SO many of you wanted to see me try it with PIZZA, so here it is! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oZt9hKWByb3GqX0.html

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 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

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.

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.

Great concept and excellent execution - I hope this turns into a series!

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

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

I am just happy to see a food experiment that didn't require a freeze drier and/or cotton candy maker.

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.

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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.

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!

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)

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.

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.

You're the first youtuber I've seriously considered subscribing to patreon for. You're just really personable and down to earth and cool 🤷‍♀️

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.

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.

Berry Lewis has a series exactly like this. He calls it steep vs cheap. It's so interesting

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

I need more of this. I would also like this to become a series. suggestion different priced materials for knife forging.

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 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.

I love that Nate’s personality really shows up on this channel!!

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!

loved seeing your friends in these and stuff. super fun to watch!

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.

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?

Great video! Very informative and solid production quality! Keep it up!

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!

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!

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.

I'm genuinely in love with your content and personality. Keep up the good work!

Haven’t seen you in a couple years, I’m happy to see you’re doing new things 👨‍🍳

Having done the mixing by hand for years, and now owning a mixer, I completely agree with you. Great video!

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.

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 😁

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

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.

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!

Legit would love to see more of this series. Thank you for making more of your own content :)

With how much of KZfaq tends to get heart rates up, I appreciate a chill video just like this.

I do like this series... I know your saving money, but if you can afford it we'd love more of these!

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.

Great job, Nate!! Love that you’re back on KZfaq educating us all!!

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!

My childhood has been reborn, thank you for continuing your KZfaq 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.

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.

Loved the vid man, keep doing what you love and I’ll support you.🖤

Love this content. Simple everyday stuff to have knowledge about. Great video!

Dude this is like how Grant was in early days , getting that vibe . Love it bro . RIP Grant .

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!

This is a pretty interesting concept for a video! Good job!

Awesome work, Nate! Keep up the good work!

Damn, Nate out here asking the real questions. Now i want cookies, though. Thanks, Nate. XD

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.

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.

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 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

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.

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...

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.

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.

Been waiting for this one since you talked about it on the safety third podcast

There's something very satisfying about all your bowls and measuring things matching

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

Absolutely do more of these! I love the blind taste test, that gives real thoughts and opinions

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.

That was one of the best videos I have seen Nate do!

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 KZfaq. So, thanks. This helped😊

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.

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.

Thank you! I've missed this so much

That was a nice watch. I want to see more videos like this.

Definitely would go with expensive flour, and brown sugar, I personally recommend using vanilla bean paste instead of extract.

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.

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.

glad to see you making the stuff you wanna make and having a good time nate. All the luck

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.

It would be interesting to see some very simple Spaghetti and Tomato sauce in this experiment! People are always saying that there's a huge difference with the ingredients, is it true?

Definitely want to see more of these. And more of Calli. So glad you're doing well!

This was a really cool video! Thanks for sharing!

So now what you need to do, is use the exact same ingredients with 3 different recipes. A pro chef, a family recipe, and a brand recommended recipe (like this nestle one), to further prove that ingredients aren't as important as technique

Homemade pizza, cheap vs expensive. Adam Ragusa has an amazing recipe for new york style that uses mostly more expensive ingredients im curious what cheap ingredients would taste like

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! :)

Truly amazing work. I really enjoy your content