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Culinary Disasters

One great aspect of cooking is being able to laugh at ourselves when things just don't go right. Any experiences?

My best happened a couple of weeks ago. I was supposed to make a dessert for a Church function - it was a contest to see which of the men could make the best dessert, as judged by the women. I had the brilliant idea to put chocolate mousse on top of a type of cherry pie. I bought a graham cracker crust and a can of cherry pie filling, and got to work.

Everything started out fine. I was mixing up the mousse, and it looked really
good and fluffy - until I tried to add the melted chocolate. Suddenly, the whole thing was flat and runny. I whipped and whipped, but it was dead. "Hmm..." I thought, "What could I put in to make it puff up?"

AHA! Whipped topping mix! I tossed in a packet, and when it seemed like it was having a bit of an effect, I put in one more. The chocolate, um, stuff (it wasn't mousse any more) tasted fine, and I thought it was thick enough to put on top of the cherry pie I had thrown together. Unfortunately, it still didn't want to keep its
shape. "Hmm..." I thought, "How could I make it more solid?"

I reasoned that the mousse had most of the same ingredients as a kind of chocolate meringue, so I should be able to bake it, and it would get a crust on the outside to hold it together. I tossed it in the oven for awhile, and it got a nice brown crust on top. It also started flattening out and expanding beyond the sides of the pie tin. My pie had become the Blob that Ate Tokyo. I knew I could never get it to the Church like that, with goop oozing out the sides. "Hmm..." I thought, "How can I get it to stop leaking?

AHA! I have a heat gun! I got it out of the closet, and used it to rapidly bake shut the edges of the horrendous-looking pie. Then, I put the plate on a cookie sheet and took it to my truck. I propped it up on a binder to keep it level, and the first major turn I took, the pie shifted and sloshed all over the passenger's seat.

When I got there, I scooped as much as I could of the chocolate meringue back into the pie, and plopped it upside down on a large glass plate. I declared it "Cherry Chocolate Meringue-A-Dang Upside-Down Pie." It looked terrible, but I thought it tasted fine. I got third place.

Disasters Culinary

This is one of the funniest stories I have ever heard! I don't have anything that funny!

I was making chili for a chili cook off and my chili is always excellent. This time, I had some issues thickening up the chili and time was running out to finish it off. I added cup after cup of corn starch goop to thicken it up, but no dice. I finally gave up and just waited by turn for the judges. I stopped watching it and sat until they passed by. When they came over to judge my chili, I realized instantly that something was wrong. They tried to pull out a spoon full and the wooden spoon broke! It had indeed thickened up, but WAY to much! I didn't place, but I got two bids from a brick company!

Culinary Disasters Reviews Consumer & Travel Family Culture

I know I have had tons of mishaps in the kitchen, but the funny one I can come up with happened when I was about twelve. I decided I wanted to make a cake, and frosting to go with it. I even got the stuff to make the frosting homemade. Well, I went through the whole ordeal of homemaking the cake, no cake mix, and making the frosting. Well, I went to mix the cake with a mixer, did that, but I did it in the sink so I didn't make a mess. Being twelve years old, I didn't have a huge grasp on being able to cook without making a huge mess. Well, I made part of the cake in one bowl, and was washing it out so that I could resuse it for something else. When I went to dump the soapy water, I dumped part of it into the cake batter I had left sitting in the sink.

Woops.

Well, it seemed like a waste...all that work going to waste. So, I baked it anyways! It was my first cake, and all that... I knew which corner to stay away from. I got a lot of compliments on how spongy it was.

Disasters Culinary

I used to be absolutely hopeless at cookery at school.
I had one of the worst reputations in the class for my standard of cooking!

One time, we had to make sausage rolls, and everyone was laughing at how mine came out like rocks, somebody as a laugh threw one up, and it hit the ceiling and stayed there! It stuck solid to the ceiling, and school couldn't get it off, so left it there, and painted over it!
I have never been let to live this one down!

All I can say is it's a good job things have improved since then

Disasters Culinary

Oh my gosh! These stories are making me laugh so loud...specially this one from Konquerez:

This reminded me of so much to those old Three Stooges shows! The same thing with DianeC story.

I have hundreds of culinary disasters, specially while making bread or baking a cake but none of them are funny enough to share.

Culinary Disasters

These are some great stories!

Quite awhile back I had a job cooking at a buffet restaurant where things could get pretty hectic at times.

We used Uncle Ben's brand rice, and unbeknownst to me, good old "Uncle Ben" decided to put paper coupons in the box. in my haste, I cooked that coupon in the rice and it shredded into little pieces when I stirred it. So, the "camouflaged" coupon got accidentally served to the customers.

Well, people were picking paper out of their teeth. I didn't get fired, but I did get a good chewing (no pun intended)