Favorite Family Food Failures

[Cooking Goddess]

Whiskadoodle's "granddad's chicken" post in yesterday's dinner thread got me reminiscing again about humorous kitchen disasters. The kind that aren't exactly funny at that moment but grow into tall tales after the event. Gather 'round the virtual campfire and tell your tale.

When I was about 10, Mom decided to make from-scratch "no fail cupcakes". The idea was to add each ingredient exactly in the order shown in the recipe. Mom realized that she forgot the sugar right after putting the pan in the oven. Out came the cupcake pan, each paper being scraped clean of its batter, then the sugar was added in. Back into clean papers in the tin and baked. They looked normal enough when they came out of the oven - until you took the paper off and looked at the bottom. Each one had a cone-shaped depression in the middle, and the cake consistency was rather heavy. We promptly dubbed them "Bullet Cupcakes"...and Mom used a box mix from that day forward.

I have my own failures, too, but this story has been a favorite for decades. What stories are told and re-told around your supper table?

 

[blissful]

Well, there's the one about the first time thanksgiving cook making a turkey and leaving the baby inside it...cooking a pregnant turkey, first time cook was horrified, it was the innards that were never removed.

There's the one about the first time toffee maker using a plastic spatula and wondering how that spatula melted into the boiling sugar syrup.

Then there's the one one about the person baking the 3-d cake with the top on, even though it wasn't designed to have the top on, the cake pans were designed to cook separately and then glued together with frosting, so the cake batter baked all over the bottom of the oven.

What about the one from college days. A bunch of friends come over and are drinking so we decide to make pizza. A week later, once sobered up we find a dead dried pizza still in the oven having no resemblance to anything but cardboard.

What have *I* done that was a food failure? Me? ha ha, almost anything that can go wrong, does. I'm still making food for 6 people and there are only 3 of us here. I'm not even planning on getting over that one.

 

[medtran49]

The turkey "baby" story I heard was somebody slipped a cornish hen in the turkey for the first time cook to find after cooking.

 

[Merlot]

The first time I tried cast iron cornbread in a skillet I thought I had to pour all the oil in while it was preheating, then mix in the other ingredients.

 

[Merlot]

Before I knew ingredients I went to a nicer restaurant and thought that my horseradish mashed potatoes had a hair in it

 

[rodentraiser]

I have made a lot of booboos learning to cook, but at least I haven't done what my friend did: she spent all afternoon stuffing and baking her turkey for Thanksgiving, and she and her sister were disappointed to find it had so little meat on it.

Turns out she put it in breast side down and couldn't tell one side from the other.

My mom still talks about the lemon meringue pie she made when she was just married. She doesn't know what she did to it, but the lemon part came out looking and acting like glue.

My totally stupid thing I did was to put some meat on the broiler pan, stick it in the broiler under the oven and turn the oven to broil.

I waited 30 minutes for it to cook and went to check it, only to find the broiler was inside the oven and going along merrily, while the meat in the drawer below the oven was as cold and raw as ever. *sigh*

 

[Cooking Goddess]

...I'm still making food for 6 people and there are only 3 of us here. I'm not even planning on getting over that one.

That's not a failure, bliss, it's planned leftovers! I do the same thing...Dawg does the same thing...lots of us cook for an army. Yay for (un)planned leftovers!

 

[Cooking Goddess]

...My mom still talks about the lemon meringue pie she made when she was just married. She doesn't know what she did to it, but the lemon part came out looking and acting like glue...

Our family's pie story involves a pumpkin one and Thanksgiving. One year Mom forgot the sugar. Smarty me said I'd make it next year so it was done right. Come the next Thanksgiving and Himself and I are on speakerphone talking to his Dad in FL while I'm baking. It stood to reason that I would naturally forget the sugar! Thankfully my Mom (who was hosting dinner that year) had bought two cans of Reddi-Whip. Ya know, with enough of that stuff you really don't notice no sugar...

 

[PrincessFiona60]

I tried to make harvard beets without following the recipe. Ended up with pink paste with red spots in it.

 

[taxlady]

There was the time my dad was asked to buy marshmallows for s'mores. He brought home marshmallow creme in a jar. We had to explain the part about toasting the marshmallows over an open fire.

 

[CraigC]

My grandmother once made a hot milk cake that fell. Thing was we all thought it was great and asked if she could make it again.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

I made a frosting for a cake and it turned to marshmallow..this was for a PTA meeting that I was attending for my Mom when my brother was in grade school. Everyone liked it but I was horrified how it turned out.

 

[CakePoet]

As pregnant I poured strawberry syrup instead of soy sauce into my spag bol sauce... it actually turned out really good.

 

[Just Cooking]

I've had too many to list so..

A family one we still laugh about is, soon after our daughter married, my wife wanted our new son-in-law to feel included.. She asked him to rinse and dry the Thanksgiving turkey.. Sure enough, I walked into the kitchen and Gary was scrubbing the turkey with dish soap and a brush... He still hasn't lived that one down...

Ross

 

[jabbur]

Mine was when I was around 13. We had learned to make baked alaska in home ec class (remember those?). For my brother's birthday, he asked for lasagna and baked alaska. I offered to make the meal. I followed Mom's recipe for the lasagna and baked it. The pan was a tad small for the recipe and I forgot to put the cookie sheet under the pan like Mom. The lasagna bubbled over the pan onto the oven floor. Mom said not to worry and she'd clean the oven in the morning. Well, then after supper, I went to make the baked alaska. Pre-heat the oven to 500°. Check. Begin to assemble the dessert. What is that smell? The cheese on the oven floor had caught fire! We still talk about it 45 years later!

 

[cjmmytunes]

My mom once made a nut cake (my grandmother's recipe) and forgot to put the sugar in it - turned out to be nut bread. It was still good, and since we've both been diagnosed as diabetic we've started making it more and more.

 

[Addie]

I was making the batter for English Muffins. I got interrupted by one of the kids and then went back to the recipe. Picked up where I thought I had left off. Doubled the milk and thought it was rather soupy. But continued. I made one muffin. It refused to rise or even brown. Tossed the whole bowl of batter out.

Had to start from scratch all over again. Only this time I forgot the yeast. That was not my day for making English Muffins.

 

[RPCookin]

Many years ago when we were kids, Mom often made chili for dinner. She always used kidney beans in it, and one time my sister, about age 7 at the time, found a kidney bean with legs... turned out to be a cricket. To this day she won't touch anything with kidney beans in it.

On a humorous note, my brother was home for the holidays one year while he was going to college. He was a chemical engineering major, and quite full of himself with all of this higher education bubbling out of his ears. Mom had made a pumpkin pie for dessert. Since we were a family of 5, there was usually one piece of pie left over for use to deal with.

My brilliant brother decided that he would solve that problem and measured out a perfect pentagon on the top of the pie. He then cut it as he had laid it out, and as I had expected, he came out with 5 pieces, none of which was the same size as any other one. To this day, when we siblings get together, we always ask him if he wants to cut the pie.

 

[blissful]

On a humorous note, my brother was home for the holidays one year while he was going to college. He was a chemical engineering major, and quite full of himself with all of this higher education bubbling out of his ears.

My brilliant brother decided that he would solve that problem and measured out a perfect pentagon on the top of the pie. He then cut it as he had laid it out, and as I had expected, he came out with 5 pieces, none of which was the same size as any other one. To this day, when we siblings get together, we always ask him if he wants to cut the pie.

That is funny!

 

[Whiskadoodle]

I was having friends over for dinner. They were late. I was twitching. What else can I do to get ready. Decided to put the vinaigrette on the spinach salad. Then I proceeded to watch the spinach wilt.

We were just talking about this-- when Jr was a growing boy, we used to go to the all-you-can-eat buffet. One time, after about his third plate of breaded mystery meat with gravy, his Gram noted to him, she didn't realize he liked liver so much. Liver! That is the last bite of that he ever ate.

We have made dinner rolls that burned on the bottoms but still doughy in the centers. I successfully made popovers, that somehow welded themselves to the top of the oven. Secret, use a lower oven rack.

For many years, I was an expert at making lumpy, too thick gravy. Also too stubborn to learn how. I probably am still an "expert" at a lot of things, although I think I am more likely to open up and learn or ask for direction how to do something.