Share your greatest epic kitchen failures

[chocolatechip]

It's always good to laugh, right? 

 

Mine: (not too epic)

 

Forgot to add the baking soda to a gingerbread. . .Came out of the oven an hour later as flat as when it went in. And. . .it was exactly the texture of Play Dough.  :ack2:

[Susan in TN]

Vegetables.

 

Over cooked brussel sprouts that the squirrels wouldn't even eat.

 

Attempted slow roasted carrots. Everyone asked if it was beef jerkey.

[TeacherZee]

Sponge cake. I read the recipe as 11 dl NOT 1 1/2dl. It 'twas mushy and I had stopped at about 5 because the consistency was wrong. In my defense I was about 9.

[Cindy in FL.]

I was cooking a standing rib roast and I didn't want dh and the boys opening the oven, so I locked it. I really thought I was clever until a couple of hours later when I wondered why there wasn't a lovely aroma wafting out of the kitchen. I didn't realize that locking the oven turned it off! I enjoyed explaining that one to the dinner guests. :)

[ajfries]

I have two. When I was still living at home with my parents, I accidentally used my moms homemade Bisquick mix instead of flour for chocolate chip cookies.

 

And when DH & I were first married I made stuffed peppers, only I didn't brown the meat first (in my defense, the recipe did not mention that step). DH & I  sat down in our dark living room to watch a movie & eat dinner, and it was raw. And because it was dark we discovered it when we took our first bits. 

 

It's been 7 years now & neither of us have been able to eat stuffed peppers since.

[Forget-Me-Not]

Once in college I halved a cookie recipe but forgot to halve the amount of eggs. The cookies came out like concrete and had to be chiseled off the cookie sheets!

 

We had a terrible smell in our kitchen once, and I couldn't find it. For days, I tried to figure it out: cleaned out the fridge/freezer, ran deodorizing stuff through the garbage disposal, etc. One day I opened a cupboard and found it. Turns out we had been unloading the dishwasher during dinner cleanup, and someone put a Pyrex 9x13 (covered with a plastic lid)--half full of chicken enchiladas--in the cupboard rather than the fridge. It had been at least two weeks. It was so nasty.

[Slartibartfast]

When I was newly married I thought I would make dh a real treat. He loves brittle. 

 

I had never actually made it, I was concerned about it sticking to my pan and so I lined the pan with wax paper first. Oops.

 

Thirteen years later I still make him brittle but I leave off the wax paper. 

[Rosie_0801]

Epic was the time my mother burnt the doughnuts so they looked like cannon balls.

 

Epic was the perfect orange cheese cake I dropped on the floor that spattered right up the walls and all over the ceiling. Heartbreaking, that was.

[nd293]

I made meringues in a plastic bowl that had previously been used to hold 1kg of minced chillis while dh was making his chilli tomato sauce. Those meringues had quite a kick!

 

The only meal I've ever made that was so bad that dh still talks about it was a cauliflower tofu something-or-other. Since then tofu has been refused all access to the family table, but I suspect the real culprit in that disaster was a 'floppy' cauliflower which might in fact have been unhealthily past its use-by date.

 

I have had one or two cooking attempts that went directly from oven or stove to the bin, but I have blocked out the details.

[Ipsey]

My grandmother can bake a chocolate cake like no other!

I was in high school and I called her for a recipe, and she gave me a chocolate mayonaise cake recipe (the mayonaise instead of oil--very moist).

 

Huh, I look in the fridge. No mayonaise!  But, MIRACLE WHIP!

 

Same thing, right?

 

 

 

Uhhhhh, no.

 

*shudders*

[Storygirl]

I've had a couple of bad kitchen days, but this was by far the worst:

 

I planned to put some Italian sausages in the crockpot, but they were frozen, so I set them out on the counter for an hour to thaw the night before. Of course, I discovered them still sitting there in the morning and had to throw them in the trash.

 

So I needed a Plan B. I had some chicken in the fridge, so I prepared a chicken recipe for the crockpot. This took some time away from the other things I planned to do that morning, since this took longer to prepare than the sausages. I was disgruntled, but I knew that supper would be ready later.

 

Or not! After six that night, after driving home from the children's activities, DH called out as I walked in the door, "Is this chicken in the crockpot supposed to be cooked already?" ARGHHH!!!  :banghead:  I had turned the knob, but it had landed between High and Low and therefore had not switched the machine on. So a second batch of meat went straight into the trash can.

 

Now we had nothing ready to eat. Normally if I have a minor kitchen failure, I would call DH and ask him to pick up a pizza on the way home. But he was already home. So I opened a jar of pasta sauce and boiled some noodles. I was furious. I remember hissing at DH, "Just don't talk to me. Go out of the kitchen and leave me alone," when he tried to discuss the problem with me.

 

Of course, the children were perfectly happy with that very very expensive yet meatless dinner.

[ThisIsTheDay]

I've had cooking failures, but my most epic kitchen failure was paint.  I wanted a softer periwinkle color in the eating area of the kitchen.  We chose the paint color poorly, and it ended up looking like neon blueberries had exploded all over the kitchen.

 

Every morning, I would walk in and need to squint.  It was hideous.

 

I tried to be brave and pretend to my husband that it was fine. I couldn't fool him, and he hated it too.

 

It lasted about three weeks, and we repainted it again.  We weren't taking any chances and went with white paint.  It took several coats to cover all of that electric blue.

 

 

[ThisIsTheDay]

My grandmother can bake a chocolate cake like no other!

I was in high school and I called her for a recipe, and she gave me a chocolate mayonaise cake recipe (the mayonaise instead of oil--very moist).

 

Huh, I look in the fridge. No mayonaise!  But, MIRACLE WHIP!

 

Same thing, right?

 

 

 

Uhhhhh, no.

 

*shudders*

:lol: :lol: :lol:   I've read this twice and snorted each time.  That must have been just awful!!!!!!  No words, really!

[RoughCollie]

Last Thanksgiving, I made pumpkin pies and forgot to put the sugar in.  I scooped out the cooked filling into mini muffin tins and froze the pumpkinettes for my dog. There wasn't enough nutmeg in the pies to harm him at all.

 

I made a pumpkin cheesecake a few years ago that never set up right.  It was glop.  I seem to have a recently incurred pumpkin problem.

 

A friend of mine and I made French almond cookies and she put twice the butter in them (we think).  They spread out super thin and crispy and it was all we could do to not eat them all on the spot.  I still haven't tried to duplicate that delightful disaster ... mostly because I will eat them all if no one else is around to watch!

 

[Ipsey]

Epic was the time my mother burnt the doughnuts so they looked like cannon balls.

 

Epic was the perfect orange cheese cake I dropped on the floor that spattered right up the walls and all over the ceiling. Heartbreaking, that was.

 

I don't really even like cheesecake. . .but I'm intrigued at orange.

[Ipsey]

:lol: :lol: :lol:   I've read this twice and snorted each time.  That must have been just awful!!!!!!  No words, really!

 

 

:D     Well, it was surely memorable. I've never been more disappointed in anything I've ever baked. 

 

I was nearly overcome with anticipation at eating it. . .  and then the betrayal! 

[umsami]

My Mom is famous in our family for turning green beans purple one Thanksgiving.  She's a horrible cook, but thinks she is not…so created her own recipe with mushroom soup, walnuts, and green beans.  We think there was some sort of reaction.  They were really purple…like lavender.  Even our dog wouldn't go near them.

 

For me, I was making chocolate cupcakes (the mud puddle vegan recipe) and forgot to add sugar.  Then I put them in my kids' lunches the next day.  They were not pleased. 

[Slartibartfast]

My grandmother can bake a chocolate cake like no other!

I was in high school and I called her for a recipe, and she gave me a chocolate mayonaise cake recipe (the mayonaise instead of oil--very moist).

 

Huh, I look in the fridge. No mayonaise! But, MIRACLE WHIP!

 

Same thing, right?

 

 

 

Uhhhhh, no.

 

*shudders*

So sad! Mayo cake is amazing.

[AK_Mom4]

Popcorn cookies.  In my defense, I was a teenager experimenting, but adding raw popcorn kernels to chocolate chip cookies was a bad idea.  Dad broke a tooth when he bit into the first one.

 

I am actually a terrible cook, so have had many disasters over the years.  The kids call my cooking style "Glop In a Pot".

 

I'm a fairly good baker though, so it all works out.

[Hoot]

When asked about my kitchen failures, DH will always bring up the tuna noodle casserole from hell.  I followed the recipe to a tee but it came out as more of a soup.  My entire house smelled like a rotten fish market and DH said it tasted about the way it smelled.  :ack2:

 

Bonus though, DH now does all of the dinner cooking. 

[Heather in Neverland]

I once tried to make Mexican fried ice cream but I had never deep fried anything before. Mistakes were made and I set my kitchen on fire. Literally.

 

I can laugh about it now because no one was hurt and the damage was covered by insurance, but it was really scary at the time.

 

I now leave all the Mexican dessert dishes to the pros. :)

[Rosie_0801]

I don't really even like cheesecake. . .but I'm intrigued at orange.

 

Orange cheesecake is intriguing? What flavour are cheesecakes supposed to be?

[Um_2_4]

Orange cheesecake is intriguing? What flavour are cheesecakes supposed to be?

 

 

Cheese and only cheese! Stop flavoring cheescakes folks... pleeeeeease! (ok, one of my food pet peeves)

 

PS: This is a cheesecake , maybe we are talking about different things? If so, carry on. I love orange!

[Belacqua]

When I was newly married I thought I would make dh a real treat. He loves brittle. 

 

I had never actually made it, I was concerned about it sticking to my pan and so I lined the pan with wax paper first. Oops.

 

Thirteen years later I still make him brittle but I leave off the wax paper. 

 

There's a chapter in Jen Lancaster's book The Tao of Martha in which she tries several times to make toffee. Her descriptions of melting her spoon, burning the candy, and winding up with something that "tasted like war" had me giggling like a loon and scaring the cat.

 

As for my own disasters: I've had several over the years, but the most recent was making sweet and sour chicken and forgetting the sugar. It actually wasn't inedible, surprisingly,  but it certainly wasn't very good. Didn't help that shortly after some company ran a commercial mentioning the idea of "sweet or sour chicken," prompting my family to remind me gleefully of my folly.

[Chris in VA]

Two of my husbands...

 

There was the Meatloaf Disaster--He was living in Ohio while I was in uni there. We were engaged, and my mom came to visit. So we went to his apt and he served us dinner. Lesson 1: Make sure meatloaf is cooked ALL THE WAY inside before serving. Lesson 2: Do NOT add Rice-A-Roni as your "secret ingredient" to the meatloaf. :eek:

 

Then there was the Shooting Tower of Flame Episode.

Lesson 3: Do not fry french fries that are full of ice crystals in very hot oil. :willy_nilly:

[Farrar]

I was once making a cream soup that called for wild rice.  I was out, but I had imperial rice, which has a similar crunchy consistency so I thought, I'll just substitute.  Have you ever had imperial rice?  It looks black like wild rice, but actually it's...

 

PURPLE.  The whole soup turned purple.  Dh's parents were there and I had to serve it to them.  Oh gawd.  Dh called me Bridget Jones for ages after.  He still starts cracking up about that purple soup occasionally.

[Rosie_0801]

Cheese and only cheese! Stop flavoring cheescakes folks... pleeeeeease! (ok, one of my food pet peeves)

 

PS: This is a cheesecake , maybe we are talking about different things? If so, carry on. I love orange!

 

Ah. A purist. How quaint. :p

 

Yes I'm talking about that kind of cheese cake. It was going to be amazing.

 

I found the best ever berry baked cheese cake at a bakery a couple of hours away. I didn't know baked cheesecake could be so good!  :drool5:

[school17777]

Two of my husbands...

 

There was the Meatloaf Disaster--He was living in Ohio while I was in uni there. We were engaged, and my mom came to visit. So we went to his apt and he served us dinner. Lesson 1: Make sure meatloaf is cooked ALL THE WAY inside before serving. Lesson 2: Do NOT add Rice-A-Roni as your "secret ingredient" to the meatloaf. :eek:

 

Then there was the Shooting Tower of Flame Episode.

Lesson 3: Do not fry french fries that are full of ice crystals in very hot oil. :willy_nilly:

Chris, I had no idea you were in a plural marriage! (Joking)

[elegantlion]

One Thanksgiving, we opted to not have turkey. we had no family near, so it was just us three. Come Thanksgiving day and ex(not ex at the time) dh gets all sad and wants a turkey. So we headed to the one open grocery, bought home a bird, attempted to thaw and bake on the same day. It was taking forever to cook - of course, it was still frozen, so we left with the oven on and went to Cracker Barrel and had a really lousy dinner. I worried the whole time my house was going to explode (gas oven). We came home and it was fine. He ended up eating some turkey really late that night. 

[Hypatia.]

There was a horrible attempt at frying chicken that ended up with the pan nearly ruined and a CSI & arson investigator would have been needed to identify the chicken parts.  My southern great-grandmothers were rolling over in their graves, I'm sure.

 

Some other dinner gone horribly wrong, I don't remember what the attempted main dish was but it was at least 5 years ago and DS1 still talks about the time we had to throw the pan away (broiler pan, in this case) and go to Taco Bell.

 

DH was at sea for both of these incidents.  He's an excellent cook and people enjoy eating what he cooks, neither of those can be said about me.

[Guest]

Oh, this is easy. It was when I decided to make homemade marshmallows. My first trouble was that i had to leave while bringing the sugars up to temperature, which is very sensitive. Told ds what to do, but it was no use. I came home to butterscotch. But I still thought I would give it a whirl. Silly girl. The gelatin in my mixed had solidified into a clear disc; it looked like a bio-identical cartilage replacement. Still i persevered. The butterscotch-like sugars were not mixing. They were merely turning into industrial-strength crazy glue on my mixer paddle. The motor of my mixer started to sound like It was churning cement. Fearing I had ruined not only my attempt at marshmallows, but also my very important Kitchen Aide, I turned it off, fought the goo as if it were flypaper, then blasted the whole failed experiment with boiling water.

 

Water is a wonder. Not much that boiling water can't dissolve.

[Roadrunner]

Attempted to bake. That in itself is epic, but it does get better. Well, I boiled the condensed milk in the can (why I didn't buy the brown one already made is a very good question, in case you are wondering). Forgot about the fact that I was boiling it, so after the while, or more like several hours, the bottle exploded. It was a war zone. Really. There was shrapnel all over the walls and the ceiling, caramel covered shrapnel, but still a weapon if you happened to be in the kitchen at a time. Luckily, no casualties. 

[StartingOver]

Not mine but my daughters. I was out working, and told her to start some ribs in the oven. She was 15. Anyway I told her to put tenderizer, salt and pepper on them, just a little water in the bottom, put tinfoil and put them in the oven. Later that night we got home and she had fried some potatoes, and made mac and cheese. Hubby took the first bite straight from the pan of ribs. Oh! We should have had a camera !! After he stopped spitting, and hacking we asked what she did. She reached for the McCormick's Tenderizer and it was empty. She put the whole thing on there. Poor ribs were definitely salted. We called for Pizza! Hubby didn't eat ribs till just this year, it took him 10 years to get over it. hehehe

[Desert Rat]

My first Thanksgiving hosting in my own home, I didn't fully cook the potatoes then mashed them. They were so, so gross! I thought I hid my disappointment and grumpiness; it was only immediate family after all. Years later, my husband and brother still tease me about the "mashed potato meltdown". :/

[trulycrabby]

Orange cheeesecake sound really yummy. :001_wub:

[FaithManor]

Tried to make chocolate fried cake donuts the first year we were married. Unsweetened cocoa...forgot the sugar.

 

Tried to make gravy the first year we were married. Didn't seem to thicken fast enough...added a lot more. Set up quickly and could have been used to mortar bricks.

 

Tried to broil a steak in the oven the first year we were married. Burned it so bad the dog wouldn't touch it.

 

Tried to make cherry pie the first year we were married. Unfortunately, studying for a physics exam while cooking, an already confirmed dubious activity for me, caused me to mistake the flour for the sugar.

 

Tried to make biscuits the first year we were married. I do not know in this case what I did wrong. They were suitable for hockey pucks.

 

This is not an exhaustive list by any stretch. It was a rough year for DH.

 

[StartingOver]

My mom's. My first year married she came to the house to help me with Thanksgiving dinner. After dinner was done, we all reached for some pie. Mom forgot to take the wax paper that lined the pies out. So we ate the filling, then removed the paper and ate the crusts. LOL

 

My second Thanksgiving my turkey was almost still moving. Yeah, I forgot to turn the oven on. 

[Guest]

My Mom is famous in our family for turning green beans purple one Thanksgiving. She's a horrible cook, but thinks she is not…so created her own recipe with mushroom soup, walnuts, and green beans. We think there was some sort of reaction. They were really purple…like lavender. Even our dog wouldn't go near them.

 

For me, I was making chocolate cupcakes (the mud puddle vegan recipe) and forgot to add sugar. Then I put them in my kids' lunches the next day. They were not pleased.

I grow purple string beans in my garden. I think they look amazing! The saddest thing about it is that they turn green in heat. So I can't cook them and also have them purple. Waaah.

[Desert Rat]

RC, I left out the sugar last year, too! It was so gross!

I thought of one more. I made a cake for my parents anniversary one year. They were out of town and would be back late at night. I was probably 16. I made the box cake but obviously left something out. I'm thinking the oil. I frosted it in the 13x9 and decorated it, then went to bed. They couldn't cut it. It was like a hard cookie with frosting. LOL We still ate some of it the next day. It wasn't as bad as you'd think. 

[Rosie_0801]

Orange cheeesecake sound really yummy. :001_wub:

 

It was. I licked some off the walls. I was desperate, you understand. I would also never confess this if I'd done it recently, but this was when I was a teen.

[StartingOver]

My Aunt was cooking dinner one night, we went over. As soon as we walked in the door she asked my mom how long it takes to cook corn on the cob? Mom said just a little while. Aunt reached for a fork and poked the corn saying, " I have been cooking these all day, and the middles still aren't soft !" I spewed my soda all over the kitchen.

[Guest]

My favorite kid-cooking kitchen fail was when my sister and I decided to make popcorn balls. We were probably 6 and 8 years old, maybe a year or so more. The recipe called for something like "8 cups popped corn." Well, don't you know, we measured out the as-yet-unpopped kernels. Sis was popping corn, I was scooping it off, she was popping and popping..."Man, this is making a LOT of popcorn!" :D

 

We ended up with a trash-bag full of popcorn.

[ChemMommy]

#1:  Our first camping trip with a pop-up tent trailer. To save money, we were going to go camping and cook all of our own meals in the trailer. Well, I'd never camped much and certainly never cooked while camping.  I browned the meat and made rice for an "oriental" hotdish.  (What did I ever have against Asians to name such a dish after them?).  Well, no one mentioned that you don't want to cook with the water that's in the tank of a new camper until you've washed it out many times to get rid of the plastic taste and maybe not even then. 

 

So, I'm happily cooking and serving it up.  One bite and everyone froze.  It was disgusting, plastic-tasting hamburger and rice.  This wasn't a subtle hint of plastic. It was more a grab you buy the throat and knock you to the ground plastic taste.  Toast for dinner that night and in 13 years, we've never done oriental hotdish again.

 

#2  I decided to be creative with a chocolate cake and boost the flavor.  I thought sour cream would add a nice richness to the mix.  NOT!  In 10 minutes, I had rolling waves of black smoke pouring out of the oven, out of the windows, out of the doors, and neighbors running over to see if the house was on fire.  The smoke detectors were going off and the kids were practicing crawling out of the house because the smoke was so thick.  Of course, this is January in Minnesota, so it was like -25 below zero Fahrenheit.  We opened the windows and doors and went to Burger King playland for dinner and a long recreation session.  Still stuck when we got home.

 

#3  Decided that sour cream wasn't healthy so I served baked potatoes with yogurt (unflavored, unsweetened) .... at a dinner party!  Ah, NO.  Don't try it.  It is not the same; it is not even close.  Oh, and I put it on the potatoes before serving them so every one had the yogurt spuds on their plate.  Not the impression I wanted to leave for guests.

[Paige]

I have more than my share of mistakes, fires, and food that went directly into the trash, but I'll share the two that I get teased the most for. 

 

My first was an attempt to make chocolate chip cookies as a teenager. I got the containers for salt and sugar mixed up and made the cookies with something like 3/4 cup salt and a teaspoon of sugar. It looked fine. It actually baked up pretty well although they were a little flat. But the first taste.....they still make fun of me. 

 

Another story people like to tell is when I made a roast in the crock pot with some internet recipe. I was a young adult and just learning to cook and determined to follow recipes exactly. It called for some tapioca to be added to the roast. I guess it was meant to thicken the gravy. I had NO idea what tapioca was for or why the recipe called for it but I wasn't about to leave it out. So...the only tapioca I knew about was tapioca pudding. I dumped a box of jello tapioca pudding mix into the roast and cooked it for 8 hrs. I don't really remember what it tasted like. I think it was strange but edible because I don't remember tossing it straight into the trash. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

There was the time I decided to make garlic mashed potatoes.  I accidentally grabbed the mustard powder instead of the garlic powder. . . .    :ack2:   Mustard mashed potatoes do not taste good.  

[FaithManor]

I would just like to say that despite many Greek Tragedy, Norse Epic  kitchen disasters I have never ruined a cheesecake. Yes, hard to believe, but I have made several successfully. 

[LoveMyBeautifulGift]

Hmmm....I once made cornbread from scratch with corn starch instead of corn meal. DD had been in the hospital and I was exhausted. I couldn't figure out why it was so flat and it wasn't until halfway through the meal that I actually tasted a piece-it was like eating a sand cake, lol, and my poor family had been choking it down bc they knew how tired I was and didn't want to hurt my feelings. It was only when I went to clean up after the meal that I realized why.

 

Another time I served raw chicken-that was the night we realized that the oven was going out and that I vowed never to serve meat w/o checking w/ a meat thermometer again. I haven't been able to cook or eat that particular chicken dish since ( I was three bites in before I realized-blech!).

[Chris in VA]

Have to add a couple more of my husband'S (there, fixed it! lol)...

 

He got to Israel a couple of days before dd and I did, so he went shopping to stock the kitchen. Unfortunately, he couldn't read labels in Hebrew.

 

Our first meal, we found out that frozen yellow string beans look, but do not taste, just like shoestring french fries.

 

Later, we discovered citric acid does NOT taste like salt...

 

There were more "discoveries," but we managed, and had a great time, even with the kitchen adventures!

[ThisIsTheDay]

Chris, I had no idea you were in a plural marriage! (Joking)

 

:laugh:

[ThisIsTheDay]

 halfway through the meal that I actually tasted a piece-it was like eating a sand cake, lol, and my poor family had been choking it down bc they knew how tired I was and didn't want to hurt my feelings.

 

How sweet is that, that they didn't want to hurt your feelings!  :)