Poll - Your culinary failures

[funnybone]

I'm sure that the best cooks/bakers in the world have one thing that they try making that never turns out.

Mine would have to be pie crusts. Even if it looks nicely rolled out, once it is baked, I never get a flakey crust. I'm not over blending the shortening, as I have heard that coarser pieces make for a flakier crust. I have tried numerous recipes, but nothing is "fantastic". I ususally stick to crips for that reason.

Another would be baking anything with yeast, that cannot be done in the bread machine. I just don't have the patience for yeast I guess. I hate the waiting for the next step.

I'm interested in hearing about your failures.

[makedah]

I'm afraid to try breads because I am afraid to fail. But I will make an attempt soon. I made a pizza crust once that was tough and chewy.

I guess my biggest failure has been with beans. I like the Nile Soups Black Bean cupa soup, and I like baked beans in restaurants. But the bean soups I have tried were nothing like the cupa soup (they weren't spicy at all), and the baked beans I made tasted like canned pork and beans - yuk! I'm to the point now where I avoid bean recipes. And its a shame...

[lorilei]

The one failure I can recall is my attempt at making dolmas.

The poor little rolls never quite cooked properly. First, they were undercooked. Then I cooked them a bit longer and they still seemed undercooked. Finally I steamed them in my steamer... they STILL turned out crunchy. And though they TASTED wonderful, I wouldn't exactly consider them a success!

Next time, I'm adjusting my whole technique!

[Longhorn]

HA!! Funny you should ask. The pizza I made last night was a disaster! It stuck to the peel in one place as I was sliding it onto the stone, I had topping all over my stone, the pizza was oblong rather than round (because one side had folded under). AND, I burned my fingers because I had to stand in front of my oven for so long trying to get the stupid pizza to slide onto the stone! Good thing my kitchen is so small that I could just reach my arm behind me to grab a pancake turner to help wiggle the pizza off. Grrrrr!

[Jewel]

A few months ago I was having a few people over for dinner and decided to make Chicken Milano. For hours I chopped veggies, snipped sun-dried tomatoes with kitchen shears (tough job!), grated fresh Parmesan Reggiano, and got everything ready. It called for 2 cups of Heavy Cream! Well, I'd read in several places that I could substitute fat free evaporated milk for heavy cream! So I measured everything and had it all waiting to make this spectacular chunky 'sauce' to go over my linguini, once the guests had arrived. Everthing was on the table and one of my guests was standing over me in the kitchen telling me how good everything smelled! I was preening, accepting compliments, while mixing. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/wink.gif I poured the evap milk into the broth/veggie mixture and brought it to a boil as the recipe stated....and the whole mixture curdled like cottage cheese! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/mad.gif

At that time I didn't know you weren't supposed to use Evaporated Milk as a substitution for cream if the mixture had to boil to thicken. I was horrified! I had to dump the entire mixture (with her still standing there in my kitchen), pull out an envelope of Knorr Alfredo Sauce, and mix it up quickly. Ended up making spontaneus Chicken Alfredo over Linguine, but at least we didn't have to send out for Chinese. I was so embarrassed! My hubby grinned at everyone and said "See what I have to put up with every night when she tries to cook!" http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/eek.gif I swatted him, and it got everyone laughing, but that's the last time I try a new technique on friends! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif

[tovie]

I guess my most recent would be making a real, cook-in-oven cheesecake, which I'd made once before with no trouble. I had offered to make dinner for a friend and her kids and she begged me to make a cheesecake for dessert. I really didn't want to cause I had a whole bunch of other cooking to do that weekend in addition to the dinner. Finally, when she offered to buy all the ingredients, I gave in. So I gave her a list of ingredients and decided I would have to make it at her house, before dinner, since she lives a fair distance away. So, on my way out the door, I grabbed my cheesecake pan, never even thinking that she might not have anything else I might need. And I really, really should have know better because I know she doesn't cook much (We've had a standing joke for years that she wouldn't know what to do without Hamburger Helper and cake mixes and I wouldn't know what to do with them).

I got there to discover that she hadn't been able to find chocolate wafers for the crust, so she'd bought choc vanilla wafers. Which really wasn't a big deal except she didn't have a food processor or a blender to pulverize them in. And those things would not crush for anything! We put them in a ziplock bag and turned a kid loose on them with a heavy can. But I finally gave up and just used chunks.

So, next I asked for a mixer. She produced two small, handheld ones (but I should have known we were in trouble when it took a half hour to find matching beaters that fit <g> ). I started off beating the cream cheese and adding ingredients, then left her mixing while I melted chocolate. While my back was turned the batter crept up the beaters and burned the mixer out and when I turned around to see what was happening, the chocolate scorched cause the microwave apparently had only one setting (char!).

The second attempt to melt choc worked better and I managed to keep the second mixer working, but the cream cheese never did incorporate into the batter. We ended up with a brown, soupy, lumpy batter that looked like someone had stirred cottage cheese into it.

Into the oven it went for 1 hour. Only it wasn't done... and wasn't done... and wasn't done. And dinner was long done and gone. Finally, I took it out only to realize that cheesecake is something that you really need to eat cold. As in really cold, not lukewarm from the oven. So we cleaned out the freezer and put it in there. Only it didn't cool off and didn't cool off and finally it was about 10:30 pm (and she had to be to work at midnight and I still had to drive home). So I made the choc ganache and iced it anyway. And we ate lukewarm cheesecake, which I thought was pretty sorry but the kids loved it.

It still had a kind of bizarre texture but I did like it better the next day once it was chilled all the way through.

[Leslie w]

All your posts made me laugh! While I love CL recipes I often find that many of them need to be doctored up w/ additional seasoning. So I have found through trial, error and a lot of bland meals I've given to friends that I need to make the recipes at least once before so I can iron out the problems. However, one food that drives me nuts when I entertain is potatoes. I can make all types of potatoe dishes for my husband and they always come out perfect. Whenever I throw a party and try to make a potato dish like scalloped or au gratin, the potatoes never seem to cook right and up hard. Even if I make the dish hours in advance!

[mandarin2j]

I had a devil of a time making the whiskey caramel sauce that goes with the bread pudding from the March issue. The first time, it was perfect, so I decided to do it for our St. Paddy's dinner party. I went through three tries (and about 9 cups of sugar, 2 cubes of butter, and 1 pack of cream cheese) before I decided to just live with the not-really-caramel results on my fourth try. The first two times, the sugar got to the crystalization stage and skipped becoming golden altogether. The last two times, I was so intent on avoiding the crystalization that I mixed in the butter and cream cheese too soon. I tried to split the difference by using my candy thermometer and adding the butter and cream cheese when it got just past the "soft ball" stage, but it was still underdone. Arrgh! The only thing I can figure out that I did differently from the first time I made it was that I doubled the recipe.

Whatever the case, my guests didn't seem to mind the milky sauce that accompanied the bread pudding. But it still bothered ME, knowing what it should look like! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/mad.gif

[BeckyM]

I would have to say working with Filo dough. I can never get it to work without tearing. I follow the directions to cover the stuff I'm not using with a damp cloth, but somehow it dries out on me anyway. The few times I've tried, I've been making some sort of dumpling kind of thing, and the dough tears, and filling is falling out all over the place, and it makes a huge mess! I try to press the dough back together, but I've found that to be hopeless. So now I avoid all recipes calling for filo dough. I'm thinking MAYBE I could manage it in a recipe where you just keep it in sheets and don't try to manipulate it too much, but so far I've been chicken to try again! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/redface.gif

[This message has been edited by BeckyM (edited 03-21-2001).]

[m4star]

My most recent failure- and I have way too many to list- was with caramel sauce for flan. I had 4 people over for dinner and I thought flan would make a lovely dessert. The custard part is so easy. I love egg custard so I make it all the time. But people usually like it with sauce, as in flan, so I thought I'd just whip some up. I mean, how difficult could it really be?

Well I get the sugar and water into the saucepan, and the recipe says not to let the sugar crystalize on the side of the pan. So I get out my rubber spatula to scrape...and of course the thing begins to melt right into the sugar. My guests are all hovering around me while I'll quietly melt plastic into their dessert!! I was horrified! So quickly I pop the custard into the oven, yank the sauce pan off the stove (burning myself on the hot sugar), fill the saucepan with water and just let it sit in the sink. I grabbed the few fresh berries I had on hand (thank goodness) and use those as a make shift topping and covered with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and cinnamon. It worked out ok and no one seemed to notice my failure except they all kept saying how "light" my meal was, when I would have loved to have heard how decadent and sumptuous it was!

[AndreaU]

Not really MY failure, it was my husband's! (probably why he doesn't cook) Before we married, he tried to impress me by cooking dinner- a nice pasta with pesto, bread, salad, etc. Well, not being a cook, he mistakingly put in several HEADS of garlic instead of CLOVES!! Wowza, what a kicker of a sauce! We managed to eat it (otherwise we would have gone hungry), but WOW! I like garlic, but that was ridiculous.

[JHolcomb]

All your posts make me feel better about my 2 worst kitchen experiments (and I do mean experiments). First of all, they both involve soy products. The first, a tofu cheesecake, wasn't exactly a disaster. It was just the most disgusting thing I have ever, ever made. And that's the way it was supposed to taste. Yuck!

Anyway, the real failure was when I tried to make homemade tofu. It's been so long that I don't really even remember the process. All I remember is that, somehow, Epsom Salt was supposed to curdle the soy mixture, but it didn't. The result looked and smelled a lot like wallpaper paste. Thus ended my experiments with tofu.

[Lisa C]

You guys can always give me a good laugh!

The one thing that I can NOT make (though I keep trying) is risotto. No matter what I try, I can't get the rice to cook and the whole thing just ends up rather soupy. The worst part is, I can just keep cooking and cooking and the darn hard rice won't absorb any more liquid.

I'm not giving up, though...

[Julia1Pin]

LisaC-

Are you using Arborio rice?

Risotto is actually one of the things that I always do well (knock on wood). I don't find that I have to stand over it all the time, or stir it all the time. I can be making other food and just stir every couple of minutes or so.

[Gail]

Ah yes... that would be the croquetas I made for Christmas appetizers a couple of years ago. I've made chicken croquettes plenty of times; beef croquetas plenty of times. But this particular recipe-- using ground-up ham-- was a new one. Although it is normally my policy NOT to try new recipes on guests, I got cocky and figured what the heck, I'm a croqueta pro.

Wrong!

Imagine my disgust when the filling never firmed up and I ended up with a lovely golden deep-fried capsule of ham moosh. Just thinking about it now makes my insides crawl. My guests were sooo disappointed when I came out and announced "Sorry, no croquetas." http://cwm.ragesofsanity.com/s/cwm2/cwm14.gif

[valeriek]

My most recent failure (in a long list mind you) would have to be the gnocci I tried to make. I can't even describe to what they looked like floating in the water - almost like eyeballs missing the cornea. They were all white and pasty looking and falling to peices in the water. I beleive I cooked them too long. Thank Goodness for Chinese take-out! I've decided to stick to the store bought gnocci.

[BarbaraL]

ValerieK, what a descriptive post! Thanks for my laugh for the day!

[Emdg]

My failure was also a gnocci. I have made plain gnocci before, with great results. I tried out a new recipe for parsley gnocci...very time consuming. I got them all made and sitting on the cooktop ready to go in the water. A beautiful salad all made and in the fridge. Well, in go the gnocci, and they immediately disintegrate into some sort of goo. A few of them sort of came out, so I dish them up and sauce them, and put them on the table. Go to the fridge to get the salad, the salad bowl falls out when I open the door, and dumps all over the floor!

All in all, not a good night!

[SusanL]

This thread really kept me laughing all the way through! That delicious but short triple lemon genoise (sp?) cake. Made it for my mother's birthday, it was delicious but really short, my mom is not even 5 feet tall, could that be the answer? The kicker is that she requested it for Easter dinner!

Does anyone have a problem when making food for company that you always seem to forget one thing? Even if I have a list and time schedule, I seem to overlook one item. I am well-known for serving a dish of grapes as a side dish- we were to have a potato dish but thought grapes would go well with the meal. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/eek.gif

[Mamasue]

My failure is the art of pizza making! I just can't make a decent pizza. Every now and then I will give it a shot and try again and it just doesn't cut the cake! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif I am so jealous of all the pizza makers here on CL and some day....just some day, I will master it....hopefully soon. I have no problem with pie crusts, gnocchi, pasta, etc. Oh, I have an idea...lets get together. I will give a pasta class and someone can instruct me on the Fine Art of Pizza Making! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif

[lindrusso]

Oh I can relate to many of these posts - especially those involving caramel! And I believe my mom also made the head for clove of garlic mistake!!!

I cannot master candy-making. My first attempt at brickle resulted in a crystallized brick of sugar and nuts - great for building a house, but for human consumption!!

Then I tried to make popcorn balls. I could not get the caramel to the right stage - it was too runny and not dark enough - I think I just didn't wait long enough. So I tossed the first batch and tried again. Better the second time, but not great. The thing with caramel is that it just doesn't taste as good if it doesn't get to the proper temp. But I decided to proceed with the chocolate drizzle anyway - and the chocolate wouldn't drizzle - it just clumped on the sad little popcorn balls. Argh!

What I really need to do is give candy-making a try when I really don't need to make anything - so that there is no pressure. Some day....when I have a LOT of extra patience to spare!

[CeeCee]

These are just too funny - mine is cooking lentils - I've tried several times to make the Indian soup - dal - and no success - either the lentils are hard or the soup is bland, or something. I'm about to give up. We bought some lentils at an Indian Grocery in NYC while visiting there as my husband really wants some of this but I'm afraid to try again!

[DmOrtega]

My first real disaster was when I was trying to impress my boyfreind at the time (quite a while ago). I really didn't cook much but I figured I can't ruin rice crispie treats. Wrong. I think I put in a couple of tablespoons of melted margarine to the 7 cups of rice crispies (no I didn't use a measuring cup because I thought I could estimate). After much anticipation, my then boyfriend could not bite into them nor could I. Now, you'd think I would toss them out. No... I put them on top of the fridge. Maybe somewhere in my mind I thought they would soften up. Nope... they just got harder and I had to chisle them out of the pan to throw them away several days later. Since then, I have made them from time to time and for some weird reason they are usually too soft. I have had to throw them out because I didn't want to eat them with a spoon. Could there be any connection to my experience, earlier in life ? Hmm, I wonder.
I don't give up very easily, because I really like to eat these. So, when I do have a good batch, I feel pretty proud. When I don't, oh well, I just try again another day.

[neenbeez]

Anyone at altitude out there?

I grew up at sea level and my first cooking experiences were with baking. But after I moved to Denver, CO (the Mile High City!) I didn't do too much baking.

Well, last year I decided I was going to make my daughter a from-scratch birthday cake for her 3rd birthday. (Thank God it was only for her, me & her very patient Daddy!)

Well, I didn't even think about altitude adjustments for baking, and I have to tell you, that cake looked like a crater in the Arizone desert. Fortunately, my little lovey-do loves icing because the center of the cake was pretty much an icing ocean.

I now buy Betty Crocker and follow the High Altitude directions--works every time.

[RobinC]

I tried to make my mom's homemade caramel nut logs. I could not even get past making the nougat center. Every time I tried to pour the sugar syrup into the meringue, I ended up with scrambled egg whites. I went through so many egg whites and cups of sugar trying to get it to work. And yes, I even tried very hard to pour the syrup in a thin stream. Mom came over and whipped up a beautiful batch without a hitch.

I am also a failure at making icing for decorating cakes. I was making a wedding cake for some friends of mine - finishing the decorating on the morning of the wedding. After a couple of curdled batches of icing, I hauled my mixer over to my favorite cake decorating shop for some emergency icing lessons. (Well, maybe I stood there sniffling while the very experienced ladies whipped up a batch for me http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/redface.gif )

Oh, I also cannot cook bacon or pork sausage with out burning it to an unrecognizable crisp.

[Lisa C]

Originally posted by Julia1Pin:
LisaC-

Are you using Arborio rice?

Risotto is actually one of the things that I always do well (knock on wood). I don't find that I have to stand over it all the time, or stir it all the time. I can be making other food and just stir every couple of minutes or so.


Believe it or not, I am using Arborio rice. It did occur to me after I posted this, however, that it was always from the same package. I just dumped that and bought a new box, so I'm trying it again tomorrow. I'm determined to make it work!

[woodsl]

My rissoto is always gummy, but then my rice is gummy about half of the time. However, my biggest cooking disaster involved making chocolate bowls to serve homemade German Chocoloate Ice Cream. I got in on the middle of some cooking show where they showed how to make chocolate bowls by dipping small round balloons in melted chocolate and popping the balloons when the chocolate was hard. I thought - how cool. But I guess I missed the part where they said to let the chocolate cool somewhat or the balloons will pop. I had three of them sitting on the counter when the first two popped. Chocolate was everywhere. I cleaned that up. The last balloon had not popped; so I thought the chocolate was cool enough. Not so. I dipped another balloon and about 1 min. later it popped. More chocolate everywhere. At this point, I was determined these stupid bowls would not beat me and managed to make the rest of the bowls by sitting them in a box so if they popped, I only had a chocolate box, not a chocolate kitchen. Of course, no others popped. My guests for dinner that night were duly impressed with the chocolate bowls. But the funniest part was the next morning. As I was getting in the shower I glanced in the mirror and noticed what I thought was a large bruise on my bottom. It wasn't a bruise; it was chocolate. I promise I was not making these bowls in the buff. I have no idea how it got there - it also survived a shower the night before. My husband and I still laugh about those chocolate bowls. Needless to say, I have not tried making them again.

[This message has been edited by woodsl (edited 03-24-2001).]

[Gail]

woodsl,

I think that one belongs in the Cooking Disaster Hall of Fame, accompanied by m4star's melting spatula. The mental pictures evoked by both of these stories are priceless! (although I'm sure they weren't funny at the time)

Thanks for sharing these hilarious stories!

[woodsl]

Originally posted by Gail:
woodsl,

I think that one belongs in the Cooking Disaster Hall of Fame, accompanied by m4star's melting spatula. The mental pictures evoked by both of these stories are priceless! (although I'm sure they weren't funny at the time)

Thanks for sharing these hilarious stories!

Actually when the first balloons popped, I doubled over with laughter - it just struck me funny. It probably goes without saying that I was covered with splattered chocolate, but I did not mention that my cat also got caught in the first onslaught of chocolate. However, the second time was not so funny - for some reason the chocolate flew further and hit the kitchen ceiling and the "off white" carpet just outside the kitchen door. Quite a few four letter words did fly out of my mouth at that point. My 13 year old cat was NOT a happy camper because she got a bath - I think the second of her life. I had heard that dogs were allergic to chocolate. I didn't know about cats, but the vet was closed and I didn't want to take a chance. So, while I cleaned up the mess, my husband (bless his heart for this one) gave the cat a quick bath.

[JennieL]

I enjoyed everyone's posts. I remember my Dad making Gnocci when I was a child and it was not edible. I've never gotten over this fear to try making it myself. Pizza crust is a mystery. Sometimes it's fabulous and other times dreadful.

[kirkbyky]

The only gnocci I've ever made is Bean. Take a 15oz can of white beans (or cook your own), mash them to desired consistency and add 1 egg & 3/4 - 1 c of flour. The 'dough' will be sticky-ish, put more flour on a board & 'roll' gnocci into a log approx the width of your thumb, slice diagonally & drop into boiling h20. yessss-they DO look like eyeballs http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/eek.gif for some strange reason, but there great with sauce. This was a great thread, we should do one now for our masterpieces!

[This message has been edited by kirkbyky (edited 03-25-2001).]