Why you should always read the whole recipe - Holiday advise

[BevP]

One Christmas I decided to make a 12th night cake. So I wrote out the ingredients, hunted for exotic things like candied lemon peel (it was a small town, ok) and on Christmas eve started cookin'! 12th night cake is a fruit cake but I was cooking ignorant then and didn't know.

Despite difficulties, I managed to get the batter in the pan and cooked it in the oven. After I pulled it out, I read the final step: Wrap in a brandy soaked cheesecloth and place in a dark corner for 2 weeks. Hmmmmmm. Tomorrow is dinner and friends are coming over.

Well, as long as you cut it paper thin....it was edible. Friends and I had a great laugh.

Moral is - ALLWAYS READ THROUGH THE ENTIRE RECIPE

[BarbaraL]

Thanks for the laugh . . . and for sharing. We've all been there. I made a Black forest cake (husband's favorite) for Christmas once. Very fancy; bake 2 layers, cut in half, different filling between each layer. I DID read through the recipe, but the direction "soak cherries in kirsch for an hour or two" (or some extended period of time) didn't register. Naturally, the cherries went on the bottom layer, so cake preparation came to a screeching halt. Finished the cake at 2 in the morning. It was delicious; husband raved about it -- but haven't made it again since!

[bijoux22]

Same thing happened to me when I first made tamales. I was so excited to finally find all the ingredients (masa harina flour & dried corn husks to name a few) that I could not wait to make them for dinner. I began the somewhat time consuming process of making the filling and dough, then putting filled dough into soaked cornhusks that I neglected to read that they then needed to be steamed for 2 hours! Well, we had a very late dinner at 11pm. They were awesome though