What is Your Worst Cooking Disaster?
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ElizabethB
Guru
I love reading about your fails. I don't feel so bad about my fails. 
I can't believe I've never contributed to this topic. I have so many, I wouldn't know where to start, and I'm sure I have more to come.
One that always stays with me, though, is a Victoria sponge I made a few years ago. First one I ever attempted, and I'm utter crap at cakes.
Cakes...one thing usually goes wrong. It's over or under baked, it's over or under mixed, etc. This sponge had everything go wrong.
It was overbaked on the outside. It was near raw in the middle and sank like a rock. It had flour streaks in the middle. It was dense. There was nothing right about it.
One that always stays with me, though, is a Victoria sponge I made a few years ago. First one I ever attempted, and I'm utter crap at cakes.
Cakes...one thing usually goes wrong. It's over or under baked, it's over or under mixed, etc. This sponge had everything go wrong.
It was overbaked on the outside. It was near raw in the middle and sank like a rock. It had flour streaks in the middle. It was dense. There was nothing right about it.
ElizabethB
Guru
TR I feel your pain. I am not a baker.
That would be my next-door neighbor's worst cooking disaster.
I never did ask what she was cooking.
CD
Once I launched a pizza off the peel and into the oven, and it kind of stuck a little on one spot, but it was enough to cause the pizza to pretty much flip top-for-bottom before it landed in the oven.
That caused me to start using parchment paper for my pizzas, and after the second or third time, I was in a hurry, and I dressed the pizza had it and the paper on my peel, whipped around too fast, and the slick paper caused the pizza to fly off the peel at about Mach 2 and slam into the cabinet and the oven door.
That caused me to start using parchment paper for my pizzas, and after the second or third time, I was in a hurry, and I dressed the pizza had it and the paper on my peel, whipped around too fast, and the slick paper caused the pizza to fly off the peel at about Mach 2 and slam into the cabinet and the oven door.
Over the years, I've made a few deformed pizzas when the raw pizza stuck to my wooden pizza peel. I switched to a metal peel, and so far, no more pizza amoebas.
CD
CookieMonster
Senior Member
I've told this story (somewhere...?) before, but as "cakes" has been brought up. . . .
I was a latchkey kid. off to school, got home in plenty of time to get in all kinds of trouble before my parents got home from work.
so - Mom's birthday - definitely angel fool cake time. sneaked the pan, eggs, etc, upstairs the eve afternoon before. before going off to school, mixed the batter, whipped up the eggs and poured it in the tube pan, to be baked when I got home.
came home, fired up the oven, plunked in the angel food cake.
it went about as you can imagine.
Mom tossed the pan.
I was a latchkey kid. off to school, got home in plenty of time to get in all kinds of trouble before my parents got home from work.
so - Mom's birthday - definitely angel fool cake time. sneaked the pan, eggs, etc, upstairs the eve afternoon before. before going off to school, mixed the batter, whipped up the eggs and poured it in the tube pan, to be baked when I got home.
came home, fired up the oven, plunked in the angel food cake.
it went about as you can imagine.
Mom tossed the pan.
Today I managed to make a completely dreadful soup. The plan was butternut squash with amaretto and saffron. What was I thinking of? The amaretto made the soup horribly sweet and the saffron was completely lost. So I tried to balance the flavour with lemon juice. That seriously didn't work. It contrived to be both too sour and too sweet all at once. So (why?) I added some orange lentils and asafetida. It was truly disgusting. Probably one of the worst things I've ever made.
Rocklobster
Legendary Member
I had to throw out a rack of lamb a couple of weeks ago..we bought it for a meal two days later..that night came and went and I forget why we didn't eat it, but I shrink wrapped it and put it in the freezer..then, I took it out a week later because this time we were going to eat the damn thing..oops..missed that, too.. we decided we better eat it on the Monday night so I took it to work to marinate and when I opened the package the smell was rancid...failure..it was a nice local one, too..almost 40 bucks..garbagio...poor thing had more miles on it than my old '05 Ford...I have another one in the fridge now I just marinated..that sucker's getting eaten tonight!
I made something recently (over Christmas) that started out horribly, went from bad to worse, but then recovered spectacularly.
I always say I'm crap at cakes. Well, I decided to make a gingerbread cake for Christmas, following Walter Staib's recipe.
First, it called for a 10-inch cake pan; I have 9-inch and 6-inch cake pans. Oh well, the 9-inch should be fine. Cake mixes always say you can use 8-inch and 9-inch interchangeably, so 10-inch down to 9-inch shouldn't be a problem, right?
Wrong.
The 10-inch batter overfilled the 9-inch pan, to the point that it baked over and made a delightful mess in my oven, and with the wrong-sized pan, it didn't bake evenly.
I pulled it out at the specified time and it had the beginnings of a little doneness along the top, but was completely raw in the middle.
10 additional minutes helped a bit, but the opening of the oven door, and too much cake batter for the pan, led to the cake collapsing in the middle. Oh well, I'll treat it like a giant gingerbread cookie of sorts.
Finally, I got it to where the top was very much done (overdone), but the bottom half was still raw. What to do...?
Well, I've seen recipes for cakes/giant cookies done in a cast iron skillet, and I've finished many a pizza in a cast iron skillet, so I turned the stovetop on and managed to get the simultaneously baked-unbaked cake-cookie into the skillet, bottom side down.
Well, that went wobbly in no time. The batter started cooking too quickly, leaving the whole thing still raw in the middle.
And that's when inspiration hit.
Dumped the whole mess into a bowl and mixed it up as best I could, baked bits, raw bits, and slightly charred bits, all together.
Parchment paper out on a cookie sheet, and I formed half the mix into lumpy cookies, and the other half into balls, then bake into the oven for about 15 minutes.
The end product was magnificent! Sort of crunchy and a little hard on the outside, but gooey and just-baked on the inside, and the flavor from the original recipe - best gingerbread taste I've ever had.
I ended up spritzing them with a little rum and dusting in powdered sugar, and they got even better.
MrsT, completely unaware of what was going on, tried the finished product and said, "Whatever you do, don't lose this recipe. This is the best cookie I've ever had!"
In retrospect, I should have filled the pan less and just used the extra to make a couple of cupcakes, but the other issue was the pan itself - very light-colored, which takes longer to bake, and it was one of those insulated double-layer pans, which take longer still.
That pan went straight in the garbage.
Anyway, the finished product:
I always say I'm crap at cakes. Well, I decided to make a gingerbread cake for Christmas, following Walter Staib's recipe.
First, it called for a 10-inch cake pan; I have 9-inch and 6-inch cake pans. Oh well, the 9-inch should be fine. Cake mixes always say you can use 8-inch and 9-inch interchangeably, so 10-inch down to 9-inch shouldn't be a problem, right?
Wrong.
The 10-inch batter overfilled the 9-inch pan, to the point that it baked over and made a delightful mess in my oven, and with the wrong-sized pan, it didn't bake evenly.
I pulled it out at the specified time and it had the beginnings of a little doneness along the top, but was completely raw in the middle.
10 additional minutes helped a bit, but the opening of the oven door, and too much cake batter for the pan, led to the cake collapsing in the middle. Oh well, I'll treat it like a giant gingerbread cookie of sorts.
Finally, I got it to where the top was very much done (overdone), but the bottom half was still raw. What to do...?
Well, I've seen recipes for cakes/giant cookies done in a cast iron skillet, and I've finished many a pizza in a cast iron skillet, so I turned the stovetop on and managed to get the simultaneously baked-unbaked cake-cookie into the skillet, bottom side down.
Well, that went wobbly in no time. The batter started cooking too quickly, leaving the whole thing still raw in the middle.
And that's when inspiration hit.
Dumped the whole mess into a bowl and mixed it up as best I could, baked bits, raw bits, and slightly charred bits, all together.
Parchment paper out on a cookie sheet, and I formed half the mix into lumpy cookies, and the other half into balls, then bake into the oven for about 15 minutes.
The end product was magnificent! Sort of crunchy and a little hard on the outside, but gooey and just-baked on the inside, and the flavor from the original recipe - best gingerbread taste I've ever had.
I ended up spritzing them with a little rum and dusting in powdered sugar, and they got even better.
MrsT, completely unaware of what was going on, tried the finished product and said, "Whatever you do, don't lose this recipe. This is the best cookie I've ever had!"
In retrospect, I should have filled the pan less and just used the extra to make a couple of cupcakes, but the other issue was the pan itself - very light-colored, which takes longer to bake, and it was one of those insulated double-layer pans, which take longer still.
That pan went straight in the garbage.
Anyway, the finished product:
Well this just goes to prove that you really can cook without a recipe. Full marks for creative thinking!
Well, at least your cooking wasn't the reason for failure.
karadekoolaid
Legendary Member
In 2020 I spent 10 months alone because the family was stranded in Europe.
I decided it was high time I learned to make some cakes, my being the world´s 2nd lousiest baker ( after TastyReuben , of course
).
Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting caught my attention ...
The carrot cake turned out ok, although a bit dry. The frosting, on the other hand was absolutely, utterly, incredibly awful. I seem to remember the recipe called for 200 gms cream cheese and about 500 gms of sugar, which I thought was probably quite a lot, but hey, first time with the recipe, follow the instructions blindly, eh?
I beat the frosting by hand. First mistake. NEVER try to beat frosting by hand unless you have forearms like Mike Tyson.
Still, I staggered blindly on, in some insane mission to follow the recipe, and plastered the cake with this toxic sludge which passed as "frosting".
The first slice gave me a sugar hit which made my teeth cringe, my body shake like Elvis Presley and my eyes pop out of their sockets. SUGGAARRRR!!!
Even the dog wouldn´t eat it.
I decided it was high time I learned to make some cakes, my being the world´s 2nd lousiest baker ( after TastyReuben , of course
).Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting caught my attention ...
The carrot cake turned out ok, although a bit dry. The frosting, on the other hand was absolutely, utterly, incredibly awful. I seem to remember the recipe called for 200 gms cream cheese and about 500 gms of sugar, which I thought was probably quite a lot, but hey, first time with the recipe, follow the instructions blindly, eh?
I beat the frosting by hand. First mistake. NEVER try to beat frosting by hand unless you have forearms like Mike Tyson.
Still, I staggered blindly on, in some insane mission to follow the recipe, and plastered the cake with this toxic sludge which passed as "frosting".
The first slice gave me a sugar hit which made my teeth cringe, my body shake like Elvis Presley and my eyes pop out of their sockets. SUGGAARRRR!!!
Even the dog wouldn´t eat it.
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Bake a cake and get it to me and I'll frost it. I can make frosting with the best of them. I just never have anything worth a sh!t to put it on!I decided it was high time I learned to make some cakes, my being the world´s 2nd lousiest baker ( after @TastyReuben , of course
Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting caught my attention ...
The carrot cake turned out ok, although a bit dry. The frosting, on the other hand was absolutey, utterly, incredibly awful.
GadgetGuy
(Formerly Shermie)
I had some butternut squash at a restaurant in Washington, DC called Palm. It was very delicious!! it tasted a little bit sweet, but not overbearing!!