The problem with the links scattered throughout is not that they’re not helpful for those who need them, but that they are a kind of “too much information” for those who do know all that stuff and would prefer a more straightforward trip through the steps.

To be sure, it’s not a cut-and-dried issue. When I was writing about this, I really exaggerated the effect of too many links; and of course, one of the major benefits of online documentation is the ability for “just in time” linking.

I think your example underscores, however, that it can be difficult to write for users of all abilities in a single piece of documentation. As we know, it’s tough to make everyone happy.

Then again, few people don’t at least review a recipe before they get underway, probably.

Do you often give your audience a reason for every step in a task? Maybe this is messed up a bit with power user vs novice, but generally in our doco, we’re very presriptive and just tell the audience what to do in order to achieve their goal.
*If* there’s some potential for confusion, such as what kind of address to enter – the supplier’s address or the delivery address – then, we might give some further explantion, but otherwise we don’t really give a reason for putting data in the address field. It’s just one element of achieving the ultimate goal, which might be creating a purchase requisition.
That’s probably a simplistic comparison, and when we’re documenting entering data into fields, there’s nothing to me that seems quite like the “put a little bit of A into B, then the whole of B into the rest of A” example.

I have observed with my husband that he is much more literal with recipes than I am. That’s probably diminished over the last few years as he does all of the cooking, but even still he’s a “follow the rules” guy. I tend not to be, and will go with my gut more when I’m baking.

Oh, and I think the easiest way to become more accustomed to the user jargon in recipes is to do more cooking.