Rate of new content

I don't mean to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I have noticed that new recipe content has tricked from an average of a new recipe every weekday to virtually nothing added within the past month. I'm sure there is a method to this madness, can the management at ChefSteps share with us why there has been a slowdown of new content?

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robert.c.brown15

They mentioned on twitter that they are putting the final touches on the meat sous vide course.

robert.c.brown15

*hence no new recent recipes.

Chris_Young_80640

So there is a short, and a long answer to this question.

Short answer: yes, we know that it's been slow, but it will pick up speed again soon. It was a decision that we should have communicated with all of you, and I'm sorry that we failed to do that.

Longer answer: ChefSteps has grown a lot over the last year. That's good news, but it has also stretched our team in unsustainable ways. Because we want to create and publish high-quality content, the ChefSteps team made a decision in late January to stop and overhaul our approach to creating and publishing content. It has taken longer to make these changes than we had hoped, but we are close to being in a place where we can create courses at the pace we would like to be doing that, as well as creating free content that hopefully keeps ChefSteps vibrant and interesting for our community. One of our goals is to be able to show a lot more of the behind the scenes journey that we take when developing a recipe or a technique, because we believe that's some of the most useful knowledge we can share.

In parallel with overhauling our content production strategy, we've been very hard at work creating state-of-the-art social tools that allow all of us to freely communicate and collaborate. Basically, we want to replace the fragmented discussions spread across our forum and comment system with something more unified (and with a much better user experience).

These are really big changes for ChefSteps, and they've caused us to stumble a bit, but we believe that they're the right things to do. This said, we do apologize for not communicating clearly that this was happening behind the scenes.

If you have other questions, let us know.

t.stanoulis

Thanks, Chris. The direction that you guys are taking currently is one I certainly favour.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Chris, thanks for the explanation and keep up the awesome job y'all are doing here! Best wishes

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Sweet!

nick.pmallon

Can't wait!

ttpoker

"we want to replace the fragmented discussions spread across our forum and comment system with something more unified (and with a much better user experience). "

Amen! The forum solution is not well integrated with the ChefSteps experience, looking forward to a unified commenting system!

PS: In the meantime perhaps at least one new recepie a week so you don't lose momentum?

Karen_Taylor_Quinn_36329

Thanks for your patience during our silence the past couple of weeks. As Chris mentioned, we've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to help the company grow, and we're really excited to get back on track with content. So, without further ado, here's our newest recipe!

We're back up and running now, planning to publish at least once a week for the foreseeable future. ...And look out for our newest class, coming (very) soon!!

Thank you again! We love you guys!

t.stanoulis

Dear lord, this latest "recipe" is just phenomenal! Are there plans to go through any older recipes and modify them to follow this format in some way? Not to be too greedy, of course…

The profundity of insight and degree of thorough explication is something that I find useful and intriguing; I love the idea that this format can be used on a simple idea to encourage creativity in the kitchen. I also feel compelled to commend the constant iterative process that's gone into the web development at ChefSteps, as the site has really begun to take shape and define its unique niche. This format of recipe is a bold step in the right direction, guys. Keep up the excellent work, and thank you so much!

Pepijn_31744

I wanted to comment, but I think @Thomas Stanoulis said it all. Great job!

Jack_Mayer_85396

Holy Smokes, you just hit one out of the park with this new format! Great work and thank you!

Samuel_68313

Wooowww. Love it.

tshewman

WOW! @Thomas Stanoulis covered it well. Great work and VERY thorough!!!

Matt_67991

That recipe was basically as substantial as the macarons course. Truly amazing.

robert.c.brown15

Awesome stuff happening here. Really cool to see a website evolve.

robert.c.brown15

I read the recipe for a third time. You sure you want to give this recipe away for nothing? That anecdote about Grant and bread in France was great. Did not know that about bread and won't forget it now.

GaryT_92514

Fantastic work - agree with @Henri, that wasn't a recipe it was a course. A modernist rethink of the concept of a recipe.

nick.pmallon

Amazing new take on the recipes. Very much appreciate you folks all putting in such hard work to make what was already great, that much greater!

Brandon_34695

The only question left unanswered, who is open in my area selling canele molds at this hour?

This new style is really good!

ttpoker

Outstanding recipe, but the video is lacking in my humble opinion. I propose keeping the video format the same as before, focus just on the core recipe not the sidebars or the forks. The videos were one of the best parts of the Chefsteps experience, please do not deviate!

Brandon_34695

I don't know if I agree - as cool as the kitchen gang are, there is a limit to how many recipes I want to take literally and follow along step by step with the video.

I like when things are present as a technique with endless possibilities, some enumerated. You get to feel like you made it your own. That's why the pressure cooked soups in MC are such a winner.

The thing that I like about the older videos is a bit of voyeurism into "mise en place" or working clean. The new style still gives a big nod to this. I don't feel like I missed anything when the video didn't show someone scaling out the ingredients and putting them into the blender.

There is obviously another aspect to the new style that seems to seek accessibility and empowerment to people who probably don't have Manressa, MC@H, and Keller's books laying around on every table. It's hard to knock that.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I really enjoy how things are evolving. There are enough recipe blogs to fill the deepest darkest corners of the interwebz, the site wants to grow and continue to attract new users, especially those who aren't already passionate about modernist cooking or are hardcore science minded. This type of "forking" or dialectic approach really welcomes people of all walks, I wouldn't hesitate to point my grandmother or mother-in-law who rarely are interested in cooking technique to this recipe, nor would I hesitate to send my experienced pastry minded friend and both would be able to learn a lot.

merridith

Don't want to repeat what everybody else already said ((I particularly agree with @ThomasStanuolis), but I do want to throw in how valuable it is for me to hear about all the "attempts" and variations, with what did and did not work. Having guidance and encouragement to take things outside of the box is very exciting to me, its how I think about everything I cook: "If I like it this way, I wonder if I would like it that way?" And I also love all the extra narrative - it makes the act of learning here at Chefsteps feel very personal and engaging. I must also admit, that I was very glad to see a new recipe as it is something I really look forward to and I have been worried that it was going to end! Thanks!

prince_of_porcelain

Took me about 20 minutes from reading the recipe to start cooking...just sayin...

They are fabulous. And simple. Do this now.

Chris_Young_80640

Folks, thanks for all of the great feedback. It's nice to read that you (overall) like the direction things are going. I'll add that we agree that this does lack a classic ChefSteps "hero" video at the top. That's really because this recipe grew out of a quick attempt by Grant to explore more narrative focus (lots of the photos are from Grant's iPhone, not our usual Cannon 5D). We liked the direction it was going, so a bunch of us got involved and slowed Grant down! But in the future, you'll can expect to see us exploring how to integrate the videos you know and love, with this narrative-style that reveals more of the journey we take towards developing the polished version you've come to expect.

Clearly it's a huge amount of work by a lot of people to produce content like this. I believe seven or eight people worked on this piece of content at some point. There are lots of design limitations, and challenges with telling the story the way we want too, which will cause more of the team to get involved. So for a while it means that our focus on quality will reduce quantity of content that we publish. Our goal is once per week for now. But as we get the hang of this, I think you'll be happy with where we get to in terms of releasing great content frequently. And we're already thinking about ways to give you a reason to check out what's going on more frequently during the week.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Is there a jaw-drop smiley thing with this forum software? The new recipe format is incredible; the usual top quality work, refined. The narrative style is such a great value add, imo. Can't wait to see what's next.

Brandon_34695

Nordic Ware aluminum mold -$7 at HomeGoods. 50g per cup, around 40 minutes in the oven at 375.

A little light, but more than a little delicious.

Copper molds on the way!

Samuel_68313

Fwiw, I don't think you need every recipe like this, I still enjoy the quick simple recipes and don't want them to stop coming. I think a balanced approach is best.

Brandon_34695

What's the troubleshooting for blonde tops? I see some in the test batches in the photos.

V2, the batter was cold from the fridge, leftovers from last night.

I ended up baking it for a full hour and I still ended up less dark than desired.

A mistake, I think, is I lined my baking sheet with a doubled up silpat. I forgot to take the baking steel out of the oven, and thought setting the sheet on the steel would lead to over cooking the tops, so I put in a buffer. I was surprised to see undercooked tops!

I have another batch going now.

(@ 375F with a decent convection fan, temps between 375 and just under 400 on the thermoworks analogue oven thermometer)