New Sims 4 Update Gives Cooking Features A Massive Overhaul in Preparation for New Stuff Pack

One of the ever-expanding features of the Sims universe is its massive catalog of recipes you can learn as your character levels up their cooking skill. That said, The Sims 4 is notoriously glitchy, and there have been a few longstanding challenges with the cooking features in the game. With the latest Sims 4 update, EA shares that it has made several massive improvements to cooking functionality in the base game.

These long-needed changes come just a few days shy of the release of a new cooking-centered Stuff Pack called Hustle & Bustle. If they work as intended, we’re pretty excited about the potential for getting even more fun out of cooking in The Sims 4.

Related: The Sims 4 Infant Update brings new traits, science babies, and child psychology

Recipe Filter Will Make it Easier to Find Specific Foods

The sheer number of cooking, baking, and gourmet cooking recipes in The Sims 4 is both a blessing and a curse. While cooking fans can get a lot of gameplay out of perfecting all these dishes, finding a specific recipe with so many options is also pretty challenging. In this update, EA has introduced recipe filters as a way to try and streamline finding the food you want.

Filters appear as image icons at the top of the recipe list and let you toggle between five different categories: vegetarian, lactose-free, meat dishes, seafood dishes, and sweets. This should make life easier for Sims with dietary needs and preferences.

Cupcakes No Longer Require Massive Specialized Machine to Bake

Baking has always been weirdly separate from cooking in The Sims 4, but cupcakes took it a step further and operated in a world all their own. The only way your Sims could make cupcakes was to buy the large contraption known as the Cupcake Factory. Not only did this take up a lot of space in your kitchen, it also didn’t make a ton of sense. Why couldn’t you make cupcakes in the oven? Well, now you can!

EA announced that this update did away with the Cupcake Factory, allowing Sims to bake cupcakes in their oven along with other recipes in the Sweets category. A minor additional tweak lets toddlers enjoy cupcakes in the game, so if you’re looking to give your virtual children a sugar rush, there’s another option.

Countertop Appliances Can Be Moved in Live Mode

Sims fans are familiar with toggling between Build and Live mode to move things around. Though some smaller items like plates and piles of dishes can be dragged around in Live mode, most bigger changes to your living space can only be made in Build Mode.

Since the Hustle & Bustle pack adds even more countertop appliances to the game, EA has increased the number of kitchen items that can be dragged in Live mode. Blenders, ice cream makers, and other small appliances can now be rearranged without swapping over to Build mode, which will be nice in that constant battle for counter space.

Kids Can Use the Ice Cream Machine

Unlike the other updates mentioned, which all apply to the base game, this one is only relevant for players who own the Cool Kitchen Stuff Pack. This is the pack that gives you access to the Ice Cream Machine. If you do have ice cream powers in your version of The Sims 4, the latest update means that child Sims now have the option to make ice cream on their own. We can already picture the chaos.

Small Tweaks to Cooking Quality and Ingredients

In addition to these bigger changes, EA notes a few minor tweaks to cooking mechanics that are worth mentioning. The first is that the quality of prepared dishes will now more robustly factor in three different elements: your Sims’ cooking skills, their emotional state at the time of preparation, and the quality of their appliances. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in-game.

In addition to these adjustments to cooking quality, recipes have been adjusted to better reflect the wide range of ingredients available across different packs. This means that dishes from older packs have been updated to allow players to use ingredients introduced in later iterations if they’ve purchased those expansions.

These changes, along with the Hustle & Bustle Stuff Pack, have some real potential to make cooking more enjoyable in The Sims 4.