things you are genuinely interested in and can get some practical use out of. I hope to see you to continue to follow this path because the little rabbit holes you are finding here are all quite interesting and intriguing. I have already started to make some plans off of some of your build videos here for things I know I would enjoy. Can't wait for the next video to show up. Congrats on being the first channel I turn the bell notifications on! (sorry for meandering thoughts!)
Sometimes things, like Star Trek (and some would say Star Wars as well) improve when the original creator is no longer in control. Other things, not so much. Sometimes it's best to go with the creator's original vision and build on it, like Star Trek and Star Wars did. Sometimes people in control get so wrapped up in chasing the almighty dollar that they lose sight of that vision; I think Disney Parks went that way and not what we're told was "Walt's vision." I think that's what started happening with TKOR, and when I didn't watch as much because fewer and fewer of the titles interested me. Like "What happens [X] in liquid nitrogen?" The answer was never something I didn't expect.
You're really in your wheelhouse with the "experiment" and "crafting" types of videos, Nate (I was really intrigued by the start-to-finish knife-making one). If you're looking for cooking/baking experiments other than cheap/expensive ingredients, comparing organic vs non-organic ingredients would be interesting. Another one would be full-fat dairy vs low-fat dairy ingredients. Another would be store-brand vs name-brand ingredients. And then there's always crock-pot vs oven-roasted.
I feel like the biggest thing that this experiment was missing was the mixer. The texture of the sugar wouldn’t have made a difference if it was properly creamed into the butter. The butter is best room temp and not microwaved for best creaming as well.
This whole video is based on an irrelevant question and the dumbest possible methodology. Obviously, this guy has never made cookies before in his life -- how can anyone expect his 'test' to provide any useful information. And... surprise. It didn't.
The taste of an ingredient is only a single factor into why it is expensive or not. What matters is the quality of the actual ingredient, where it is sourced, how it was made, etc. Just because something is more expensive doesn't mean it is a better product. There are so many factors to take into account; such as how much labor was needed, how was is processed/grown, is it sustainable, was it made with slave labor, was it imported, is the brand inflating the price b/c brand. If you research your ingredients you will often find many products come from the same source, yet in store are vastly different in price. That's where you save your money without sacrificing quality of product. That's the smart shopping aspect. The game of marketing.
100% agreed. On top of that some ingredients are pretty cheap, others expensive as hell. On a budget it can make sense to find reasonable substitutes for those ingredients that drive the price of a recipe up. The other day i saw a nice recipe for rice and beans. So far so good (on the budget). The only problem: it called for some "saffron threads". They surely add "something" to the recipe, but for me they simply make up around 75% of the total price for cooking those rice and beans. => i used more common spices instead.
Cost of ingredients is not solely based on its taste. Why? Because taste is subjective. The cost of an ingredient depends on several factors. How its processed, where its from, if its been imported or not, organic/non organic, etc.
@@joekim4794 Yes, and most of the time rarity/ availability plays a big role as well. "Cheap" can mean low quality, OR high availabilty. Especially most of the basic foodstuff gets a lot of money from the state JUST to make sure people never go hungry. Doesn't mean such mass produced flour, corn, milk etc is bad. It may not be the best, but it's okey. If there is a problem, it's that calories have become to cheap. Hence people are getting fat. At least we don't go hungry, historically speaking that's straight up a manmade miracle.
@Peter Pan I was just replying to the original comment. He was saying that the price of an ingredient is soley based on taste. And i was disagreeing with that.
@@joekim4794 Ok. But he didn't say that. Quote: "The taste of an ingredient is only a single factor into why it is expensive or not." Followed by a bunch of different reasons something might be expensive or not.
I really enjoyed this one! I already spend the money on higher quality butter, eggs, and vanilla and I use Nestle chocolate chips. I noticed the biggest difference in texture with the switch in butter. I just tried to figure which ingredients have the biggest impact on the final product.
I agree. I also make sure that I always buy sugar that says it’s “pure cane sugar” and not an unlabeled type (probably beet sugar). I’ve found that the grain size of pure cane sugar is usually finer and more uniform, especially in brown sugar (which also has a better flavor than the generic). Apparently cane sugar is also more “pure” tasting, less earthy, and most importantly, caramelizes better than beet sugar which means it gives a better flavor when baked or cooked.
For the chip it depend how sweet you like them. I prefer bittersweet Ghirardelli or just this brand in general cuz it not as sweet. So the not really the quality but just preference. If you don’t like a dark chocolate like taste you are gonna prefer the cheaper one.
Vanilla extract should have no noticeable difference synthetic is technically somewhat safer than all natural because when they extract the vanilla from vanilla beans it also extracts small amounts of cyanide
I appreciate how thorough you were in making the comparison as equal as possible giving it a lot more thought that what some other videos would have done, that was an earned sub right there
A lot of people probably know this. The use of cups to measure ingredients was used to allow accurate (ish) amounts to be measured using any sized measuring cup. A big cup would give more product, a small cup less, but the ratio of ingredients would be correct. So you only need a mixing bowl and a measuring cup and the actual size didn't matter. No scales needed, quick and easy.
This explanation makes sense for most of cooking, but baking certain things greatly benefits from accurate mass measurement. It is not costly or difficult to add a scale to one's set of baking tools. More baking recipes should support mass measurements, especially when it can have an impact on the end product.
@@joshual26802 how long have we had cheap and accurate scales? Quite a lot of these recipes were created long before this was common. I understand your point though. But it is basically a luxury to have scales compared to 1960s, 1920s or 1850s or whatever. I don't think it was until the mid 70s that I ever had a food scale available to me and even then it was a spring loaded analog version that topped out at around 20 ounces or so. It was used specifically for dieting. Which brings me to something else. Watching Nate struggle mixing the dough is hilarious considering my memories of a frail little old lady well into her 80s having no issues at all making the same chocolate chip cookie recipe every week when we visited for Sunday dinner after church as a kid. I guess I'm old enough to get away with saying they don't make them like they used to.
@Beverly Nelms I agree. Flour can have a massive range of moisture and gluten contents based on origin, variety of wheat etc. The milling can have a significant influence as well. Getting "hands on" is often the best way.
@@sumduma55 in my personal experience, digital scales have been widely available and affordable for at least the past 15 years. That being said, I understand that availability and affordably can very based on geography and many other things. I totally agree with you about it not making sense for older recipes to include mass measurements. That being said, I have approached many baking recipes that were recently created and didn't provide mass measurements.
If you only baked multiple batches from the same round of batter, the "texture" difference could very well be down to gluten formation from different processing due to fading arm strength, slightly different processing time, etc. If you mixed up multiple batches from scratch, that variability might change.
@@drackar He weighed the VOLUME of the cheapest. Given the recipe he was following was in volume, the best practice would have been to weigh the volumes of both of them, and average it. As the varying textures would affect the volume, and thus the final amount used, technically, only the "cheap ingredients" version follows the recipe.
I like the process you used. Comparing by weight seems like you really considered the science of what you were doing, more-so than when you were on TKOR which I don't think was your fault rather the fault of those in charge. I appreciate the detailed measures to insure a quality comparioson. I feel like the content on TKOR was rushed and dumbed down a lot of the time and that you personally were stuck doing this in a way that wasn't conducive to your artistic and thorough. I appreciate the work you do.
@Richard Knox The polite thing to do is to spell out the first time, then go to initials. Not everyone knows what TKOR (or literally any other abbreviation) means.
@@lisahinton9682 I miss the days when it was known as The King Of Random... I mean TKOR "is" more logo efficient, but it made it seem more impersonal when they switched
@@lisahinton9682 actually a lot of people on here do know what tkor means since we came here from the last channel he was on. The polite thing would have been to just ask what tkor means if you dont know instead of chiding a complete stranger for your ignorance. It means The King of Random btw. Oh sorry that means by the way just in case you didnt know
Would be interesting to see a side by side for cheap flour vs expensive in sourdough bread since there aren't many ingredients in sourdough. (Water, salt and flour are the only ingredients)
I also agree, but rather than most expensive use the best available. Since Nate is in Utah he could probably find a sack of _Blue Bird_ flour pretty easy since it's milled in the 4 corners area.
Truthfully I use a combination of cheapest and more expensive depending on the ingredient. I always use Ghirardelli’s chips and Massey vanilla paste but I use a lot of store brand basics.
This would be an interesting experiment. Make the two batches of cookies and let people taste test them, ask them which one they prefer, and then ask about their family’s and their community’s financial situation growing up. I would love to see if there’s a correlation between the two, if people prefer the cheaper cookies because they grew up with cheaper cookies.
I would have thought the same as well. However, now that we eat strictly home cooked meals, some of the "cheaper" ingredients just taste mediocre. When my children were small I bought the cheapest because I wasn't spending a fortune on items they won't appreciate, now I have elevated certain products. Chocolate chips is one of the things I go for more of a quality. Sugar not as big of a deal.
One thing that I have to point out is that it makes a HUGE difference if the batter becomes over-mixed. The leavening won't work as well and you'll end up with flat cookies. Once you add the wet ingredients to the batter, mix it just enough that everything is loosely incorporated and then STOP.
@@ronwbrown I always use my mixmaster when making chocolate chip cookies. I find that it adds a bit of micro bubbles so that the dough becomes more 'fluffy' and when I chill the dough between batches it stays that way. It's like the difference between ice cream and a block of ice cream frozen without putting in air. The lightness in the cooked cookie makes it very popular.
@@curiousviewer5991 a bit blunt but... don't you find it odd that people like it when there's more air in the food? Ice cream, pastries, baked goods, snacks(like cheese puffs).... and we pay more for "higher quality" which just contains more air Its funny bc it's true
I'm so happy you'll be making your own content. Before you "lost your job" (lol) I would watch some of the tkor videos and literally roll my eyes. The ones you inspired were always the best ones. Now we get 100% of that.
from my experience the most important ingredients are vanilla, chocolate chips, butter, and brown sugar. that's where the quality matters more and I always recommend using browned butter and beating it with the sugar until it's pale in chocolate chip cookies to add a level of depth into the dough base
Love this! I'm so happy to see you doing good on you own channel, you deserve it! For a possible "basic vs bougie" cooking side series, may I suggest soup. Does it really make a difference if you get all organic veggies and such when all you're doing is basically boiling them in water for a long time. Just a thought :) best of luck with everything!
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that butter and maybe chocolate are the only things in this recipe that you'll genuinely get enough value for your dollar to make it worth buying a more premium version as opposed to the cheap store brand.
@@leire5072 There _will_ be a huge difference in the vanilla _but_ it's such a small ingredient in the overall cookie that I doubt it'll be worth the extra cost.
@@leire5072 Vanillin produces the vast majority of the flavour of vanilla, so man made vanilla extract will reproduce basically most of the flavour. And as the extract is used in small amounts, you'll need to have a sensitive palate to taste the difference
Imo the sugar is quite important. Using honey, Brown sugar, cane sugar, Maple sugar, corn syrup or plain white sugar can change a whole lot the outcome of a recipe
I think a it would be interesting with a lasagne version where you also do one where you do everything from scratch, you make your own pasta grind your own meat and crush you own tomatoes.
Oh! I recently got a book called Bake the bread, buy the butter! It’s a book about the economics and quality behind cooking vs buying readymade food, it might be super interesting to guide this series with you?
I heard about that book on the radio! Specific price comparisons may vary by location though, so double check your options, but just the idea of comparing price vs your cost in time and effort is a game changer.
@A Spirit I’m personally a big fan of real vanilla vs imitation vanilla. There’s a big difference. The other more texture component would be the butter.
Something I think that's worth mentioning about a test like this: Whether it makes a difference or not in The taste in the end is one thing, but many of the ingredients that were sourced more expensive are more expensive for a reason, like the sugars for example are not bleached and processed as much in the more expensive version which is much healthier for you, the flower on the expensive side comes from Bob's Red Mill, a very responsible company that has an excellent reputation and record of producing digestible high quality flowers and dry ingredients. You may find when researching the vanilla extract that the cost of the more expensive one is derived from responsibly sourcing the vanilla beans and paying workers fairly without any fillers in the vanilla whereas the cheaper vanilla most likely has caramel colors and is by-product or lower quality vanilla beans. Most of the stereotype of why sugar is bad for you is because most of the sugar the majority of the population especially in the United States and Canada consume is hyper processed and bleached to give it that nice white color that people crave for aesthetic, pure unprocessed raw non-bleached cane sugar is actually extremely healthy for you in some cases and is a moot point when being consumed on a scale of what you would see in a cookie. The more expensive butter and eggs are going to have much higher quality non-saturated fatty acids and structural fats that are phenomenal for your brain and joints, this derives from being grass-fed/free-range and less processed. I would be willing to bet that if somebody actually took the time, as useless as it may be, you would find that the actual derivable energy content of the calories in the more expensive cookie is significantly higher than the institutionally processed ingredients cookie. I know that for some people saving the money is more important, but if you have the financial capabilities to afford more responsibly sourced products and healthier products, your body will thank you and so will the farmers and producers of the products.
This is a great comment and even though it’s super knowledge dense, it doesn’t come across as pretentious or condescending. I really appreciate this information and I hope Nate sees it and it possibly gives him inspiration/ideas for future content that he may create.
@@Mattm182 thanks! I'm glad it didn't come off pretentious as that's certainly not my intention, just trying to offer some learnings to thoes who would love to know but otherwise may not have seen it :) have a great day
I mean, it seems like all you need to do is switch the expensive butter and vanilla and the cost would be a lot closer; This is going to be a great series, I can't wait for the next one!
I agree, swap out the two ridiculous priced ingredients and run the test again, bet, As Nat mentioned the flour and sugars had coarser gains, this most likely made the difference. It be great to find out if that is the reason for the better texture and taste.
Yea if you take the regular priced butter or even cheap butter and browned it on the stove first you can definitely increase the richness in flavor of the cookie. As well as creaming the butter and sugar together first should help with the flavor and texture as well.
Really great video idea!!! I would love to see this again with different foods. Maybe a steak dinner? One has instant (or cheap) mashed potatoes, one has fresh hand made (or expensive) mashed potatoes. One has frozen (or cheap) vegetables, one has fresh (or expensive) vegetables. One has super cheap steak, one has extremely expensive steak.
Love this concept, please turn this into a series!! I can see this getting a ton of love!! Would love to see a pizza comparison and maybe some science ones with different quality chemicals... I've had some cheaper brands not have near as good reactions as some of the more expensive brands.
My childhood has been reborn, thank you for continuing your TH-cam journey Nate. Who would have thought all those years ago camera shy, awkward Nate would go on to build his own channel with his OWN audience, I love it.
I was really looking forward to seeing this when you mentioned on the safety 3rd podcast that you wanted to get into cooking. Glad to see you went ahead and did it 😁
Absolutely love the concept behind this, I highly recommend making it a series. I love it! Quite eye opening on cost difference too, I wonder what things you could make cheaper that would taste better than the expensive ingredients.
Been a fan of TKOR with Grant and then enjoyed when you came on but lost interest there when things seemed to change and glad to see you’re well and will be watching you here. Keep it up!
I appreciate this video. Because I know a little bit about cooking, I sometimes know what items to splurge a bit on and what I can elevate simply through technique. Most of which I learned through reading and TH-cam. So, thanks. This helped😊
I love this style of content. I'm sad you're no longer with TKOR, but I'm glad you're still producing videos. I was happy you acknowledged the possible confirmation bias without it being a blind test and it looks like you have a pretty awesome group of friends. Best of luck to you!
You should do basic vs America's Test Kitchen favorites. I really love their testing methods and results, and have often bought their top picks for ingredients when I'm making special dishes.
I love this. I watched TKOR from the beginning with my dad. Its now gotten so much like all the other channels that I don't watch it anymore. I love your vids like this. Something that everyone always wonders but never actually does. I love these types of experimenting vids keep it up :D
It's hilarious how the one guy kept saying they were the same cookie and after learning one was more expensive his tune changed. The power of suggestion is so real.
Great video, I don’t want to harp on this comparison too much but I just have to say that now that you are not with TKOR this channel and it’s content feels so much like the OG King of Random videos. Just a brilliant guy with neat ideas that he wants to test, sharing that with the world. It’s a brilliant idea, doesn’t feel click-baity and it just overall really well done! I look forward to seeing this channel grow. Thanks Nate!
so much to talk about this video! the topic was really fun, it reminds me a bit of How to Cook That with Ann Reardon, kind of like a wholesome, very honest/transparent vibe, high quality content made by a human rather than a business your friends at the end were a nice touch! it was also wholesome! the topic was so good! honestly, if you can do another brand vs basic, i'd ask you to go for an entirely home made pizza. that one would be fun! this has been a great start for your new channel man! best wishes, I'll be sharing your videos with friends, hitting the like and commenting! thanks Nate!
I would also like some more of the "I tried to make a thing from scratch" videos. Including the process on figuring out what works best. And yes this does seem like something Ann Reardon would do. She and Nate would probably have a really good time messing around in the kitchen.
Love this video. I’d love to see it become a series. I’d also be interested in knowing if the person who liked the more expensive cookies had experience in baking, as they seemed to notice things like the crumbliness and oiliness, the the others didn’t commented on before.
Whether this particular one has been done or not, this is a good idea. If you wanted an upgrade, you could see what switching the most expensive elements would do (ie. butter or vanilla). Great idea to use friends. How about have them stand on the side of the cookie that they chose? Have them stand further out for the more that they enjoyed it. Would make a good visual and get discussion and teasing going.
I've done similar cookie tests and found some brand ingredients that make a huge difference: King Arthur flour, Cabot butter, and Shadow Cross Farm eggs. The eggs are probably only available in Vermont, but I think the other two are available nationally.
Watching you struggle to mix the cookies brought me back to when I worked in a candy shop and had to make truffle centers all day and by the next day my arms were so sore I could lift my hands above my chest
This is definitely going to be something that I'm gonna want to try - making the cheapest cookies possible BUT so they resemble actually good and expensive cookies. It honestly sounds like a fun challenge - making a chart of all the possible differing proportions of ingredients and then recording the results, with a cookie with STANDARD proportions being used as the reference/comparison point.
Note on measuring volume instead of weight with flour! The hydration of the flour can vary depending on storage method and ambient humidity, so weight can vary for the same quantity of actual flour.
I´d like to se you do this with bread, as the flour is such a fundamental part of it, and gives so much of the flavour. It is not masked by other flavours. Also because breadmaking is such.. well.. chemistry really...
It could have been the flour, the sugars, even the coco butter amount in the choc chips.I always use cup measurements for everything I don't have a mixer. Could you make butter at home? Get cheap cream and more expensive cream close to the use by/best before date so they don't cost you to much, make 2 batches salt free and salt added. Maybe a casserole one with the cheapest cuts of meat one with average or expensive meat. For me when things get really tight at times I make up big pots of veggie soup and blend it once it's cooked. It seems to fill me more once blended. I then freeze some of the soup so I have some for the next week. I sometimes have cheap bread with it. I also make rice dishes with lots of veggies a little meat. I make casseroles up and will make savoury scone dough/biscuit dough up roll into balls and place on top of the casserole touching, then bake. The dough on top goes nice and crispy/crunchy and the bottom is like gooey boiled dumplings. All very filling. Not always real healthy but it helps.
The DnD group: the ultimate judges of snack foods. In my experience, expensive butter and vanilla are always worth it. Fancy flour isn't worth it, but making sure you have FRESH/not stale flour is worth it.
The other option for mid price is to choose what ingredients you get the expensive stuff for. I don't see the point in expensive salt or baking soda. For vanilla, a big difference in price is if it is natural or synthetic, but functionally they should be the same. So even that I would suggest the cheap one.
Well there is a difference between using high quality and low quality ingredients, the thing is that the most expensive is not always the highest quality, for example a place here sells great rye bread cheaper than commercial white bread, there is a brand of milk that is the best one and the cheapest, but is also hard to find, you basically pay more for the brand.
Love these types of shows - please turn it into a series. I’ve subscribed so I can add it to my weekly recipe watch. Suggestions:- Sloppy Joes Carbonara - pecorino vs generic hard cheese Grilled cheese Apple Pie Chicken pot pie
Do a brand vs basic about furniture(example: tables, chairs, work bench, drawers, etc.) with one using more expensive material and more advanced tools while other uses cheaper materials and basic tools. You can test it by having people use it and which is better to use and I think to test its durability it would be best to see which one could last longer rather than trying to destroy it on purpose, or simply expose it stuff or activities that the furniture usually experience. I enjoy the work u do hoping to see more, it would be nice to see u cast moulds and stuff again. Keep up the good work.
So I have seen several channels do toast test of brand vs basic on just about anything you can imagine but this was unique in that it was ingredients vs. an already finished product. I like that twist since it really very practical. I would suggest showing the costs of the individual ingredients for all the ingredients rather than just the few that were mentioned. It would be helpful info and just interesting to know which ingredients get marked up by the “name brand”.
I really enjoyed this. I think it would be appropriate to have a playlist on your channel going over things similar to this. You could do fat vs fat free, you could do gluten vs gluten free. Don't stop here, but it's definitely a viable idea for a video playlist.
What was the difference in protein content between the 2 flours, because that could make a huge difference. An AP with a higher protein content (like King Arthur) would probably result in a chewier cookie than one like a store brand which likely has a lower protein content. I'd be curious how much of the difference between the cookies goes away if you find cheap and expensive AP Flours with a similar protein content
I've found that sometimes the less expensive ingredients can be just as good or sometimes even better than the expensive ones! But that often only spplies to certain ingredients... Great video btw! :)
I was told the reason cups/spoons were used for measurements is because even if your cups/spoon sizes differed, which they did drastically before official cup sizes were introduced, is that the ratios are the same regardless of weight. As well as not everyone having access to scales. Could be an old wives tale.
That's interesting. I theorize that the reason the US uses cups is because baking here was mostly an at-home thing for a long time, so you just used what you had around the kitchen. Comparing that to much of Europe, where it seems that most people bought their breads, stores needed to be able to ratio large batches of dough and that's much more effective by weight.
![มองหน้ากันไม่ติด (Awkward) - โอ๊ต ปราโมทย์ FEAT. MAIYARAP [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4b02SY_r6Gw/mqdefault.jpg)
SO many of you wanted to see me try it with PIZZA, so here it is! th-cam.com/video/k5MQBPdWbyI/w-d-xo.html
All ovens are extremely un even. You have to turn the tray at least once while baking.
thanks nate
If you consider that the low cost ingredients are also worst for your health and the more expensive are better, the 2.8 is multipler is not that much, also you can remove some of the most expensive or the one that make no different. This will probably drop the 2.8 to a 2 and you get the same result.
2 times more expensive to be healthy and not see a doctor?
The is a reason why your fatty/obese friend likes more the bad food, that's why she have such problem, her food problems make her do the wrong choices too. Whould you pay 2 times more to not be like her? Your choice :P
Also povery in America is linked to obesity for a reason .. more cheat = less healthy.
I would recommend, ask more questions about the perception of the samples before you reveal monetary value. Value can alter subjective enjoyment DRASTICALLY, thiss is extensively researched with wine tasting experiments. Ask quesstions like, which is more enjoyable, which feels more "natural", which feels more luxurious, which tastes more "wholesome". Many people associate "natural" with "cheap" or "simple" even though in reality its usually the other way around, and they also asociate "wholesome" with natural, and paradoxically, more expensive with more enjoyable even though Natural not necesarilly tastes better for most.
Looks like a banger series and I’m here for all of it.
This is the type of content I came to expect from you: Stuff everyone has thought about before, but no one bothered to do it. Love it.
I don’t expect anything from him but to do what he wants to do.
Barry Lewis has been doing this for a long time. Still fun to watch, but he didn’t create this idea.
Exactly
@@ginalola6354 Love Barry!! th-cam.com/video/5awtkLiSXHY/w-d-xo.html
I wouldn't say no one has bothered to do it before. Alvin did this just two weeks ago for example. Even so, I enjoyed watching Nate's version too!
i personally feel ingredients are more about quality than cost. cost and quality are not always related either because sometimes you are just paying extra for a brand because its "trusted" or "popular". Ingredient quality is not always about flavor as well. sometimes people may just prefer less preservatives or whatever else may be abundant in some cheaper products
Mass production can result in both cheap and high-quality ingredients. Just because something is hand made or took more labor to produce, doesn't automatically mean it is of higher quality and often means there's less consistency. Most people would like to assume if they are paying a higher price for something that it means it's also higher quality but that isn't always the case.
for a normal person, its really hard to tell quality unless you do extensive research and or use tons of ingredients and know them yourself.
What really stinks is the amount of research you may have to do to find out if you're paying for quality or branding.
@@aj-sz8mu Noticing little things you may or may not like, such as the oily batch several of the group mentioned before knowing what the difference was can help. it may not work hand in hand with quality, but finding preferences is a start
...Yes?
Better ingredients (higher quality) taste better. The point of the experiment was to find if higher costs correlate with higher quality. "Are Expensive Ingredients Better?".
Regarding Vanilla, it is also worth noting that when it comes to the expensive vanillas, the origin of the vanilla can make a nice impact. Nielsen Massey's Madagascar vanilla, which is what you used, is a great all-purpose vanilla. However, other vanillas like Ugandan, Indonesian, Tahitian, or Mexican can all make a noticeable impact on your recipe.
For instance, Tahitian vanilla is very floral, which you would want to use for icings, dairy, or no-bake applications because the floral notes get lost during the high heat of baking. I made sugar cookies with Indonesian vanilla, which holds flavor well in baking and buttery applications, but Indonesian vanilla is quite smoky and the smoky flavor was very overpowering. Would make for good chocolate chip cookies, but not plain, vanilla sugar cookies. Ugandan vanilla is somewhat chocolate-y in flavor and is good for all-purpose uses, but might not be ideal for a plain, vanilla frosting.
The origin of vanilla you use can totally add or detract from the recipe you are using, which I find to be a lot of fun as I mix and match what vanillas I use (which are also Nielsen Massey) to take the recipe just the little, extra mile. It might be fun to do a comparison video with a baked and non-baked application to see whether people perceive or prefer a certain origin of vanilla for their food.
TIL there are vanilla experts
Woah. Commenting to save this for later LOL
same bro
this is a nice foodie info dump for next time, gonna be useful when making soda syrups and desserts.
you got any more on vanilla paste, extracts, powder?
And some cheap "vanilla" is not really vanilla same with saffron.
@@AnniCarlsson True, and even in cases where they use real vanillia beans, many cheap vanillas add vanillin, the main flavor/fragrance component of vanilla (and all that's used for imitation vanilla) to make it "stronger" just like OJ has perfume added to it to make it all taste the same, since different oranges and even different growing conditions alter the flavor profile enough that consumers get upset. They don't have to list it as separate as it's a "natural flavoring"
Fun fact, vanillin, is "natural" because the easiest way to synthesize it is from wood pulp, namely the lignin they take out to make high quality paper-- it's what makes low quality paper turn yellow.
I've been working on my choco chip cookie recipe for a few years now, and the biggest difference I've noticed with cheap vs expensive is the vanilla, chocolate chips, and butter. None of the other ingredients seemed to make a difference.
Good butter is the core of cooking when it's involved! I often will go cheap on many ingredients because they are literally the same(All cheese is packaged in the same places!), but I will never, ever skimp on butter. People notice my cooking tastes great even if it's simple, and I tell them it's the butter.
dont discard the power of flour, while most brands of AP are similar there really bad ones and there are some exceptional ones, something missing also from this video is usually quality doesnt always reflect on price brand power can make a mediocre product more expensive and make you miss a really good product because it is maybe a dollar or two cheaper but the quality is like 50% better...
I can definitely see that. I don’t care about the cost I will buy butter from grass fed cows. The taste is unmatched.
High quality eggs make a difference too!
Agreed. Sugars have a slight impact, but when I say slight I mean a trained palette can probably notice the difference between raw sugar and refined.
Great concept and excellent execution - I hope this turns into a series!
As someone that is subscribed to you and Nate, I am glad to see you here. Love the support!
@@williammichaelspencer8318 Same here. I didn't expect to see a comment from Atomic Shrimp here!
Woah didn't expect to see you here lol Great to see your support 🎉
Agreed! Bit of weird stuff in a can there (floral salt) that someone needs to get to the bottom of. 🙂
@@phileo_ss ditto. TheWolfePit could also provide some input here as well.
Crazy how you are no longer on "The King of Random", yet you're now more in the spirit of Grant's channel. We love you and hope you continue doing exactly what you do.
Amen brother
I third that!
That's why I recognize him... thanks!
I haven't been back to that channel since they fired Calli for being gay.
@@ethelryan257 proof? Not doubting just seems dumb
If we are sticking with the budget cuts theme, we should go with everyday meals.
Basic vs brand
-hot dogs and hot dog buns
-pancakes
-Peanut butter and Jelly Sandwiches
Spaghetti and meatballs w/sauce
peanut butter will make a great difference!
With pasta, it also makes a massive difference. Especially if you're using the Italian method of emulsifying the pasta sauce with the starch from pasta water instead of cream or butter. Lower quality spaghetti will have a smoother exterior thanks to being extruded through Teflon, while more expensive pasta will be extruded through Copper discs, showing a rougher surface. This rough surface and available starch is essential to making a proper creamy Italian pasta sauce.
Now, if you're the kind of person to use ready-made sauces or like to douse your pasta in cream, it's not worth paying the higher price point.
@@gristlevonraben
Anything that you aren’t cooking will probably have the most noticeable difference, as a significant amount of the flavours in cooked foods come from the chemical reactions at high temperatures.
@@gamingwhilebroken2355 good point!
Mac n cheese/Kraft dinner styles boxes, general pasta dishes would be good since they’re the most common struggle meal
Honestly, notice how one guy thought that they were the same, one girl liked the cheaper one, and the other girl liked the expensive one? If you didn't tell them there was a difference, both cookies would end up tasting the same to them, I'd bet. If you told them from the beginning that one was expensive and one was cheap, I guarantee that people's minds would start playing tricks and all of them would claim they like the expensive ones better. Even if there is a difference, it's not like it really matters. At the end of the day, both are just chocolate chip cookies. Try doing this again but tell people the cheap one is really the expensive one. Even if there is a noticeable difference, I doubt it would warrent spending extra money when both are just chocolate chip cookies at the end of the day.
That’s what’s known as the placebo effect and also I’d say confirmation bias. The placebo is where your brain causes you to think something tastes feels etc because you tell yourself something. Confirmation bias is where you think you know something and convince yourself something based on what you think.
The way my mind works now, I'd side with the cheaper ones unless they were somehow absolutely terrible.
I've not always aimed to be frugal, but the older I get the more I do it. It's a good thing, too; I've wasted a lot of money.
I think the biggest difference is achieved using the better chocolate chips. Ghirardelli > Nestle.
No, they would not end up tasting the same. The smart girl was actually showing the rest of the group the inside of the cookies, pointing out how one was a better quality made, from whole ingredients. The big girl LOVED the cheap, crap cookies, and couldn't care less about the quality of the ingredients.
I mean, two girls liked the expensive cookies, one girl liked the cheap cookies, and one guy couldn't tell the difference. It is still in favor of more expensive ingredients.
I have memories from my childhood when the food didn't taste right and my mom went "it's the same ingredients as always". She didn't lie. What she didn't tell me was that she was struggling financially and had to buy cheap ingredients instead of the brands she used to. I didn't figure it out until I was there myself, trying to make the food for my kids last until the next paycheck.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I hope you’re doing better now!
You are an amazing and strong momma! I think your kids see you try. I felt that last sentence as I grew up pretty poor myself. Both my brother and I knew growing up that my mom tried her best to 'hide our poorness' and give us kids as good experience of childhood as possible. dang I gotta call my mom now and tell her I love her.
@SuperSloth did your kids notice the difference?
@@shoki5271 Yes they did in some cases. Ketchup was a thing they tasted the difference in, and the cheese. I also added more cheap veggies into stews and such and they pointed out that it wasn't the same anymore. The ham tasted different too. Even I disliked it.
@@Sarah-cf1ib bruh
I am just happy to see a food experiment that didn't require a freeze drier and/or cotton candy maker.
I laughed too hard at this xD
Although I did like those experiments, mainly because Cali and Nate were in them
Especially because nate would eat EVERYTHING
i think some of the ingredients are worth going the expensive route, like the butter, but others are 100% okay going the cheap wrote, like baking soda or salt. unless of course you’re going real fancy and topping the cookies with a finishing salt, which in case a good flakey salt might be worth it...at least a mid range one
This is my line of thought as well. I splurge on good quality vanilla, chocolate chips, butter, and and sugar (cause I tend to use Swerve/Truvia baking blends) when I make cookies from scratch. Also, resting the dough before baking is a trick I use regardless of cheap/expensive - the flavors develop in a way that's just amazing.
just don't use table salt, god that shit is disgusting
@@AmarettoRawr
Pretty sure, but don’t quote me on this, that expensive vanilla is only noticeable when you are making something that you want to taste like vanilla (so not chocolate chip cookies). A lot of the subtleties in the expensive vanilla is lost otherwise and a cheaper vanilla extract will provide similar results.
So making a vanilla cream frosting? Expensive vanilla. Chocolate lava cake? Cheaper stuff is fine.
With the butter, the cheap vs expensive options might have different levels of butter fat as well. That's going to have an impact on the end result. Generally higher amounts of butter fat have nicer results in baking.
With chocolate chips in cookies the main thing you'd be going by is taste preference, but the cheap options generally have higher ratios of sugar (and milk solids with milk chocolate) that can sometimes burn easily. Cheap chocolate chips aren't necessarily going to taste bad either, but many of the cheapest brands do simply because of poor processing and low cacao percentages.
With flour, things like protein percentage are going to have more impact than product price.
With brown sugar (ie compact, not raw sugar), I'd argue it's more of a brand thing than a price thing. There's one brand I used to get that tasted like it was burnt, that I only found out wasn't what brown sugar generally tastes like when I tried a different one (ironically cheaper just because it wasn't a big name brand).
Also worth noting that some cheap vanilla essence brands are synthetic vanilla flavouring - not bad or anything, just not exactly like actual vanilla essence. Imho if you're going to go expensive with vanilla, you're better off just buying a good vanilla paste.
Absolutely on butter. Butter has a massive impact on flavor. I personally almost only use Kerrygold butter in most of my cooking, and if I have to lower down it's Land O' Lakes. People notice, even if they don't realize it's the butter than makes such a huge difference. Also like another person said, quality vanilla is a really good way to step up your game in baking as a whole. Eggs and good flour can also make a difference. I've noticed sometimes with a dirt cheap flour that things tend to be more grainy, but don't overpay. Get a good middling quality flour. With the fancy stuff you're mostly paying for artisanal things or organic/non-gmo, which are not applicable to 90% of recipes.
It's nice to see someone using one on one direct substitutes and not, like a few other youtubers do, things like cheap white bread versus an artisanal sourdough loaf.
Sourdough is my weakness. A good sourdough is the best for sandwiches with meat. The flavor really adds to the richness.
@@ThatRPGuywithtoomanyOCs yes yes yes and more yes, on its own it’s ok but as apart of a sandwich it’s amazing!
Nate, what you have been doing on this channel reminds me of the early days of TKOR. Just creating things you are genuinely interested in and can get some practical use out of. I hope to see you to continue to follow this path because the little rabbit holes you are finding here are all quite interesting and intriguing. I have already started to make some plans off of some of your build videos here for things I know I would enjoy. Can't wait for the next video to show up. Congrats on being the first channel I turn the bell notifications on! (sorry for meandering thoughts!)
I thought the same thing about early days of TKOR! Hopefully we see some more.
Sometimes things, like Star Trek (and some would say Star Wars as well) improve when the original creator is no longer in control. Other things, not so much. Sometimes it's best to go with the creator's original vision and build on it, like Star Trek and Star Wars did. Sometimes people in control get so wrapped up in chasing the almighty dollar that they lose sight of that vision; I think Disney Parks went that way and not what we're told was "Walt's vision." I think that's what started happening with TKOR, and when I didn't watch as much because fewer and fewer of the titles interested me. Like "What happens [X] in liquid nitrogen?" The answer was never something I didn't expect.
Im ootl can you please tell what happened to TKOR?
@@rodneydsouza2454 he died
You're really in your wheelhouse with the "experiment" and "crafting" types of videos, Nate (I was really intrigued by the start-to-finish knife-making one). If you're looking for cooking/baking experiments other than cheap/expensive ingredients, comparing organic vs non-organic ingredients would be interesting. Another one would be full-fat dairy vs low-fat dairy ingredients. Another would be store-brand vs name-brand ingredients. And then there's always crock-pot vs oven-roasted.
Milk can also be looked at by brand - I’ve had some skim milk that’s fine, and some that tastes like water with a few drops of milk in it
Just to piggyback, pressure cooker and air fryer fit nicely in that last category, depending on the recipe.
Also, what about dairy vs non-dairy. There is so much now saying dairy is bad so what about recipes made with non-dairy products.
@@Elphaba719 a lot of people are at least somewhat lactose intolerant, so lactose/dairy free options are good
Cooking in different kinds of oil (butter/ghee, canola/cottonseed/vegetable, etc...
I feel like the biggest thing that this experiment was missing was the mixer. The texture of the sugar wouldn’t have made a difference if it was properly creamed into the butter. The butter is best room temp and not microwaved for best creaming as well.
This whole video is based on an irrelevant question and the dumbest possible methodology. Obviously, this guy has never made cookies before in his life -- how can anyone expect his 'test' to provide any useful information. And... surprise. It didn't.
Yeah as soon as he didn’t level out the flour I was like “Nate doesn’t bake.”
The taste of an ingredient is only a single factor into why it is expensive or not. What matters is the quality of the actual ingredient, where it is sourced, how it was made, etc. Just because something is more expensive doesn't mean it is a better product. There are so many factors to take into account; such as how much labor was needed, how was is processed/grown, is it sustainable, was it made with slave labor, was it imported, is the brand inflating the price b/c brand. If you research your ingredients you will often find many products come from the same source, yet in store are vastly different in price. That's where you save your money without sacrificing quality of product. That's the smart shopping aspect. The game of marketing.
100% agreed.
On top of that some ingredients are pretty cheap, others expensive as hell.
On a budget it can make sense to find reasonable substitutes for those ingredients that drive the price of a recipe up.
The other day i saw a nice recipe for rice and beans.
So far so good (on the budget). The only problem: it called for some "saffron threads".
They surely add "something" to the recipe, but for me they simply make up around 75% of the total price for cooking those rice and beans. => i used more common spices instead.
Cost of ingredients is not solely based on its taste. Why? Because taste is subjective. The cost of an ingredient depends on several factors. How its processed, where its from, if its been imported or not, organic/non organic, etc.
@@joekim4794 Yes, and most of the time rarity/ availability plays a big role as well.
"Cheap" can mean low quality, OR high availabilty.
Especially most of the basic foodstuff gets a lot of money from the state JUST to make sure people never go hungry. Doesn't mean such mass produced flour, corn, milk etc is bad. It may not be the best, but it's okey.
If there is a problem, it's that calories have become to cheap. Hence people are getting fat. At least we don't go hungry, historically speaking that's straight up a manmade miracle.
@Peter Pan I was just replying to the original comment. He was saying that the price of an ingredient is soley based on taste. And i was disagreeing with that.
@@joekim4794 Ok.
But he didn't say that.
Quote: "The taste of an ingredient is only a single factor into why it is expensive or not."
Followed by a bunch of different reasons something might be expensive or not.
You're the first youtuber I've seriously considered subscribing to patreon for. You're just really personable and down to earth and cool 🤷♀️
I also agree with this statement
Nate is really, really, awesome :)
Hey Nate! It would be interesting to see the results of pizza, if you do one cheap, one expensive and one ordered from a restaurant/deliveryplace!
Or cheapest cheese pizza versus most expensive
yes i thought this exactly!
I really enjoyed this one! I already spend the money on higher quality butter, eggs, and vanilla and I use Nestle chocolate chips. I noticed the biggest difference in texture with the switch in butter. I just tried to figure which ingredients have the biggest impact on the final product.
That was my guess, that simply switching the butter would have the biggest impact.
I agree. I also make sure that I always buy sugar that says it’s “pure cane sugar” and not an unlabeled type (probably beet sugar). I’ve found that the grain size of pure cane sugar is usually finer and more uniform, especially in brown sugar (which also has a better flavor than the generic). Apparently cane sugar is also more “pure” tasting, less earthy, and most importantly, caramelizes better than beet sugar which means it gives a better flavor when baked or cooked.
For the chip it depend how sweet you like them. I prefer bittersweet Ghirardelli or just this brand in general cuz it not as sweet. So the not really the quality but just preference. If you don’t like a dark chocolate like taste you are gonna prefer the cheaper one.
I prefer kerrygold butter Ghirardelli or Godiva chips organic cage free local eggs and pure vanilla harvested by a silent monk order in Tibet.
Vanilla extract should have no noticeable difference synthetic is technically somewhat safer than all natural because when they extract the vanilla from vanilla beans it also extracts small amounts of cyanide
I appreciate how thorough you were in making the comparison as equal as possible giving it a lot more thought that what some other videos would have done, that was an earned sub right there
A lot of people probably know this.
The use of cups to measure ingredients was used to allow accurate (ish) amounts to be measured using any sized measuring cup. A big cup would give more product, a small cup less, but the ratio of ingredients would be correct. So you only need a mixing bowl and a measuring cup and the actual size didn't matter. No scales needed, quick and easy.
That does make more sense 🤔
This explanation makes sense for most of cooking, but baking certain things greatly benefits from accurate mass measurement. It is not costly or difficult to add a scale to one's set of baking tools. More baking recipes should support mass measurements, especially when it can have an impact on the end product.
@@joshual26802 how long have we had cheap and accurate scales?
Quite a lot of these recipes were created long before this was common. I understand your point though. But it is basically a luxury to have scales compared to 1960s, 1920s or 1850s or whatever.
I don't think it was until the mid 70s that I ever had a food scale available to me and even then it was a spring loaded analog version that topped out at around 20 ounces or so. It was used specifically for dieting.
Which brings me to something else. Watching Nate struggle mixing the dough is hilarious considering my memories of a frail little old lady well into her 80s having no issues at all making the same chocolate chip cookie recipe every week when we visited for Sunday dinner after church as a kid. I guess I'm old enough to get away with saying they don't make them like they used to.
@Beverly Nelms I agree. Flour can have a massive range of moisture and gluten contents based on origin, variety of wheat etc. The milling can have a significant influence as well. Getting "hands on" is often the best way.
@@sumduma55 in my personal experience, digital scales have been widely available and affordable for at least the past 15 years. That being said, I understand that availability and affordably can very based on geography and many other things. I totally agree with you about it not making sense for older recipes to include mass measurements. That being said, I have approached many baking recipes that were recently created and didn't provide mass measurements.
I lost my job, so in order to save money i bought the same ingredients twice!
I hope you know how great of an intro that was
Gotta spend money to make... cookies.
@@NFTI of course, we all know this 🍪
Well he's gotta make some dough!
@@NFTI you should’ve made cookie money
If you only baked multiple batches from the same round of batter, the "texture" difference could very well be down to gluten formation from different processing due to fading arm strength, slightly different processing time, etc. If you mixed up multiple batches from scratch, that variability might change.
Yeah, machine mixing, with actual timing, would really eliminate that variable.
Shoot at that point the volumes of flour should both be weighed and averaged, as the more expensive might be less or more dense
@@mwater_moon2865 he did weigh the flour though.
@@drackar He weighed the VOLUME of the cheapest. Given the recipe he was following was in volume, the best practice would have been to weigh the volumes of both of them, and average it. As the varying textures would affect the volume, and thus the final amount used, technically, only the "cheap ingredients" version follows the recipe.
@@mwater_moon2865 weighed, put through a seive.
I like the process you used. Comparing by weight seems like you really considered the science of what you were doing, more-so than when you were on TKOR which I don't think was your fault rather the fault of those in charge. I appreciate the detailed measures to insure a quality comparioson. I feel like the content on TKOR was rushed and dumbed down a lot of the time and that you personally were stuck doing this in a way that wasn't conducive to your artistic and thorough. I appreciate the work you do.
@Richard Knox The polite thing to do is to spell out the first time, then go to initials. Not everyone knows what TKOR (or literally any other abbreviation) means.
@@lisahinton9682 I miss the days when it was known as The King Of Random... I mean TKOR "is" more logo efficient, but it made it seem more impersonal when they switched
@@lisahinton9682 actually a lot of people on here do know what tkor means since we came here from the last channel he was on. The polite thing would have been to just ask what tkor means if you dont know instead of chiding a complete stranger for your ignorance. It means The King of Random btw. Oh sorry that means by the way just in case you didnt know
Would be interesting to see a side by side for cheap flour vs expensive in sourdough bread since there aren't many ingredients in sourdough. (Water, salt and flour are the only ingredients)
Ditto
I hope that he does that. I would love to see the results of that comparison!
I also agree, but rather than most expensive use the best available.
Since Nate is in Utah he could probably find a sack of _Blue Bird_ flour pretty easy since it's milled in the 4 corners area.
Ooo good one.
Nutritional value might make it worth it
Truthfully I use a combination of cheapest and more expensive depending on the ingredient. I always use Ghirardelli’s chips and Massey vanilla paste but I use a lot of store brand basics.
This would be an interesting experiment. Make the two batches of cookies and let people taste test them, ask them which one they prefer, and then ask about their family’s and their community’s financial situation growing up. I would love to see if there’s a correlation between the two, if people prefer the cheaper cookies because they grew up with cheaper cookies.
I would have thought the same as well. However, now that we eat strictly home cooked meals, some of the "cheaper" ingredients just taste mediocre. When my children were small I bought the cheapest because I wasn't spending a fortune on items they won't appreciate, now I have elevated certain products. Chocolate chips is one of the things I go for more of a quality. Sugar not as big of a deal.
One thing that I have to point out is that it makes a HUGE difference if the batter becomes over-mixed. The leavening won't work as well and you'll end up with flat cookies. Once you add the wet ingredients to the batter, mix it just enough that everything is loosely incorporated and then STOP.
also, butter and sugar should be blended with flour with a pastry blender to prevent the "oily" spots.
@@ronwbrown I always use my mixmaster when making chocolate chip cookies. I find that it adds a bit of micro bubbles so that the dough becomes more 'fluffy' and when I chill the dough between batches it stays that way. It's like the difference between ice cream and a block of ice cream frozen without putting in air. The lightness in the cooked cookie makes it very popular.
@@curiousviewer5991 a bit blunt but... don't you find it odd that people like it when there's more air in the food?
Ice cream, pastries, baked goods, snacks(like cheese puffs).... and we pay more for "higher quality" which just contains more air
Its funny bc it's true
I'm so happy you'll be making your own content. Before you "lost your job" (lol) I would watch some of the tkor videos and literally roll my eyes. The ones you inspired were always the best ones. Now we get 100% of that.
from my experience the most important ingredients are vanilla, chocolate chips, butter, and brown sugar. that's where the quality matters more and I always recommend using browned butter and beating it with the sugar until it's pale in chocolate chip cookies to add a level of depth into the dough base
Berry Lewis has a series exactly like this. He calls it steep vs cheap. It's so interesting
I love Barry and Mrs B. :)
thanks i stopped by to say this :D
The face when you said "you're not supposed to eat the cookie dough" MARVELOUS!
I love seeing you do your thing, just in a less toxic environment. I really hope for the best for this channel. Your down to earth and deserve it.
Love this! I'm so happy to see you doing good on you own channel, you deserve it! For a possible "basic vs bougie" cooking side series, may I suggest soup. Does it really make a difference if you get all organic veggies and such when all you're doing is basically boiling them in water for a long time. Just a thought :) best of luck with everything!
Legit would love to see more of this series. Thank you for making more of your own content :)
I love that Nate’s personality really shows up on this channel!!
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that butter and maybe chocolate are the only things in this recipe that you'll genuinely get enough value for your dollar to make it worth buying a more premium version as opposed to the cheap store brand.
I disagree with the vanilla. It's not the same vanilla extract or vanilla "flavor" and not only in the price
@@leire5072 There _will_ be a huge difference in the vanilla _but_ it's such a small ingredient in the overall cookie that I doubt it'll be worth the extra cost.
@@leire5072 Vanillin produces the vast majority of the flavour of vanilla, so man made vanilla extract will reproduce basically most of the flavour. And as the extract is used in small amounts, you'll need to have a sensitive palate to taste the difference
Imo the sugar is quite important. Using honey, Brown sugar, cane sugar, Maple sugar, corn syrup or plain white sugar can change a whole lot the outcome of a recipe
@@rockrevenchy It is, but he specifically avoided replacing the types of sugar that the recipe called for.
I'm genuinely in love with your content and personality. Keep up the good work!
Hey Nate, it's so good to see you again! Would love to see more videos of you and Callie! Keep up the amazing work! Cheers!
I think a it would be interesting with a lasagne version where you also do one where you do everything from scratch, you make your own pasta grind your own meat and crush you own tomatoes.
Upvoting this
Oh! I recently got a book called Bake the bread, buy the butter! It’s a book about the economics and quality behind cooking vs buying readymade food, it might be super interesting to guide this series with you?
I heard about that book on the radio! Specific price comparisons may vary by location though, so double check your options, but just the idea of comparing price vs your cost in time and effort is a game changer.
@A Spirit I’m personally a big fan of real vanilla vs imitation vanilla. There’s a big difference. The other more texture component would be the butter.
Real vanilla in both kinds of cookies.
Great job, Nate!! Love that you’re back on TH-cam educating us all!!
I need more of this. I would also like this to become a series. suggestion different priced materials for knife forging.
Something I think that's worth mentioning about a test like this:
Whether it makes a difference or not in The taste in the end is one thing, but many of the ingredients that were sourced more expensive are more expensive for a reason, like the sugars for example are not bleached and processed as much in the more expensive version which is much healthier for you, the flower on the expensive side comes from Bob's Red Mill, a very responsible company that has an excellent reputation and record of producing digestible high quality flowers and dry ingredients. You may find when researching the vanilla extract that the cost of the more expensive one is derived from responsibly sourcing the vanilla beans and paying workers fairly without any fillers in the vanilla whereas the cheaper vanilla most likely has caramel colors and is by-product or lower quality vanilla beans. Most of the stereotype of why sugar is bad for you is because most of the sugar the majority of the population especially in the United States and Canada consume is hyper processed and bleached to give it that nice white color that people crave for aesthetic, pure unprocessed raw non-bleached cane sugar is actually extremely healthy for you in some cases and is a moot point when being consumed on a scale of what you would see in a cookie. The more expensive butter and eggs are going to have much higher quality non-saturated fatty acids and structural fats that are phenomenal for your brain and joints, this derives from being grass-fed/free-range and less processed. I would be willing to bet that if somebody actually took the time, as useless as it may be, you would find that the actual derivable energy content of the calories in the more expensive cookie is significantly higher than the institutionally processed ingredients cookie.
I know that for some people saving the money is more important, but if you have the financial capabilities to afford more responsibly sourced products and healthier products, your body will thank you and so will the farmers and producers of the products.
This is a great comment and even though it’s super knowledge dense, it doesn’t come across as pretentious or condescending.
I really appreciate this information and I hope Nate sees it and it possibly gives him inspiration/ideas for future content that he may create.
@@Mattm182 thanks! I'm glad it didn't come off pretentious as that's certainly not my intention, just trying to offer some learnings to thoes who would love to know but otherwise may not have seen it :) have a great day
I just got a TED Talk, and I mean that in a good way. :-)
Thanks for expressing so well the nutritional benefits of the more expensive ingredients.
Not true.
@@magical571 what a well formulated and intellectual response... Thanks for contributing nothing, and everything I stated was factually derived.
I mean, it seems like all you need to do is switch the expensive butter and vanilla and the cost would be a lot closer;
This is going to be a great series, I can't wait for the next one!
I agree, swap out the two ridiculous priced ingredients and run the test again, bet, As Nat mentioned the flour and sugars had coarser gains, this most likely made the difference. It be great to find out if that is the reason for the better texture and taste.
@@ccslider there's also the question of butter vs shortening to consider
Yea if you take the regular priced butter or even cheap butter and browned it on the stove first you can definitely increase the richness in flavor of the cookie. As well as creaming the butter and sugar together first should help with the flavor and texture as well.
loved seeing your friends in these and stuff. super fun to watch!
Haven’t seen you in a couple years, I’m happy to see you’re doing new things 👨🍳
Really great video idea!!! I would love to see this again with different foods. Maybe a steak dinner? One has instant (or cheap) mashed potatoes, one has fresh hand made (or expensive) mashed potatoes. One has frozen (or cheap) vegetables, one has fresh (or expensive) vegetables. One has super cheap steak, one has extremely expensive steak.
Having done the mixing by hand for years, and now owning a mixer, I completely agree with you. Great video!
Great video! Very informative and solid production quality! Keep it up!
With how much of TH-cam tends to get heart rates up, I appreciate a chill video just like this.
Love this concept, please turn this into a series!! I can see this getting a ton of love!! Would love to see a pizza comparison and maybe some science ones with different quality chemicals... I've had some cheaper brands not have near as good reactions as some of the more expensive brands.
My childhood has been reborn, thank you for continuing your TH-cam journey Nate. Who would have thought all those years ago camera shy, awkward Nate would go on to build his own channel with his OWN audience, I love it.
I was really looking forward to seeing this when you mentioned on the safety 3rd podcast that you wanted to get into cooking. Glad to see you went ahead and did it 😁
Loved the vid man, keep doing what you love and I’ll support you.🖤
Absolutely love the concept behind this, I highly recommend making it a series. I love it! Quite eye opening on cost difference too, I wonder what things you could make cheaper that would taste better than the expensive ingredients.
Dude this is like how Grant was in early days , getting that vibe . Love it bro . RIP Grant .
Love this content. Simple everyday stuff to have knowledge about. Great video!
I swear I saw this guy on another subscription someplace... :D Best of luck on the new adventure man!! Left a comment to help drive those stats.
I do like this series... I know your saving money, but if you can afford it we'd love more of these!
Been a fan of TKOR with Grant and then enjoyed when you came on but lost interest there when things seemed to change and glad to see you’re well and will be watching you here. Keep it up!
I appreciate this video. Because I know a little bit about cooking, I sometimes know what items to splurge a bit on and what I can elevate simply through technique. Most of which I learned through reading and TH-cam. So, thanks. This helped😊
I love this style of content. I'm sad you're no longer with TKOR, but I'm glad you're still producing videos. I was happy you acknowledged the possible confirmation bias without it being a blind test and it looks like you have a pretty awesome group of friends. Best of luck to you!
You should do basic vs America's Test Kitchen favorites. I really love their testing methods and results, and have often bought their top picks for ingredients when I'm making special dishes.
I love this. I watched TKOR from the beginning with my dad. Its now gotten so much like all the other channels that I don't watch it anymore. I love your vids like this. Something that everyone always wonders but never actually does. I love these types of experimenting vids keep it up :D
It's hilarious how the one guy kept saying they were the same cookie and after learning one was more expensive his tune changed. The power of suggestion is so real.
Great video, I don’t want to harp on this comparison too much but I just have to say that now that you are not with TKOR this channel and it’s content feels so much like the OG King of Random videos. Just a brilliant guy with neat ideas that he wants to test, sharing that with the world. It’s a brilliant idea, doesn’t feel click-baity and it just overall really well done! I look forward to seeing this channel grow. Thanks Nate!
so much to talk about this video! the topic was really fun, it reminds me a bit of How to Cook That with Ann Reardon, kind of like a wholesome, very honest/transparent vibe, high quality content made by a human rather than a business
your friends at the end were a nice touch! it was also wholesome!
the topic was so good! honestly, if you can do another brand vs basic, i'd ask you to go for an entirely home made pizza. that one would be fun!
this has been a great start for your new channel man! best wishes, I'll be sharing your videos with friends, hitting the like and commenting! thanks Nate!
I would also like some more of the "I tried to make a thing from scratch" videos. Including the process on figuring out what works best. And yes this does seem like something Ann Reardon would do. She and Nate would probably have a really good time messing around in the kitchen.
Love this video. I’d love to see it become a series. I’d also be interested in knowing if the person who liked the more expensive cookies had experience in baking, as they seemed to notice things like the crumbliness and oiliness, the the others didn’t commented on before.
glad to see you making the stuff you wanna make and having a good time nate. All the luck
Whether this particular one has been done or not, this is a good idea. If you wanted an upgrade, you could see what switching the most expensive elements would do (ie. butter or vanilla).
Great idea to use friends. How about have them stand on the side of the cookie that they chose? Have them stand further out for the more that they enjoyed it. Would make a good visual and get discussion and teasing going.
I've done similar cookie tests and found some brand ingredients that make a huge difference: King Arthur flour, Cabot butter, and Shadow Cross Farm eggs. The eggs are probably only available in Vermont, but I think the other two are available nationally.
Damn, Nate out here asking the real questions.
Now i want cookies, though. Thanks, Nate. XD
Watching you struggle to mix the cookies brought me back to when I worked in a candy shop and had to make truffle centers all day and by the next day my arms were so sore I could lift my hands above my chest
This is definitely going to be something that I'm gonna want to try - making the cheapest cookies possible BUT so they resemble actually good and expensive cookies.
It honestly sounds like a fun challenge - making a chart of all the possible differing proportions of ingredients and then recording the results, with a cookie with STANDARD proportions being used as the reference/comparison point.
Note on measuring volume instead of weight with flour! The hydration of the flour can vary depending on storage method and ambient humidity, so weight can vary for the same quantity of actual flour.
But the difference between pouring flour into the cup and scooping is very different and way more noticeable than weight
Yeah so the volume.
I´d like to se you do this with bread, as the flour is such a fundamental part of it, and gives so much of the flavour. It is not masked by other flavours. Also because breadmaking is such.. well.. chemistry really...
Definitely want to see more of these. And more of Calli. So glad you're doing well!
There's something very satisfying about all your bowls and measuring things matching
Been waiting for this one since you talked about it on the safety third podcast
It could have been the flour, the sugars, even the coco butter amount in the choc chips.I always use cup measurements for everything I don't have a mixer.
Could you make butter at home? Get cheap cream and more expensive cream close to the use by/best before date so they don't cost you to much, make 2 batches salt free and salt added. Maybe a casserole one with the cheapest cuts of meat one with average or expensive meat.
For me when things get really tight at times I make up big pots of veggie soup and blend it once it's cooked. It seems to fill me more once blended. I then freeze some of the soup so I have some for the next week. I sometimes have cheap bread with it. I also make rice dishes with lots of veggies a little meat. I make casseroles up and will make savoury scone dough/biscuit dough up roll into balls and place on top of the casserole touching, then bake. The dough on top goes nice and crispy/crunchy and the bottom is like gooey boiled dumplings. All very filling. Not always real healthy but it helps.
That was one of the best videos I have seen Nate do!
This is a pretty interesting concept for a video! Good job!
Absolutely do more of these! I love the blind taste test, that gives real thoughts and opinions
The DnD group: the ultimate judges of snack foods. In my experience, expensive butter and vanilla are always worth it. Fancy flour isn't worth it, but making sure you have FRESH/not stale flour is worth it.
You're just so freaking likeable Nate... you could make a video about just about anything and people would watch it but this is good stuff!
The other option for mid price is to choose what ingredients you get the expensive stuff for.
I don't see the point in expensive salt or baking soda.
For vanilla, a big difference in price is if it is natural or synthetic, but functionally they should be the same. So even that I would suggest the cheap one.
Well there is a difference between using high quality and low quality ingredients, the thing is that the most expensive is not always the highest quality, for example a place here sells great rye bread cheaper than commercial white bread, there is a brand of milk that is the best one and the cheapest, but is also hard to find, you basically pay more for the brand.
Awesome work, Nate! Keep up the good work!
Love these types of shows - please turn it into a series.
I’ve subscribed so I can add it to my weekly recipe watch.
Suggestions:-
Sloppy Joes
Carbonara - pecorino vs generic hard cheese
Grilled cheese
Apple Pie
Chicken pot pie
Do a brand vs basic about furniture(example: tables, chairs, work bench, drawers, etc.) with one using more expensive material and more advanced tools while other uses cheaper materials and basic tools. You can test it by having people use it and which is better to use and I think to test its durability it would be best to see which one could last longer rather than trying to destroy it on purpose, or simply expose it stuff or activities that the furniture usually experience. I enjoy the work u do hoping to see more, it would be nice to see u cast moulds and stuff again. Keep up the good work.
Definitely would go with expensive flour, and brown sugar, I personally recommend using vanilla bean paste instead of extract.
So I have seen several channels do toast test of brand vs basic on just about anything you can imagine but this was unique in that it was ingredients vs. an already finished product. I like that twist since it really very practical. I would suggest showing the costs of the individual ingredients for all the ingredients rather than just the few that were mentioned. It would be helpful info and just interesting to know which ingredients get marked up by the “name brand”.
Truly amazing work. I really enjoy your content
I really enjoyed this. I think it would be appropriate to have a playlist on your channel going over things similar to this. You could do fat vs fat free, you could do gluten vs gluten free.
Don't stop here, but it's definitely a viable idea for a video playlist.
What was the difference in protein content between the 2 flours, because that could make a huge difference. An AP with a higher protein content (like King Arthur) would probably result in a chewier cookie than one like a store brand which likely has a lower protein content. I'd be curious how much of the difference between the cookies goes away if you find cheap and expensive AP Flours with a similar protein content
100%!! when I learned about gluten percentage my baking completely changed!
I've found that sometimes the less expensive ingredients can be just as good or sometimes even better than the expensive ones! But that often only spplies to certain ingredients... Great video btw! :)
Thank you! I've missed this so much
I was told the reason cups/spoons were used for measurements is because even if your cups/spoon sizes differed, which they did drastically before official cup sizes were introduced, is that the ratios are the same regardless of weight. As well as not everyone having access to scales. Could be an old wives tale.
That's interesting. I theorize that the reason the US uses cups is because baking here was mostly an at-home thing for a long time, so you just used what you had around the kitchen. Comparing that to much of Europe, where it seems that most people bought their breads, stores needed to be able to ratio large batches of dough and that's much more effective by weight.