German Flour vs American Flour

Your Oma's recipe has an evil twin.

My socks have to match, even on the days I am not going anywhere and nobody will see them. They match because catching sight of two odd feet first thing in the morning feels like proof I failed at the day before it even started.
 
Everything needs to be in its right place, or at least out of the way of where I need to be.

Moving from Canada to the United Kingdom tested that arrangement more than I expected.
 
It took a few years to get used to driving on the other side of the road, while giving my driving instructor a few heart attacks by turning into the wrong lane. Even more to my surprise, toad-in-the-hole turned out to be sausages baked in batter, with no toad involved at any point (thankfully).
 
As a child, I watched my mom politely convincing food with her cooking. A bit of this and that until it all came together on the plate.
 
Baking falls more into my need for everything in its right place. It demands precision, and it remembers every time you tried a questionable shortcut hack. That's how I discovered that something as dull as flour can determine whether a recipe comes out as itself or as its evil twin.
 
You have probably tried to recreate something your Oma made decades ago. It comes out as both almost right, and unmistakably wrong.
 
Before questioning your own abilities, treat the flour as a suspect first. German flour is sorted by type and given a number. Flour in here and in North America gets a name instead, and is milled from different wheat altogether.
 
Helpfully, Oma Gerhild has a post with a chart of the closest equivalents. It also has a hack from a German baker who emigrated to Canada and found his old recipes wanted less flour than they used to.
 
→ German flour vs American flour
 
The copy may never be memory-perfect, but it gets close enough that the evil twin starts to pass for family.
 
And speaking as someone who needs his socks to match, that's a compromise I'm willing to accept.