How To Spot AI Made Recipes
How To Spot AI Made Recipes
plus perfect vegan dinner rolls
As a food blogger (and lifetime semi-professional worrier), I have my concerns about AI. I know most of us have progressed past being terrified of a Terminator style takeover, and some of us are even using AI in our daily lives, but I’m still a bit squirmy for one specific reason. You see, I spend a lot of time looking at recipes online and in the last few months, I’ve noticed something a bit spooky: AI food blogs are everywhere!
Why spooky, I hear you say? Well, think about it this way. Most decent human food bloggers test their recipes multiple times before publishing. They include photos of the finished product as evidence that this recipe works and they often even improve recipes retrospectively based on comments and user feedback. But this clearly isn’t the case for AI, largely because it doesn’t have hands and isn’t a real person! This means that you could be spending money on ingredients to make a recipe that is about as reliable as your exes Netflix password.
So, for this week’s newsletter, I thought I’d share what I’ve learned this year about how to spot an AI recipe. Then, because I’m nice and definitely not a robot, I’ve also included a recipe for the perfect vegan dinner rolls. Yes, I know, it’s too soon for thanksgiving recipes (very AI of me, right..?) but I want to give you time to practice them, plus they’re the PERFECT vessel for last week’s BBQ Shredded Tofu.
Oh and one last thing - I just wanted to say how grateful I am that you’re here and actually reading this. This is my 11th post on Substack and I’m super proud of this little community we’re building. If you like it here too, then consider upgrading to a paid subscription. It really does help me massively to keep the lights on at School Night Vegan (plus you get extra content and recipes!). As always, THANK YOU!
OK, let’s get started!
5 Red Flags That You’re Using an AI Recipe
So here we are. I thought hard about how to structure this section and I reckon we can break this down into 5 main tips. Obviously some times you’ll be able to spot the AI a mile off (like with “Mary’s Royal Cherry Trifle” in the photo above) but other times it’ll be a little tricker. So, let’s start with:
1. Unusual Ingredients
AI recipes are usually designed specifically to reach the top of google for a given search term. This is nothing new, it’s how food blogs (including mine) get enough clicks to earn ad revenue. The funny thing about AI recipes though, is that they often target search terms that might exist in theory, but don’t actually make any sense. Take this “Baked Raspberry and Bramble Trifle” recipe, for instance:
The word “Bramble” isn’t unusual to see in a recipe title; a “Bramble cocktail” is a drink which presumably uses blackberries (the fruit of the bramble bush). However, brambles themselves are not an ingredient - they are a shrub, with big thorns, and they definitely don’t belong in a trifle. So, ingredients that don’t belong (or don’t make sense) are your red flag number one! 🚩
2. Weird Descriptions
Recipe descriptions (the little bit that comes after the title) are another important section when it comes to ranking on Google. They tell Google’s bots what your recipe is about and help them to connect your recipe to a given search term. It appears that AI knows this too, and often tries to pack recipe descriptions with as many search terms as possible. This often results in a description that doesn’t actually make any sense. Have a look at this very obviously Christmas-themed recipe description:
Not only does it not make any actual sense, but it also tells us nothing about the actual recipe. So, if the ingredients look trustworthy, check out the recipe description. If it’s rambling, weird and has little connection to the actual recipe, that’s your second red flag! 🚩
3. Vague Instructions
This one is slightly less common, since the kind of language used in a recipe tends to be super formulaic. But when you spot one of these examples, it’s usually kind of glaring. The recipe might jump between unrelated techniques or offer vague instructions like “cook until done,” without clear times, temperatures, or detailed steps.
This is another reason to always read through recipes before you start cooking. If you get lost, or can’t make sense of an instruction, that’s your third red flag! 🚩
4. Unlikely Author
Many AI food blogs still make an effort to showcase their “author”. This is because Google (for now) prioritises recipes which appear to be written by a real human with a back-story and credentials. However AI doesn’t always get this bit right. Look at this example of a food blogger’s bio:
Sarah looks like a lovely person who’s definitely not AI generated… but there’s something fishy about calling a food blog a “cookbook” and then just listing a bunch of recipe titles in your author bio.
If the recipe and the description look good, but you’re still riddled with uncertainty, click through to the author bio and do some digging. Does their story sound real and human? Do they list any publications or cookbooks they’ve written? Do they link to a social media presence? If not, this is your 4th red flag. 🚩
5. Impossible Images
OK this is the fun bit. AI generated images are getting really, really good, but there are still some dead giveaways if you look closely. Pay attention to:
Weird Veggies
AI has a tendency to mash together ingredients that are usually very separate. Take this weird pepper/courgette hybrid for example. Look for the intersection between items on a plate, this is usually where the most glaring errors are.
Herbs
Also featured in the image above! AI knows that plates of food are often sprinkled with leaves, but it often can’t quite make its mind up about what those leaves should look like. Exactly which herbs are on the plate? That long guy looks a bit like thyme, but the leaves are unusual and there’s no thyme mentioned in the recipe.
Forks
Like with fingers, AI often adds a few too many prongs to forks. If there’s no fork in the image, look for a knife and pay attention to the reflection in the blade. Is it reflecting what it should be reflecting?
Scale
OK last one! Pay attention to scale. In this one below, we can see that the image generated includes vine cherry tomatoes. But the AI has also thrown in some nearly microscopic tomatoes into the mix. This happens with all sorts of ingredients and sometimes you’ll find a generated photo with multiple cookies, all of them a totally different size. Also, two extra bonus points: the char marks on the chicken don’t line up. It’s like someone jumbled up the pieces of chicken before rearranging neatly. Also, what’s in those two bowls in the background? Brown sugar? In a salad recipe? RED FLAG! 🚩
So there we go! If I wasn’t already on the AI kill list, I am now! If you think I missed anything, let me know in the comments! Oh and let me know if you’ve had any recipe disasters that you’re just now realising were probably AI written!
Recipe: Vegan Dinner Rolls
Ingredients
For the Buns:
50ml (3.5 tbsp) warm water
3 tbsp maple syrup (or agave as a substitute)
7g sachet (2 tsp) instant yeast, aka active dry yeast
200ml (13.5 tbsp) plant milk (room temperature, full fat, unflavoured, and unsweetened)
150g (5.5 oz) silken tofu
570g (4/5 cups) strong white bread flour (bread flour)
2 tsp fine sea salt
50g (1.8 oz)vegan butter, at room temperature, diced
For the Wash:
2 tbsp soy milk
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1.5 tsp maple syrup (or agave as a substitute)
Instructions
In a small bowl, mix together the warm water and maple syrup. Sprinkle the yeast over the top of the mixture and leave it to activate for a few minutes.
Blend the plant milk and silken tofu together until smooth, using an immersion blender or regular blender.
In a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment, combine the bread flour, plant milk mixture, activated yeast mixture, and fine sea salt.
Once the dough forms, add the vegan butter and knead on medium speed for 3 minutes.
Cover the dough ball and leave it to proof for 1-2 hours, or until it has doubled in size.
Divide the dough into 16 portions and shape each portion into a tight ball.
Place the balls in a greased baking dish or large cast iron skillet, leaving some space between each ball. Allow the rolls to proof for another 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until they are puffy and a finger pressed into the dough leaves a small indent.
Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). In a small bowl, mix together the vegetable oil, soy milk, and maple syrup.
Once the rolls have proofed, brush the wash mixture over the surface of each roll. Bake the rolls for 20-25 minutes.
Immediately after removing the rolls from the oven, brush them with a little more of the wash mixture.
Allow the rolls to cool fully to room temperature before serving.
Great article, but just a heads-up that in Scotland, brambles are the fruit 😉