A meal can carry affection without carrying a family tradition perfectly.

Fidelity and love are not the same measurement. You can get the dish wrong, use the shop-bought pastry, forget the step your grandmother never wrote down, and still have made the thing for the reason it was always made. The tradition was a vehicle for care rather than an exam, though it is easy to inherit it as an exam and then avoid attempting it at all. A slightly wrong version cooked with attention beats a perfect version nobody makes.

Cook the imperfect one. If someone points out what is missing, agree cheerfully and serve it anyway.