You know what I mean. That carefully laid-out dinner party going horribly (and often hilariously) awry.
It happens to everyone. There’s no shame.
Sometimes the kitchen gods are just against you. It’s a part of life.
We totally sympathize - in fact, we want to give you a prize for sharing!
Tell us in the comments below about a time when your cooking plans failed spectacularly - and the participant with the best story will win a delicious prize! Only one entry per user. Entries will be accepted through January 31, so get commenting!
I was trying to impress my in-laws with an elaborate chicken dish that involved a lot of seasoning, unbeknownst to me I had to package of chicken in the refrigerator one good and one bad, needless to say I use the bad one and we all got very sick several hours later, I definitely did not make a good impression with that dish,it tasted good but there is so much seasoning we could not taste that it was spoiled. Epic fail
Holiday Dinner Rolls will never be served! This story starts about 35 years ago. I was making holiday dinner and decided to make biscuits from scratch. When they were done cooking I put them on the table with dinner. My husband chocked down one before I started to consume one. It was hard as a rock and impossible to eat. We took them to the local pond to feed the ducks. The biscuits skidded across the frozen pond as the ducks chased them trying to eat them. When it hit the water it just sunk. The look on the ducks was priceless. Apparently I killed the yeast. Years passed with no dinner rolls at holiday dinners. The kids started to bring home their partners for holiday dinner so I decided to try the prepared and heat rolls. This was the second disaster with holiday dinners rolls. I actually managed to start the rolls and the oven on fire. After this one the oven had to be replaced. Many additional years passed with no dinner rolls at holiday dinner. The grandkids have started to grow up and dinner was now going to be at my daughters house. I cannot mess up brown and serve rolls, already precooked just have to heat. Into my daughters oven they go. Out they come completely burned on the bottom and inedible. Dinner rolls are now served at holiday dinner; I am not in the kitchen when they are cooked at my daughters house. She tells me to stay in the other room!
I was a child who loved to cook, however this story doesn’t include any “actual” cooking. When I was around the age of eight, I decided to make jell-o to accompany my cake I had just baked. I had already been told in the past, putting milk in mixes (such as cakes or brownies) will make them creamier. My eight year old mind told me putting milk in place of water for jell-o would be a great idea. Needless to say, my family never let me live down the creamy jell-o experiment.
One time I was make rice krispie treats and didn’t realized that the white spatula had MELTED INTO THE MARSHMALLOWS. There were little bits of white plastic throughout the whole batch. 🙁 I shared the full story here: http://www.wicproject.com/lifestyle/do-over-moment/
*making rice krispie treats 🙂
My first time baking bread I decided to eliminate a few steps…one of them ..allowing the bread to rise…I just mixed it up put it in the pan and baked it! My husband arrived home and I was so proud to present this masterpiece…I asked him if he thought it was as good as his mother’s bread( her’s was absolutely perfect!!)…he said yes it was almost as good…he lied to make me feel good but I knew what a disaster it really was. Lesson learned…I never made that mistake again but we did have a great laugh over it!
From early on in my cooking world I decided to try to master one thing new each year. Some years were ingredients, some techniques and sometimes equipment. I just chose one because I really wanted to master it. So in my early 20’s (a long, long time ago) I decided to try an ingredient, I was going to learn to cook duck. Several of my first dishes turned out wonderful, with just the breast. Now it was time to cook a whole duck. This was back in the day with no internet, we used cookbooks and the only recipe I could find for a whole duck was in the crockpot. I carefully added all the ingredients, the bird and set the timer. Proceeded to go to work and dream of my yummy meal. I walked in the door after 8 hours of work and smelled the most horrible rancid smell ever. I ran to check my duck and apparently the electricity and kicked off after just a few hours and it sat partially cooked in all the duck fat and spoiled! The smell was to awful I just took the entire crock, duck and all, out to the garbage dumpster! 30 yrs later, still no successes with the whole duck.
Ok, so we always have these great parties for family and friends, but ultimately something always seems to go wrong. One of my favorite “gone wrong” is when we were having a great outdoor cookout a few summers ago. Everyone brought one of their creations to try to impress everyone else. Not to be outdone, I was making this fabulous new keylime pie recipe. Naturally I was making a big deal about how my pie would be the best creation of the party. I was preparing my pie with much bravado…tasting it as I was preparing it and letting everyone know how delious it was. I put the last ingredient in the food processor and then removed the lid. I headed towards the graham cracker crust I made… only to slip somehow and my pie mixure ended up on the floor. I could’ve cried. My friends dubbed it as “pie on the ground” and I still haven’t lived it down.
made a cake and put salt instead of sugar then for got to put baking powder to make it rise in then dumped a half bottle pink peppermint extract.
My funniest cooking fail ever happened when I was learning to bake a cake. I was about 12 years old, and did not know that you frosted a cake after you baked it. I frosted the cake, before I put it in the oven. The cake turned out hard as a rock. I mean, you couldn’t cut it with a hacksaw. Lol
The first time I made lasagna when I was in college, the recipe called for one clove of garlic- and I used the entire bulb!
My infamous cooking story happen when I was a teen trying to impress my boyfriend at the time. We came home after clubbing@4a, and he asked me if I knew how to cook, and I said OF COURSE! What would you like to eat? He said “STEAK, mashed potatoes and corn”! But the Steak has to be cooked right, how do you cook it? I responded I like to bake it w/ lots of Onions, Peppers and Mushrooms! He looked at me w/ admiration and love and said I think you’re a keeper!…I had never cooked on a gas stove, so I did not know how to light one, so when I threw the match in the oven the stove EXPLODED!!!! I ran out of that apt. so fast, and he ran after me, I did not stop until I was outside w/ my breast hanging out! My shirt melted but interestingly only in my breast area! I was brow-less and hair-less on my arms for what seemed an eternity!!! the burnt hair stank so bad! and I cried for hours, but he took care of me, and we laughed about for years!
As an import from England I had never heard of a Cup as a measurement for baking, everything is in pounds and ounces or Kg’s. So in my first weeks settling I went out and bought some Tea Cups thinking that is what is used for a measure here. My Cakes and Cookies were like Hockey pucks as I was also used to Self Raising Flour and not adding my own baking powder. My worst disaster was mistaking a Teaspoonful for a cup when making a Chilli. Now I like my Chilli hot but this was more than a furnace whoops. I can’t blame anyone but myself for not reading the recipe correctly alas new eye glasses were ordered.
After recently becoming vegan, I took up dairy-free and egg-free baking. I was obsessed with healthy baking hacks. My cabinet was filled with chia seeds, flax seeds, whole wheat flour, coconut sugar, and more unique baking swaps. My first creations were magnificent. My friends loved my creations… and so did I? I was, joyfully, cooking up some chocolate cupcakes to bring to a holiday dinner. After reading online, I took it upon myself to, as a healthier-option, replace all-purpose white flour with whole wheat flour instead. The batter tasted decadent, so into the oven they went. After 18 minutes of solid cooking time, I turned on the oven light. The tin was filled with bubbling goo - cupcake batter? Apparently. So, they baked for five more minutes. Still bubbling. Three more minutes… Still bubbling. Five more minutes? Guess what. Frustrated, I took them out of the oven and placed the tin on a cooling rack. After several minutes, I checked back, preparing the holiday dinner, and saw that they had sunken in to the bottom and established a rock-like texture. Needless to say, I didn’t bring dessert to the holiday dinner. Instead, I enjoyed the view of my “cupcakes” that resembled ceramic bowls. And later devoured them, wincing at the crunch, with ice cream. Because when life gives you whole wheat flour, DON’T make cupcakes. 😉
I have just recently started “trying” to cook healthy due to my husbands resent health issues. I have never enjoyed cooking and looked forward to our retirment age, I called these our “kitchen closed years”. But after his diagnosis I charged fully ahead and was determined to becoming the best “organic” cook on the planet. My first attempt at whole wheat bisquits looked like the disaster I had expected but when I placed them in front of my sweet husband he ate every bite. When the dog walked up and i handed him one, he sniffed it put it in his mouth and then quickly spit it out with an offended look on his face! After that I asked my husband why he ate them and he said, “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings”. I may not be the best cook in the world but I definetly have the best husband in the world!
Back when I was still the person who could burn water, I decided that I was going to start cooking. As if-voila!-I would suddenly know what I was doing. I read through cookbooks and decided that I was going to make home made pesto. It looked easy enough in the book! I planned on making dinner for myself and my uncle, whom I was living with at the time. Well…I also was such a novice that I didn’t know the difference between fresh and dried herbs. So I used 2 cups of DRIED basil in place of fresh when putting it all together. Needless to say the result was a paste that tasted like dirt. Pizza night, anyone???
I am a cooking major. I began “higher in cooking” in high school in a vocational program where my story begins: I was given the task to cook a coffee cake for a brunch we were preparing for. I quickly scanned the recipe and threw it together however once it was out and had its sweet sugar topping on it I noticed something. I FORGOT TO PUT SUGAR IN THE CAKE. So i basically made a sugar topped corn bread. Epic face palm…..
I bought all the ingredients for a delicious crock pot slow cooker recipe. Before going to work in the morning, I set the ingredients out on the kitchen counter, along with the ceramic slow cooker dish insert, all for my younger brother to EASILY make dinner for us. I work hard all day and drive home with great visions and hunger for the yummy dinner ahead of me. I walk into the kitchen to find my brother removing the ceramic slow cooker insert dish from the stovetop and attempting to put it in the oven. Except that when he went to do that, the dish cracked and the bottom half, and most of the ingredients stayed on the stove, and he was standing there holding the lidded top half of a crock pot dish. I didnt say anything, opened the cupboard and took out the slow cooker heating component and set it on the countertop. To which he said “OOohhhhhh!!!! NOW you tell me!” I dont think he has touched a crock pot slow cooker since. 🙂
My friend was just newly married. She wanted to make bread to impress her new husband. She got it all made and left it to rise. It was cool enough in their house that it didn’t rise. She did not want her husband to think she had failed so she took it outside and buried it at the end of the garbage cans. When her husband came home he drove right past the garbage cans. When he came in the house he wanted to know what it was that was by the garbage. There was now a large gooey lump that was still growing.
It was halloween and my boyfriend and I were spending a nice evening in cooking dinner and trying a new recipe for a cookie bar. We realized we didn’t have any candy right as a hoard of about 5 Elsa’s and 6 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started crossing the street to beg for candy. We hurriedly flipped of all the lights and hit the ground and army-crawled out of sight. The group of kids was about 20 feet from the door when smoke starts billowing out the oven. The cookie had rose to ungodly heights, spilled over the edges of the pan and resulted in a not so tame sized fire. We threw open the door to rid the house of smoke which released my boyfriends dog who decided that day, that she did not care for small Elsa’s and mutant turtles. As the dog is barking and corralling the kids in a terrified mob, smoke is gushing out of windows and the doors. We held our ground and were not spotted by the teeny humans. Eventually the dog pranced back inside, the fire died down, and the kids moved to a less smoky house. We found some old salt water taffy to pacify any other kids who were brave enough to ring our doorbell. Needless to say, the cookie had a subtle smoky flavor to it and a black carbonic layer.
I was baking m&m cupcakes. I place the m&m’s on top of the cupcake batter and placed them in the oven. When I took it out them oven, the m&m’s melted in the cupcakes. I asked myself “Looks disgusting, but how are they gonna taste?” When they cooled, my mom, brother and I each tasted one, with a smile on her face, my mom said “Wow! These taste great, we were worried over nothing, worried that they were gonna have to get thrown away.” We all laughed at how worried we were over such silliness.
So it was lasagna night at our house again and I proceeded to make the same recipe I have always made. I did however pickup this new fancy glass Pyrex baking dish earlier that day and I was determined to use it. I layer noodles, meat, sauce, and cheese into three perfect layers then top with more noodles and cheese. I then turn up the heat on the oven to °400 because I’m running late for dinner and the kids are super hungry at this point. Two pounds of cheese and one pound of beef later this beautiful lasagna goes in the oven. I set the timer for 20 minutes and walk away. No sooner than I bask in the comfort of my couch I hear a shatter come from the kitchen. My husband and I run to the kitchen to see what fell. We couldn’t find a thing. I go to check on the lasagna…. the edge of the Pyrex dish has shattered into a million tiny glass shards in my oven, leaving the bottom of itself in tact holding up this oozing lasagna. We manage to get a cookie sheet under the lasagna before it falls perfectly through the rack in the oven. We turn off the oven, clean up the glass pieces, and at this point we are staring at the ultimate fail in front of us on this cookie sheet. My husband grabs the truck key and his coat. I ask, “Where are you going to get takeout?” He says, “I really want lasagna I’m going back to the store to get the stuff to make it…..again!”. An hour and a half later we sat at our dinner table to eat the perfect lasagna….finally. Lesson to myself, don’t use glass baking dishes ever again.
When my grandparents were young they would go mushroom hunting, Morels in particular. My grandma would always soak the morels then fry up our family favorite in flour and butter in her favorite cast iron skillet. My grandpa could grill like no other but cooking in the kitchen was a different story. One day, while my grandma was at work, my grandpa decided to make his own fried morels and instead of using flour and butter, he used confectioner’s sugar and butter. My grandma still laughs to this day about the “sweet & sticky morel’s” grandpa made and how mad he was because he ruined a good mess of morels.
My first time making a Gluten free Turkey! I refused to give up on some indulgences. So I bought a Butterball indoor turkey frialator. I guess Im bad at Math. I cooked it for two hours. It was so beautiful! Ever see that movie with Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation? The scene they are at the table serving the turkey? (“The Blessing!”) It (my turkey) was exactly like that! I cut into the turkey and there was meat but VERY DRY! The outside was very hard to cut. Needless to say we didn’t have turkey that day! Thank God it was just the 4 of us!
I was cooking a lovely ham and scalloped potato casserole for dinner. I put it in the oven, baked it to perfection, pulled it out at just the right time, set it on top of the stove to cool at bit before eating, and went upstairs to fold a load of laundry while we were waiting. That is where it all went wrong. You see, I had “rested” it on a burner on my stove that I had apparently knocked to the “on” position (electric stove so I couldn’t see a flame). When I came down the dish was boiling extremely rapidly, so I quickly grabbed a potholder and moved it over to the counter where it promptly exploded. I was cleaning sticky potatoes and little balls of safety glass out of the nooks and crannies of my kitchen for at least a year. I surrendered and ordered a pizza for dinner that night, but it didn’t taste near as good as that casserole would have. 🙁
I was living in an apartment above a store on Rt 30. My day off and I was planning a simple pasta dinner. The water boiled, the house was clean. I put the pasta in the water and feeling orderly, I took the trash outside to the dumpster. After walking up the two flights of backstairs to the backdoor, it occurred to me that I had forgotten my keys! This was before cell phones. Luckily, the landlord had an office walking distance down the street. By the time I returned with the spare key, the room was filled with smoke, all the water boiled away and pasta burned permanently to the bottom of the pan. Ugh!
I made short-bread jam drops and it was for my managers farewell. I normally have home-made jam prepared and normally have three jars in the fridge. I used the jar that said ‘Jam’ and smothered it on top of my short-bread and usually put more than recommended. My manager made a speech of thanking everyone in the team and I gave him the treats. He thanked me so much but when he took a bite out of it- his eyes started to tear up and turned red, he started sneezing a lot and spat out the biscuits saying that his mouth was burning.
Later that night I came home and checked the jar and my sister said, ‘Hey, did you like my chilli jam? You ate so much of it!’
My boss does not take chilli well and I laughed!
It was my first time trying to cook a turkey, and when I took the turkey out of the oven it was beautiful and brown, and I yelled “I did it”, until I placed the bird on the platter and a paper bag fell out in front of our family and friends with,to my horror, the innerds inside!!!
My sister and I were at our parent’s house making my mom a German chocolate cake for her birthday. We had never made this recipe before, but we both love baking & we were in our late 20’s/30’s, so we didn’t expect anything other than success. Everything was going well & we were just chatting away in the kitchen as the cake was baking in the oven. All of the sudden we smelled something burning - which was strange because the cake was nowhere near being finished cooking. We walked over to the oven & opened it…we were greeted by FLAMES! The cake pans had overflowed & the batter had caught on fire on the bottom of the oven where the cooking elements were. We quickly put the fire out & let the cakes finish baking. We had a good laugh & still joke about when we caught mom’s oven on fire. The cake turned out delicious & we made sure to write on the recipe to use 9 inch round pans instead of 8 inch, or to make a couple cupcakes - but not to fill the pans to full.
A few days after I got married,I put some rolls in the oven and had it set to the correct temp.My husb. came along and didn’t check to see if anything was in there.He turned up the temp. in prep for putting something else in there, and a few mins. later,I smelled something burning.Upon opening the oven door,I found blazing buns!
It was December and we had just moved to Denver from Poughkeepsie, NY. I called my Grandmother and got her gingerbread cookie recipe. I followed it to the last ingredient. What I didn’t know was that I needed to alter the recipe to account for the high altitude. Needless to say my gingerbread cookies came out as hard as a rock. My brother got a BB gun that Christmas and we tried using them for targets but even the BB’s couldn’t crack or break them.
Years ago, when I was pregnant with my first daughter I worked at a store in a mall. I decided to make some hot chocolate in the microwave and totally forgot about it. All of a sudden the fire alarms in the entire mall went off and a fire fighter came running into my store saying its coming from there. Turned out I forgot my cup had metal on it and I also forgot to shut the microwave off so it blew up the microwave causing smone to set off a fire alarm in the entire mall.
Smoke*
I wish I could post a picture because you know they are worth 1000 words… over the holiday my friend and I followed a family recipe for peanut brittle that her mother gave her. We followed the recipe to the T… when we added the baking powder it was like a science experiment gone wrong the mixture turned black, smoke started to billow and it bubbled and started growing up out of the pan and looked like the bog of eternal stench. My husband ran outside with it and dumped or down a port a potty that was in our neighborhood for construction. The smell lingered for days and my pot and spatula were ruined. We found out after that the directions were for microwave and NOT a stove top….
I tried to make Bakerella’s cake pops shaped as chicks for Easter. They looked like they were covered in tumors and melting. Turns out, it takes talent.
I had friends over for a finale’ of Survivor and was making finger foods for us to nosh on during the viewing. I had made a huge tray of teriyaki wings and was getting them out of the oven when my hot pad got caught between the pan and the racks and the entire pan went all over my kitchen floor and sauce was all over the stove, the floor, the cabinets and the walls. So instead of eating wings we had a clean up party in the kitchen. I LOVE my friend who made my disaster fun.
Well it may not have been a disaster but the first time my husband cooked dinner for me (we were still newly dating) he didn’t know what I liked so he made me some chicken, then a little pasta, a shrimp dish and had a steak waiting to go in case I didn’t like any of the other choices. He was prepared. it was hysterical because there was no way I could eat all that food but he wanted to be prepared with options.
One time I was doing braised lamb and i stepped away and asked my husband to watch the lamb for a second he replied okay. I said turn up the heat a bit and add in the red wine and onions; i walked away and heard screaming so i quickly ran back in to the kitchen. He turned the heat up to 8 (as high as it goes), and quickly poured lots of the red wine in and it blazed up and burned off his eyebrows. Then he said” Why did you not tell me to step back before adding the wine?!” I couldn’t do anything but laugh….
When I was in the Air Force, my husband offered to bake a cake for a Squadron going away party. He brought the cake to the party and one of the guys who was leaving said it was the best “pudding cake” he had ever eaten. After he walked away, I asked my husband what a pudding cake was. He said he had no idea. I asked him how he baked it and he said that he followed the recipe but he was running late so he turned the oven up so it would bake faster. It “looked nice and brown on top” and cooked more quickly than the recipe said it would. We quickly realized the pudding cake was a cake with a baked outside and batter inside! The funniest part was that he continued to receive compliments on his cake for the rest of the party!
After my mom was diagnosed with cancer, she deemed it finally time to teach me our family’s secret spaghetti sauce recipe — a recipe which had never been written down and was mostly meaaured by sight. Once the sauce was simmering, we decided to also try a recipe for creme brûlée. Somehow, we both ended up adding the sugar and there was no “creme” to the final result. We laughed and laughed over those caramelized bricks. We went from measuring spices by how they looked in the palm of your hand in one recipe to double-measuring a key ingredient in another. The debacle became a running joke — and one of my fondest memories — for that last year of my mother’s life.
My son had a teacher in high school that liked to eat and would offer extra credit if the kids brought in food to celebrate random holidays. I baked a cake late one night at my son’s request for class the next day. Apparently I took the cake out of the oven too soon because while it cooled the middle of the cake caved in. To fix this I spread a ton of frosting on top of the cake to even it out. I told my son he needed to promise to tell his teacher he made the cake. When the teacher served the cake the middle was gooey (basically raw). The teacher said “this is really good, did you use pudding in the mix?”. My son was horrified, but just mumbled, “yeah”.
As a newly wed and graduate student I was looking for time saving techniques and decided to prepare chicken noodle soup in the crock pot that would be ready when we arrived home. As we entered the house after an exhausting day, it smelled so good and we were so excited to eat until we looked into the crock pot and saw chicken jello. Apparently, I missed the part about not adding the noodles until the very end! My husband was gracious and offered to eat it, but we threw it out and ended up eating out.
My worst and funniest was the very first time I was ever cooking a meal and dessert, etc. , for the man I was dating and crazy in love with. I didn’t know that you couldn’t put all items @ not the same temps for cooking, by selecting the highest heat & slamming them all in the oven. I spent the better part of 2 days, shopping and prepping and preparing everything before putting everything in the oven @ 475, thought it would help things get done faster & maybe come out all together? He had phoned me before I actually put anything in the oven to confirm our plans… and I was expecting absolutely beautiful results! You know “the way to a mans’ heart is with food” and I was preparing to do just that. During the phone call earlier, I was joking with him ( as he didn’t know I didn’t know to cook : ) and just said: “Well, if you see any pans or baking dishes with any food in them out in the front yard when you show up…Guess what…we’ll be going out to dinner”…and of course, everything was burnt or worse…and I literally just started throwing 1 by 1 every item out in the front yard, then I started tossing my dishes, glasses and forks, etc., from the nicely set table for 2, outside also. He came to the door, knocked and I let him in. He said “Well, by the looks of the front yard…We are going out to dinner!” Any other man would’ve thought I was totally crazy and would’ve run fast and run far.! We went out to dinner, he proposed that same night, we’ve been married for 38 years! I don’t know if it was my craziness, passion, or just the fact we truly were in love with each other…but he married me anyway, with one caveat…I am not to cook, unless I take lessons…and of course, the wedding would be catered by his lovely Aunt…and I was to have nothing to do with it @ all, she would pick out everything on the menu, even our cake. We still laugh about it today, but he did admit, he was a bit hesitant to even come inside that night, after surveying the mess that was in my front yard. Of course, after getting proposed to…I forgot about the mess and it was left out for all my neighbors to view in the light of day…and comment and laugh they did!! Guess I got the last laugh though!
I was baking chocolate chip cookies and the chocolate chips actually melted. I am not much of a cook but even I knew that was unusual!
This actually happened yesterday, We do order out Thursday and my girls wanted grilled cheese, so instead of paying extra I told them I would make them. As me and my husband started eating our take out for dinner and the girls were snacking on grapes, my husband looked at me and asked what that smell was? I totally forgot I was cooking grilled cheese sandwiches because I don’t normally cook that night. All in all the sandwiches were black! Should have just ordered them.
I was making a lemon cake to take to a dinner party. The recipe called for self-rising flour, which I’d never heard of. I looked in my pantry and all I had was all-purpose flour. Flour is flour, I thought. Boy, was I wrong on that. The difference? About 5 inches - my 1/2-inch high cake resembled a fat pancake! I didn’t have time to start over, so I made a quick dash to the supermarket for a ready-made dessert instead.
I see you went to my cooking school.
I was hungry and decided I was going to poach some eggs in the microwave at a friends house. I put the eggs in a microwave safe container and I can’t remember how long I set them for but I checked the and they were not done, so I put them back in the microwave and went off to do my morning routine. A minute later, I heard a loud BANG and I was terrified that the microwave had exploded. What I found inside the microwave as I opened the little door was an exploded microwave plate and eggs were all over the inside of the microwave. I was so embarrassed and my friend makes fun of me about it sometimes to this day.
A few years ago, I made Thanksgiving turkey in the oven and it was just about done.. However, when I opened the oven, my eyeglasses clouded over with steam from the oven…. I put my oven mitts onto the pan pulled the pan out of the oven, and put it on the countertop…..BUT I didn’t notice that part of the pan was hanging over the side… And then…..kerplop….the pan came off the countertop, and the hot juice covered my hands and thighs, with the turkey ending on the floor. I rushed into the shower, removed my sweat pants and sprayed cold water onto my hands and thighs… After a few days decided better go to Urgent Care and it’s a good thing I did… Had an infection and took antibiotics. I went every day to Urgent Care for about a week to have the wounds cleansed… Will NEVER forget the ordeal… BUT….the turkey landed on the floor, we rinsed it off and we enjoyed our turkey! A lesson learned about steam coming out of the oven and being much more careful in the future.
Here is the abbreviated version: earlier in the day my roommate came home with a goldfish. My sneaky cat clipped it’s fin, and quickly became frantic about finishing him off. Unbeknownst to me, she hid him in the oven in his plastic bag, because my cat was frantically opening cabinets to get to him. She left to run and errand before coming back to get the goldfish and bring him to a more suitable cat-free home. I walked in and began preheating the oven in anticipation for a date coming over (our SECOND date mind you) and began making lasagna. I walked out of the apartment to bring something to a neighbor and walked in to a horrible burning plastic smell. I opened the oven and I had COOKED A GOLDFISH. He was still in his plastic bag. Yep. That’s a true horrific story. I about had a heart attack and tossed the bag, threw in my lasagna and never told my date. My roommate and I still die over this.
When of the first times when I started baking I decided to make some double chocolate chip cookies. Since they were pretty dark to begin with (I used dutch processed cocoa powder) I couldn’t judge whether or not the cookies were done or not. I took the cookies out of the oven after 15 minutes, poked at it, and decided they were too soft to the touch. So i kept them in the oven and after 20 minutes, I saw smoke coming out of the oven. I was really puzzled because they didn’t seem burnt to me. Once the cookies cooled, I tasted them and noticed the entire thing was burned. I stopped baking for awhile after that but am back on track after coming to college.
I made tuna noodle casserole, and think I was really stressed about something and my thinking was distracted when I was making it, because then when I served it, after a couple of bites my friend remarked, “Um, there is no tuna in this Tuna Noodle Casserole.”
One time we were making garlic bread and we put slices of bread on a cookie sheet and put garlic butter on them and put it in the oven for a minute then turn them over but we got distracted and a few minutes later we smelled smoke and saw the bread on fire in the oven and the neighbors called the fire department and they just laughed after finding out everything was okay
Growing up, my cousin & I would help her mom bake TONS of goods for Christmas gifts for family, church & church family, & friends. When it say tons, I mean fill a 16 person table plus 2 kitchen counters full of baked goods!! We were literally our own bakery for years, one of which everyone knew & loved to get gifts from.
One year while we were busy multi-tasking I placed some brownie mix in the microwave - per label directions. As I’m working on a cake batter & my cousin is making dipping chocolates, suddenly she screamed out “OH MY GOD! THE BROWNIES!” I turned around to see gray smoke billowing out both side vents & the around the door of the microwave! We both rushed to turn it off and, being a little afraid to open the door, found a charred brick of would-be brownies smouldering & smoking inside. We rushed to open windows & doors to prevent smoke detectors from going off & then alerting the fire dept. The whole downstairs of their 3000 sq ft house smelled of charred chocolate for days & to this day, it’s a running joke about my in-ability to make simple brownies!
When in high school my bestie & I were craving some late night brownies. We were trying to make it quick and quiet since everyone else in the house was sleeping. We gathered all the ingredients and whisked them up (all 3 ingredients required for box brownies, we weren’t advanced enough for scratch made). Soon the brownies were warm right from the oven and smelled super yummy. We each grabbed a big bite….and immediately spit it back out. A little side note, I’m from the south so when my dad cooks bacon he saves the grease to later use for flavoring other meals like squash, cabbage, etc. So when making our brownies we grabbed the bacon grease and poured into our brownie mix thinking it was vegetable oil. After a good laugh, those brownies went straight to the trash. Needless to say we needed our parents to give us a few more cooking lessons before we were off to college.
I had just moved into my first apartment and had invited my mother and sister over for dinner. I was so excited!! New stainless steel cookware, new apartment and I was so ready to impress. I was heating oil to make fried chicken. Little did I know that you shouldn’t heat oil in a pan with the lid on it. I took the lid off to add the chicken and had flames shooting out of the pan and licking at the cabinets above my stove. I instantly panicked, grabbed the baking soda and threw it into the pan then grabbed the pan and ran for the back door. I melted carpet in so many spots as the oil splattered out of the pan, ruined the pan with the paste that was made from the oil and baking soda and obviously was done cooking that evening. It was so pathetic.
So I quickly scrubbed the white cabinets trying, unsuccessfully to get the stains off so I didn’t have to own the fact that I had failed miserably. Thank goodness for pizza delivery and air freshener.
My mom was THE best cook ever. When I was in grade school I had a friend who was coming home with me to spend the night and I was bragging up a storm about what a great cook my mom was. All the way home on the bus I was telling this friend that mom was making chilli and how great it was going to be. Just wait I kept saying, you’ll see. When supper time came, mom dished up Chilli and we all started eating. And we all started making faces at the same time too. It was the the worst chilli mom had ever made. She had grabbed the Cinnamon instead of the Chilli powder and didn’t notice it. To this day my friend loves to talk about mom’s cinnamon chilli.
I was making mashed potatoes in a Teflon pan for Thanksgiving. I decided to use a hand mixer in the pan to get them creamy, well that lead to the Teflon coming off in to the potatoes and looking like black pepper. My husband came up and asked “what did you do” and I busted out crying hysterically. Back story to the crying, I was on hormones for trying to have a family. Let’s just say those hormones got the best of me that day… We all can laugh about it now.
I was working on a Saturday and my boyfriend was home. He decided he wanted to make spaghetti and garlic bread for when I got home from work. He called his mom, my mom and my step mom to find out what spices to put in the sauce. He added extra stuff - Old Bay Fish Seasoning, Cinnamon and celery salt. I got so sick eating it, heartburn for at least a day or two. I didn’t want to throw out the pasta at first. It also wasn’t took long after this I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease and started a life of eating gluten free.
Roasted Garlic, Zucchini and Tomato Bake. Sounds great, right? Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Lightly oil a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Roast vegetables about 18 minutes. I followed the recipe exactly from the Cleveland Clinic. Guess what? When they say a 9 x 13 inch baking dish they do NOT mean a glass dish. How do I know? After hearing a huge explosion in my oven, I was left with all the vegetables mixed with glass; small, large, sharp. Had a great time, also, cleaning the oven. P.S. Since I learned my lesson, I know make this recipe in a metal baking pan and it is the bomb.
My cooking fail began the morning of New Year’s Eve. My husband and I were celebrating our first anniversary and while he was out that morning I thought I would make him breakfast while wearing one of his button up shirts and not much else. Everything was going great, I had the bacon sizzling, toast toasting, and eggs scrambling. I looked away for what seemed like a second and the bacon had gone from almost perfect to a black burnt mess with grease splattering everywhere. I proceed to run the hot splattering pot outside trying not to get the bacon grease on me or our Great Dane who is freaking out because of all the smoke. As I get outside I go to set the pan on a stone surface to let it cool off, I realize I’m still basically only wearing my husband’s shirt. So I bolt back inside with the dog as my husband proceeds to walk into our smoke filled home smelling of burnt food. Happy first anniversary honey!
Well, late one night I was making our favorite Sour Cream Banana Coffee Cake. Everything was going great andthe batter looked awesome. I started spooning the batter into the pan. I happened to look over at the counter and there were my bananas! So, I scooped out as much of the batter as I could and put it back in the bowl. I mashed the bananas and stirred them in the batter. I continued filling the pan and prayed for the best. The next morning we ate the cake and I am delighted to say…it turned out delicious!
my biggest cooking fail was the first time i used the oven i was only 12 and home alone with my friend so i wanted to try cooking myself a pizza, i left the pizza in the oven for nearly 1 hour and 30 minutes when i went to take it out it was black and nearly on fire! my mum said when she got home i used the grill instead :/
Back when microwaves were new technology and unshielded, I put a paper bag with popcorn kernels and oil in mine. Everyone did it, and it worked just fine by folding the top over. However, I couldn’t et my bag to stay folded, so I secured it with a paper clip. I shut the door and took one step before the damn thing blew up. The door shot all the way across the room and dented the fridge. The Inside cover of plastic and the bag were blazing. Being of a very calm nature, I grabbed the door and held it in place until the fire went out. Just as I had the fire out, and was starting to clean up, my idiot husband came running in in a panic and sprayed me and everything else with a fire extinguisher. I never said a word,but I went and got a pair of white gloves, came back and showed them to my hubby. I went to watch TV, he started Cleaning!! What a God-awful mess! LOL
Well there have been a few but the one that sticks out the most was a Garden and Gun featured recipe of Cat Biscuit with Sausage and Gravy. I wanted to surprise my husband and make a really awesome southern style breakfast and when I saw the recipe I thought, “easy enough”.
I bought all the ingredient and started early that morning with biscuits and then the gravy. Reading the recipe I started adding all the ingredients. As the gravy was getting perfect for adding the sausage I added the sausage and thought nothing of it. I thought it odd that I would add the sausage at the end. My husband came to the kitchen to check out the progress knowing I should almost be finished. I tell him, not sure what is going on but my sausage isn’t cooking fast enough and I was a afraid I am going to ruin the gravy. He looks closer and says, “are you trying to kill me?” Of course not, I said. My feeling we’re starting to get hurt. He ask to see the recipe. Looked it over intently, and decided that it wasn’t another reading compression fail. I actually have a lot of those. It actually did not tell me to COOK the sausage. I guess you know where this is going….I added raw sausage to the gravy. Eek! He dumped the gravy in to the trash and he then took me to breakfast.
I was a manager in a restaurant. A waiter brought a customer’s cake to the wrong table. I was horrified to see him singing, cutting into, and serving cake to an appreciative couple while the birthday man had his back to them. He then placed the cake in the middle of the table. I rushed over, whisked him aside and sternly said, “Get that cake off that wrong table!!!” Somehow we managed to sneak it by the right table and get it to the pantry. I then told the pantry chef, “I don’t care how you do it, but make this cake whole again!!” I don’t know how he did it, but there was cheesecake inside the gap, the frosting was fixed, and the cake went right back out to the right birthday table. I was cringing and waiting for an outrage from the customers, but when they left carrying the leftover cake in its box, they were thankful and happy. I still waited for the day when they would call or write about cutting into cheesecake placed inside their light fluffy birthday cake, but no yelling or admonishment came. Maybe the cheesecake part never got eaten and was thrown away, or it was the best part of the cake.
My friend called and asked me to make her a chocolate chip cake for her brunch at the last moment. I said yes and I hurriedly made the cake. Just as I was to put it in the pan, the door bell rang and I went to answer it. Little did I know, my young niece had come by and threw her bubble gum into the pan. When I came back, I threw the cake batter into the pan and put it in the oven. I then went and took a quick shower. When I came back to take the cake out of the oven, I found out it had exploded in the oven with cake bits everywhere. It took my niece and myself about 3 1/2 hours to clean that oven!
About ten years ago, when i first started learning how to cook, I bought a crock pot cause I was excited to make a heaping portion of soup that would last us over the long weekend. I carefully shopped for the ingredients (at Whole Foods, so it was pricey), measured correctly, then let it simmer all day. My family gleefully awaited the completion of my newest cooking feat. Last item to add was shredded to cheese on top for garnish. As I was new to any cheese besides american, I noted an odor but assumed it was just the type of cheese (since I heard fancier cheese does often have a strong scent). So in it went to melt, with lid back on top for a few moments. Later as I lifted the lid, we leaned in to smell our dinner but were instantly aware something was awry as our noses were assaulted with the most pungent acrid odor that quickly let us know the horrible truth: the cheese was most definitely rancid and the whole soup was ruined. I cried as we dumped it out in the backwoods of our yard and our poor house stunk for days! The kids still recall that to this day with great detail-Mom’s epic fail 🙁
It was my first Thanksgiving where I was doing all of the cooking…being a vegetarian, I’ve never cooked a turkey before and had no clue to how but I gave it my best.
The turkey was upside down…cooked it upside down…also tried to slice the turkey upside down. I was wondering where all of the white meat was. I just kept on trying to get some slices but all I got were bones and brown meat to serve. I was too proud to ask any of my guests “where’s all of the turkey”! I didn’t figure it out until all of my guests were gone and I was cleaning up. To top it off…the turkey was burned and dry as a bone. Let’s just say, no one ever suggested that I have Thanksgiving at my house again.
My worst cooking fail came early on in my cooking experience. I was age twelve and under the tutelage of my mother in the kitchen. I was making macaroni and cheese from scratch for the first time. I was making the cheese sauce and kept adding flour as the sauce wouldn’t thicken. My mother kept advising me to “add a little more…don’t be shy”. Well, I did just what she told me to do. When we sat down to enjoy dinner, at which we had company, we all dug into the homemade mac and cheese and all the faces said it all. Something was epically wrong. I took my bite and realized the awful truth. Instead of adding what I thought was flour to the sauce, I was actually adding powdered sugar! The guests felt so bad for me that they ate it anyway and said it was delicious, but I begged them to stop because I thought it would make them sick. Ever since then, over thirty years later, I clearly label my flour and powdered sugar in my pantry and when I go to use one in a recipe, I take a little on my finger to make sure it’s the correct ingredient. Lesson learned! ???
All newlyweds want to impress their I laws so I baked homemade chocolate cookies for us to eat as we sat around the table to chat. As everyone chewed their cookies their faces went from delight to disgust. I had grabbed the vinegar bottle instead of the vanilla. That happened over 43 years ago and I’m still reminded of that disaster!
When I was a senior in high school there was a classmate of mine who had no idea how to cook. Her name is Katy. One day, after school. her mother (at work) asked her to cook the pasta for their supper that evening.
Not reading the directions, she took initiative to cook the pasta. She put the pasta on a cookie sheet (dry) and baked it in the oven.
My favorite family cooking story is a story my mom told me. She was a new immigrant from Ireland and newly married to my American father. One night her new husband, my dad, called and told her he was bringing his boss home for dinner. My mom was determined to make an American-style meal to show what a good wife she was. She decided to make a nice spaghetti dinner to impress her new handsome husband, and his boss. So there she was cooking away when my dad walked into the kitchen to check on things and my mom was shoving dried spaghetti noodles INTO the pot of sauce. She didn’t know that you were supposed to cook the noodles separately, in a pot of water. To this day she claims that the directions on the box were not clear!
Sophomore year of college, in my first student apartment in a Boston suburb with three friends, I became a vegetarian. One evening I decided to cook soybeans in a pressure cooker, figuring I could stumble through without directions. I ended up inadvertently steam cleaning a circle of the (not so pristine) ceiling when the pressure cooker exploded! No one are soy beans that night and I never touched a pressure cooker again!
My Daddy hated Pumpkin Pie. But I was his baby ad I made a Pumpkin Pie just for him so he HAD to have a slice. I must have been 9-10. Who knows? Anyway, I read the directions and worried over that pie like it was my first child. Who knew? I might be the next Julia Child. So after dinner that night, I cut the pie and divvied up the slices to my family. Everyone took a bite and I noticed something peculiar in my bite and the expressions on their faces. My Mom looked like she might faint. My sweet Daddy took the fork back out of his mouth and began removing the WHOLE cloves I had used (no Julia Child here) not saying a word but smiling at me so sweet. Then he took HIS first bite and swallows. And announces that it’s the best Pumpkin Pie he’s ever had and he thinks it’s because I used whole cloves - even though they are a pain to pick out, it’s the only Pumpkin Pie he’s ever had that he liked. I was saved until the table erupted in laughter and they all started teasing me! Oh the woes of being the baby and cooking your first Pumpkin Pie. (The directions didn’t say GROUND cloves)! Bwahahhaha
One October we decided to have a turkey dinner with all the trimmings. We prepped and popped the turkey in in our gas oven. Since we had some time to kill before we had to get the sides ready, my Mom and I decided to go shopping. We left my hubby to to keep an eye on the turkey and baste it periodically with the warning that the pan was shallower than usual. We came back in time to start the sides, only to find out hubby had fallen asleep and the dripping were at the point of overflow. Opening the oven door was just enough to slosh the drippings and cause a chain reaction that ended with the turkey bursting into flames. Shutting the oven off and closing the door was way too little too late. We called the fire department and the next thing we knew the blackened turkey was in the pan on the sidewalk and the ruined stove was in the yard. Half the neighborhood came out to see why two fire trucks an ambulance and the police had arrived. It was about then we noticed two things. First that only the surface of the turkey was blackened and second the turkey was now fully cooked. Being a firm believer in waste not want not, we checked with the firemen that nothing had been sprayed on the turkey and took it back in the house. With no stove and a smoky kitchen we had to improvise and ended up cooking the sides on our grill. Once the air cleared, we served our very expensive but delicous “smoked” turkey dinner.
One year when I was making kiss cookies for a cookie exchange, it was disaster after disaster. I forgot the sugar in my first batch of cookies…and remembered when they were already in the oven. I started over, and FORGOT THE SUGAR! Same thing, the cookies were in the oven…there was no salvaging them. I was ready to throw in the towel and tell my friend I wasn’t coming to the cookie exchange and of course ‘fess up why, when my husband took pity on me and made my cookies.
It was my first time making lasagna and thought I knew what I was doing so I did not read the directions. I did not boil the noodles and when the lasagna came out of the oven it was so hard and tough, some parts were even burned. The worst part was my Dad invited some coworkers over for dinner and they actually are most of the meal.
Oops, they actually ate most of the meal.
Well, this was not mine but a member of my family whose name I will withhold upon pain of being austrisized (Not sure if this is the word and I can’t spell so sorry).
It happened when she was just married. She said she was trying to make dinner. It was so bad that even the dog wouldn’t eat it. So she buried it and tried something else. The funny part was that started to grow out of the dirt so when her husband got home he found a place in back of their house bubbling up out of the ground.
When I was just learning to cook I wanted to make batter fried chicken. I remembered watching my mom so I carefully made a batter and dropped chicken legs into the batter and then dropped in hot oil. To my amazement the legs began to grow as they turned a lovely shade of brown and began to look like chicken leg balloons. When I removed from the oil and let cool a few minutes, I then picked up one of the legs and it sounded like something was rattling around inside. I cut it open and found a still partially raw chicken leg inside of a beautiful battered balloon. Nobody had told me not to use self rising flour. On the bright side I had invented the first Chicken leg Maracas.
Wanted to try something spicy for a change. Pulled a great recipe which included an additional recipe for its own seasoning. Made that special seasoning which was loaded with hot spices, set it aside. Worked on remainder of recipe. Came to the part about adding the seasoning & couldn’t find how much to add so added 1/2 BOWL (soup bowl size) I’d made. Come to find out when we sat down it was almost unbearably hot. Well seemed I missed the part about “1 tsp” of that seasoning….hahaha we all had a good laugh.
As many Love With Food lovers know, gluten free baking can be…tricky. To say the least. Every year, there are at least half a dozen gluten free baking fails in my kitchen as I continually am looking for the next best thing. Well, this thanksgiving was one pretty big baking fail.
Every year, my sister and I make great gluten free sugar cookies in the shape of turkeys, leaves, pumpkins, etc. This year, we couldn’t find our typical mix, so we figured any gluten free sugar cookie mix would work out, and boy were we wrong. We made the mix, threw it in the fridge for half the day, set up our GF flour dusted mat and rolling pin, everything was going per plan. Until we tried to roll it. The sugar cookie mix had the consistency of Elmer’s Glue. My sister and I were a bit frantic-people looked forward to our thanksgiving GF sugar cookies, decorated by yours truly! So, we threw the cookies in half-formed blobs on the cookie sheet and shoved them in the oven.
About 30 minutes later, the cookies had puffed up, looking cake-like. We pulled them out of the oven and shoved the cookie cutters on each one, attempting to salvage any thanksgiving shape out of our awkward circle cookie cake blobs.
Needless to say, people ate GF pie this year!
When my husband and I were still dating I wasn’t a great cook (I’m a little better now). I wanted to prepare a meal for him so I made baked fish, canned green beans, and mashed potatoes. My meal didn’t turn out as planned. I overlooked the fish so it was very dry and I put Way too much salt on it. The green beans were undercooked and lacked seasoning. My mashed potatoes were soupy. I felt bad serving my food but we had to eat, so we painfully ate our meal!
I was six months pregnant with twins at the time, when I tried to fried chicken. Now anytime I have ever tried to fry chicken it is failed miserably is a recipe that I cannot figure out. I have tried everybody sits and everybody’s ways and it always ends up a complete burnt disaster. I was cooking for my husband and my stepson at the time who is five years old and he was not too terribly excited about the thought of fried chicken anyways. I decided halfway through that the recipe was not going to turn out right but I stuck with it because I am stubborn and I didn’t want to admit that it failed again. As I’m pulling all of the chicken and putting it on the paper towel knowing that it didn’t turn out right I’m telling everybody that dinners done and that it didn’t come out right and we could just end up ordering something from somewhere. My stepson ended up screaming ” yeah I love KFC’s chicken fingers more anyways! I don’t like here for a hike chicken! ” I was so angry and upset I just looked at him and said ” I really don’t care what you think. ” my husband knew that I was upset and told Ethan just to be quiet and leave me alone and as we sat down to eat the dinner I just started crying and I had to run upstairs into my bedroom and shut the door and I sobbed like a baby for about 10 minutes . I dried it up felt better so I went downstairs and just sat back at the table like nothing happened. And my husband looks at me and says ” can we laugh about it now? ” I told him I am not crying about the fried chicken it was a build up of a lot of emotions over the past week and the chicken was the straw that broke the camels back. ” of course I was crying of the fried chicken I didn’t want him that it’s myself that my double hormones from the twins had really got me that emotional over something so silly . So then my husband and my stepson laughed at me .
My first thanksgiving with my second husband, we decided we was going to have a quiet night at home together. One of his friends gave him some deer steaks. I had never ate deer steaks, let alone cook them!! So his friend said he would write down how to cook them. I’m like okay ( a little worried) this is what my new husband wanted for thanksgiving dinner. So on the package it said 2 TBSP of salt. I don’t usually cook with salt, so I didn’t know if this was a lot of salt or not. Come to find out it was A LOT of salt. Deer meat is salty any ways. Ooops!! My husband choked down that first bite drank 3 glasses of water, 2 glasses of milk, and 2 glasses of soda with just the first bite. I did not eat the dear meat, but I didn’t take a bite of my cheeseburger til I found out how his dinner was. I was sitting there all anxious….I go so “How is it, Honey?” He goes “How much salt did you put in it??!!” My face fell, I go what the package said “Two tablespoons, why?” I thought he was gonna flip his lid. He goes “No deer is salty on its own. You don”t add that much salt. You must have read it wrong.” So I showed him the package his friend gave me. He called his friend and his friend is like “Oh no, its 2 teaspoons. I don’t know where you got that number at.” The guys got a good laugh out of it. I was heartbroken, my husband was a good sport he ate all of the very salty deer meat. The next day he took the package to work to show the guy who gave it to him. The guy goes “Yup, thats what I wrote alright.” To this day my husband will tell me that I’m not allowed near any deer meat no matter how it is fixed. It is the big joke around our house at Thanksgiving as well. I hope ya’ll get a laugh out of my first thanksgiving.