I search the internet quite often looking for a recipe. I consider many recipes a starting place where I can add or take away some things. However, with baked goods, I consider them scientific and don't change the recipe - at least the first few times. After that I may change parts of it but not the crucial ones.
I don't get it. I play with baking recipes just like I do with stove-top recipes. For instance, did you know that adding two extra tablespoons of cooking oil to your favorite cake recipe results in a more moist, and better textured cake? And how did I find that out; by playing with the recipe. On the other hand, I had a recipe for carrot cake that gave me a cake saturated by oil. I cut the amount of cooking oil in half and now have a moist, but not heavy carrot cake recipe.
And breads, I'm always experimenting with breads, adding different kinds of flours, nuts, extra vital wheat gluten, etc. Sometimes I'll take my mom's white bread recipe, which is delicious, and change it by making it half white, half whole wheat flour.
Have you ever taken a TNT pie crust recipe and added sugar and cinnamon to the crust ingredients? I have and the results were outstanding for that cherry pie.
And cookie recipes are taylor made for altering. Take that famous Toll House cookie recipe, and add just a little water, and you have a cake-like cookie instead of a flat, chewy cookie. DW loves the former, while some at out pot church pot lucks love the latter.
Another time, I made home made butterscotch syrup and used that in the Toll House recipe instead of butter and brown sugar. I tossed in fried bacon bits, and butterscotch chips. They were absolutely gobbled up.
Baking, as with all other kinds of cooking can be as creative as you want it to be. And if you really think about it, so can science. Proven laws were at one time theories, and tinkering, tests, and recording the end results of the tests, also know as experiments, proved the theory. So it is with baking. Sometimes, the theory doesn't work, sometimes you discover something wonderful. So, bring out you baking recipes, change them to your hearts content, and created new and wonderful baked goods.
My mother always told me not to play with my food. I told my kids to play with there food every chance they got, withing reason of course. When they were young kids, I gave them a novel way of eating a hot dog. They had milk shakes, with plastic straws. I showed them how they could use the straw to remove a plug of meat from the wiener, and suck it through the straw. We were stuck in the car waiting for DW to get done with her "I'll just be a minute." shopping, which usually took an hour or more. It kept the kids occupied with something new and novel. So go ahead, play with your food.
Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North