Cooking Experimenting doesn't work?

[Mystic Dragon]

So, I had found a site which lists a bunch of recipes you can discover by experimenting, and went to try an easy one...but I didn't have an option to experiment. Tried another, same thing.
The "Experiment" option is grayed out (except for Soup), and it won't let me select anything to combo with.

Does anyone know how to get it working?
Are there more categories besides Soup, Jam, Cake, and Pancakes...and that's why it's not letting me?

If so, does anyone know how to unlock the other recipe categories (if there are others)?
I'm post game and there's no info on this; I want to cook up some Bountiful Harvest dishes (otherwise, I wouldn't even bother with the cooking mechanic).

[AlphaGodith]

there are also pasta, toast, rice, and pie categories at least.

the only thing i can think of for unlocking stuff is the associated quests with the npcs where they ask you to make or give you recipes for things... what's your friendship level like with all the npcs?

[Mister Ikkus]

The way experimenting works is pretty awful, imo. Actually, everything about the cooking is awful, imo.

[Phoenix]

Pretty sure most recipes are unlocked through friendship although you can definitely try and make up your own - the numbers are just crazy to guess.

I'm certain i saw a reddit post about this, i will try and find it and edit this when i do ! :)

[Mystic Dragon]

Originally posted by AlphaGodith:

there are also pasta, toast, rice, and pie categories at least.

the only thing i can think of for unlocking stuff is the associated quests with the npcs where they ask you to make or give you recipes for things... what's your friendship level like with all the npcs?

Really high with most of the Valley NPCs, but not so much for the Canyon ones. I've unlocked a couple recipes through them, but lately they've just been asking for resources rather than wanting food to cook stuff with.

[AEon]

Originally posted by Phoenix:

Pretty sure most recipes are unlocked through friendship although you can definitely try and make up your own - the numbers are just crazy to guess.

That would have been so nice... trouble is I have maxed out friendship with all NPCs and have only been able to Master 27 recipes (this includes about 5-6 Pies I experimented with and unlocked)... full recipes are very rare while playing... and if these are indeed random this would be horrendous as a gameplay mechanic. Supposedly there are 78 recipes total... :(

I have a few ideas on how to get more recipes "experimented"... e.g. try to create a pie with 10 of every kind of fruit... I already have 8 or so of those. Another "idea" is to buy finished "bakery" from the vendor in the desert (closest to the Town Board) and try to guess what could be recreated... sigh.

[AEon]

Presently I have 55/78 recipes mastered... hopefully I can get all of them. (So would have found 28 recipes via experimentation there past hours.) Would then post the results her in the forum, for those that might care.

+3h now at 68 of 78 recipes found...

[AEon]

I always grind through the Town Board quests, not actually reading them, i.e. just checking what needed to be done, and where to collect. When completing these quests I always had a hard time tracking the rewards... so I actually have no clue if I ever did get a recipe for those Town Board quests. I think, as you hope, not. As I later noted, the Town Board quests, before you click to accept them, show the potential rewards... so that might help.

I do remember Agami, and many of the other NPCs giving you recipes for completing personal quests on the way to becoming BFFs. And when I started with the recipe grind, I had at least 12+ recipes in all categories.

" item of this category in my inventory"...
Yeah, I tried to use the description of these items to get a hint at what the recipe might entail, i.e. what ingredients to use. But these item texts are usually too value. I had also hoped for: "Buy a cake = get recipe for cake along with it = be able to bake it directly yourself" :)... alas not. The vendor Erik in the desert town sells all sorts of backed goods, I bought everything (once) he had to sell... to get potential recipe names at least.