America's Test Kitchen

This is the third year they have charged my card without permission, I have called and canceled, canceled auto-renew every time and they continue to commit this fraud. I am starting to believe this is their actual business model. Do yourself a favor and don't bother even starting with them. It will be endless junk mail and endless un authorized renewals.

Hi redditors,

what is going on here? AmericasTestKitchen

i found one post that went

is this post the main reason for this growth? why are so many people joining today?

I was looking for some new recipes and like America's test kitchen so I thought I'd give their trial membership a go.

I ended up not using it so at the end of the month I went to cancel only to find you have to call them to do so. WTF!?

Edit: I've learned this is location dependant. Some places have laws in place to force them to provide a link. I don't live in one of those places it seems.

I've only completed one of the 50 concepts (Concept 25, All Potatoes are not Created Equal).

No, you don't just mix oil and salt with the potatoes wedges before you bake them. The point is to beat the starches off the surface of the potato so that it mixes with the oil and will reduce to sugar (glucose) in high heat which will caramelize under high heat and create a nice browned finish. It also roughs up the surface area to improve drying time so the sugar can caramelize.

Imagine a recipe book where they tell you *how* to mix the oil and salt into the potatoes because it is an important step...and then tell you *why* that was important.

That is 5% of what was gained from 30 minutes of reading Concept 25.

There is no option to do it online or remove my credit card info. They only give you a 1-800 number.

I call the number and there is a 10+ minute wait according to the automated message. Fine, I'll wait.

A few minutes in and the call just hangs up on me. I've called back and it happens again and again at random points (drops 22 seconds into the call, 53 seconds into the call, etc.)

ATK I love your content, but this is horrible customer service.

UPDATE:

Finally got through. Lady gave me a bit of attitude.

I didn't remember my zip code from when I subscribed (I've moved around a lot). And she flatly said, "Then I can't look you up in the system." After a bit of an awkward pause I ask, "...is there any other information you can use to look me up?"

With a clear tone of attitude and condescension, as if she's talking to an idiot, she responds, "Um, yeahhhhh? E-mail address".

WHY COULDN'T YOU OFFER THAT AS A SOLUTION TO BEGIN WITH? AND WHY DID I HAVE TO FIRST PROPOSE THE SOLUTION?

Just season 14 at the moment, but that still means 26 full episodes

Hi,

Just making this post so that others can be aware of an absolutely disgusting business practice by America's Test Kitchen.

I love their site and am signed up for their newsletter. I got an email a few days ago advertising a "free 3 week trial" of their site, which I was interested in. To start the trial, I had to sign up and enter my credit card details since they have membership set to auto-renew after the 3-week trial ends, this is pretty standard and what I was expecting, so I entered my details. On that page they had a note saying "Cancel free anytime".

So I get signed up and begin a few cooking school classes. I also just wanted to check how to cancel the auto-renew in case I didnt feel like paying at the end of the trial. And so began my journey into their absolute mind-fuck of a website. They have different pages for accounts etc. and no-where in my "account" information do they let you click cancel your account.

They also don't let you remove your credit card or payment method.

Only when I go to their help section and find "how to cancel the subscription" do they inform you that the only way to cancel is to either email or call them - you can't do it online.

Not only that, they have 3 different bloody trials for their different sites that will charge you if you sign up for each, and each has to be cancelled separately.

I emailed them 3 days ago requesting an immediate cancellation of all auto-renew. However, they ignored that mail and since I still haven't heard back from them at all, tonight I had to call at bloody 11.30pm Australia time since their phone service is only for US hours. And it is not easy to call the damn 1800 number internationally, plus I got charged full international rates.

They also have a piss-poor automated voice command phone service that sent me down another damn rabbit hole before I could speak with anyone. The lady I spoke to was robotic and just asked for my details and then finally processed the cancellation, when I started (politely but directly) giving feedback on this poor experience, she hung up on me.

So anyway, I am just writing this post to vent and to make sure others are aware of how difficult and predatory they make it to cancel their trial. I am tech-savvy, but there would be thousands of older people who will have been sucked into paying for the auto-renewal without knowing how to get it cancelled easily. They let international people sign up, but they don't offer an international number to call or international hours of telephone operation.

I am absolutely disgusted that such a "reputable" business would run their site and trial this way. Really surprising because their content is generally pretty great, and with a things like their "equipment reviews" on YouTube and stuff they really market themselves as a business to be trusted.

Anyway.... uh... thanks.

Just randomly binge watching while on bed rest. I’m assuming the episodes called “America’s test kitchen - at home” where the chefs are all in different kitchens were filmed during Covid? All of their kitchens look immaculate! Guess that’s to be expected when you’re going to be filmed.

I already have The New Cooking School Cookbook, The Science of Good Cooking, and The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook. I am looking to get another ATK book to round out my collection. Curious if anyone has feedback on any of these:

• The Complete America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook: Some people call this their bible but it strikes me as one of those books that might sit on the shelf due to how big/intimidating it is and the fact that I already have HTCE.

• The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook: I like the idea of this one considering I live alone but am curious how the recipe variety is.

• The New Family Cookbook: Out of print but I've seen many people say this is their favorite.

• The Milk Street Cookbook / Milk Street Tuesday Nights: I've heard good things about Kimball's new operation!

America's test kitchen suggests dry brining your 6-7lbs prime rib for 24-96 hours, searing it, sous viding at 133 degrees for 16-24 hours then putting it in the oven.

I have a smaller 2.5 lbs prime rib. Will this method work or should I make adjustments?

Spotted over at . Saving you time, the ones that come out on top are both KitchenAid. Relevant part of the video at .

hello! we have been using the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook for many years now, and the binder is coming apart. Anyone else have this problem and find a replacement binder? Duct tape might have to be the answer otherwise...

Everyone here loves Kenji's . Me too, I've made it a bunch of times. But last night I made an alternative: after watching . It's good too! The differences are minor but worth noting.

The dough is more or less the same, about 70% hydration. ATK has you cold ferment it, Serious Eats suggests room temperature. The Serious Eats recipe has you working the dough a little more, reforming a ball a couple hours before baking. I don't know that any of these changes make a difference.

ATK adds one extra element: making a frico on the crust. Smooshing cheese up against the cast iron skillet so it fries crispy during cooking. This puts them towards Detroit style pizza and seems like a good option to have in mind if you want that flavor.

The biggest change is baking temperature: 12 minutes at 550°F vs 25 minutes at 400°F. I liked the result of the cooler temperature ATK suggests. The crust comes out about the same. But it's much gentler on the toppings; at 550° my salami and my fresh garlic both get a little burnt but at 400 they do a little better, even if they're cooked twice the length.

Honestly both recipes are good and give similar results. I thought it was interesting to see the differences. I'm not sold on the frico, the kinda-fried bread is enough for me already. But I do like the lower temperature bake.

TL/DR: Pretty sure ATK's flour measurements are FUBAR

Hubs got the Complete ATK cookbook for Christmas and we've been exploring the recipes. I've been on a baking kick lately and was looking forward to improving some skills using recipes in the book that I hadn't made before.

I've made bread successfully before. I enjoy baking, especially breads, but the two recipes I've tried out of this darn cookbook have spectacularly failed.

Today's failure was their Fluffy Dinner Rolls. The book said it was a tacky dough and not to dust the counter with flour, so I figured they had their amounts pretty spot on. It uses the tangzhong method and since I had not used it before, I figured the failure was mine and remade the dough when it was just unworkable after the first rise.

Threw out the first attempt, watched some YouTube videos so I could see what the dough should look like at the various stages and started again. I weighed my ingredients out and went to work. The dough never developed past "soupy-gloopy" stage, even after an hour of kneading (at probably a higher speed than the mixer would have liked).

At this point I looked at the recipe in the cookbook and compared some of the amounts to other similar ones online and noticed that the one in the cookbook was calling for too much liquid given the amount of flour and started adding more until the dough finally came together.

The fluffy rolls ended up being really good, but the continued failure while following the recipie down to the gram was really bothering me and I kept going over the steps in my head.

Step one: Convert volume measurements given to grams

Step two: Follow recipe as written

I went and got the cookbook to look at the volume measurements again as the first line of the introduction to the recipe is, "We strongly recommend weighting the flour for the dough."

ATK's Fluffy Dinner Rolls calls for 2 cups of bread flour. King Arthur bread flour weighs 120g per cup. Gold Medal (the flour ATK says they use unless otherwise specified) weighs 120g per cup. While I was double checking KA's weight online, I noticed that they have the weight in ounces for a cup of their bread flour at 4.25oz.

ATK's recipe reads, "2 cups (11 ounces) bread flour."

I FOUND THE (beginning of) THE PROBLEM.

2 cups of bread flour should weigh in at 8.5oz or 240g.

Went to ATK's Conversions section where they have flour weighing 5oz or 142g per cup.

Even using their own conversion table their given measurement is wrong.

This error is pretty consistent throughout the bread section. Any baker whose first step is to convert the volume measurements to grams using internationally recognized standards is set up for failure.

And yet, in the back of my head I still think that maybe I'm the problem. After all, everything in this book was supposedly thoroughly tested. Has anyone else noticed this?

Loaded up the dedicated Americas Test Kitchen channel today to find a message saying the app is no longer supported. I really enjoyed watching the episodes and learning new recipes, i guess now i'll have to watch them on youtube.