[bruce511]

I'll back you up here. While i don't do a lot of baking, I've done enough over my life to get a feel for what the ingredients do. I adjust enough that I think most folks would describe it as "not following the recipe".

I will often reduce sugar, add things (cocoa, nuts and so on). As an example if you add cocoa you need to add fluid to compensate. More butter (or oil) leads to a "wetter" crumb and so on.

It takes more experience than regular cooking to do this though, and th feedback cycle is slower.