Cooking disasters

If it was me, I'd say I got 'distracted'!

Oh, ROMILO, I feel your pain, as I have done the same thing before. It’s absolutely infuriating and frustrating. My excuse is the same as for any daft thing I do (of which there are many), “My head is so full of knowledge by this age that I have no room left for the minutiae of the everyday” (Or, in other words, my brain has gone into ‘overload’ mode)

I have done that too! Easy mistake.

I’ve done it too! And once when I was nowhere near old age. Just mind elsewhere…
So annoying, though!

Many years ago i made a Simnel cake, two layers of fruit cake cooked with a layer of marzipan in the centre.

I took it out of the oven and immediately turned it out onto cake rack, completly forgetting fruit cake should be cooled in the tin, not to mention the effect of a layer of molten maripan in the middle. Need I say more?

Away with the fairies, I once made a batch of Victoria sponge mix, put it in two sandwich tins, and into the preheated oven.

Only to remember maybe 10 minutes later that I was supposed to be making fairy cakes for one of the Gdcs’ birthday parties!

Needless to say, I had to start again, and go out for more eggs, too.

I dislike cooking immensely most of my attempts are disasters and I may be the only person here who can burn water any takers ?

My specialty bake is a sticky ginger cake. I made it one time to take to my daughter’s when I went to visit. Got it out of the oven and saw it hadn’t risen at all. I had forgotten the three quarter teaspoon of baking soda! I had a ginger flavour brick.

We had slow cooked some braising steak in a Pyrex dish the oven then not thinking put it on open flame to thicken gravy hence a explosion with braising steak stuck to ceiling and glass everwhere.

One summer evening I poured six ounces of salt into my cheese cake mix .
Someone had rearranged the kitchen jars .
It was foul .

I don't know what happened,but the top came off a borrowed pressure cooker and the newly painted kitchen was lavishly decorated with marmalade.

My most recent was a pavlova which must be left to cool in the oven.

Oven duly off but I forgot to take it out and later turned the oven up high to cook the next thing. The smell of burnt meringue is really horrid. 😢

Newly married in 1965, I had never seen chillies, and peppers were pretty new-fangled.
Anyway, I bought some "little peppers" and added them to the beef stew.
Needless to say, the whole lot was inedible and had to be thrown away.

My worst disaster was cooking the Xmas ham and instead of just removing the skin, I removed the fat as well without thinking…..nothing to glaze or stud with cloves. I was so cross with myself!

I cooked an extremely large casserole in a huge biblical like pot left to me by my MIL for a family gathering.
When the doorbell rang, I was levering it out of the oven with oven gloves and it crashed on to the kitchen floor, bits of pottery and food everywhere.
My DH was trying to rescue the food from the floor, saying it was ok!
We ended up with a Chinese takeaway.

I was making potato quiche a couple of days ago ready for breakfast. I was just about to put the potato crust in the air fryer for baking and as I lifted it off the counter I dropped it. Mashed potato all over the floor.

Made another one. Baked it the next morning. Got it out of the air fryer and dropped it on the floor. Mashed potato and egg all over the floor.

Finally got to eat one this morning.

Please can you post your sticky ginger cake recipe as however hard I tried my last effort was very dry...oh dear! Thank you

Poor Romilo!! This made me laugh because I have done exactly the same thing having simmered bones for hours. Forgot to put the bowl under the sieve and most of my lovely, golden broth went down the sink!!

BlueBelle

I dislike cooking immensely most of my attempts are disasters and I may be the only person here who can burn water any takers ?

I think most of us have burnt water at some stage. Over the last 40+ years I must have burnt just about every dish I've ever made at least once.

Very few people are natural cooks I think, for most of us it takes at least a bit of effort. I have such a poor memory that I have to write absolutely everything down - I really envy people who can fling a handful of this or that in a bowl, stir it up and get some scrumptious pudding.

I have memories from when I made Baked Alaska for pudding for friends, my first 'grown-up' dinner party. I forgot it was in the oven and leaped up from the table yelling 'Oh no! The burnt Alaska! The burnt Alaska will be burnt!' which had everyone in fits so they forgave the burnt meringue and melted ice-cream.

My first year of marriage and parents in law were coming to Christmas lunch. They were tee total and sticklers for lunch at 13.00. We got home very late on Christmas eve, I decided to use the oven timer to switch the oven on for the turkey so I didn't have to get up too early. It switched on OK but unfortunately it also switched itself off after an hour. I was in such a faff about cooking a meal for my in laws that I didn't notice, so nothing got cooked. We had a ham salad for lunch and they never came again. I ditched the husband but actually his parents were really nice people, just a bit straight laced!

We all have done it.
One year I put the Christmas cake in the oven and while it cooked I decided to clean the bedrooms. Ages after I came downstairs to see the sugar still on the scales. We had it for days with custard. DH loved it.

Yesterday decided to make a sponge for a friend's birthday. I make them often and have no problem ...but this one came out flat as a pancake. So I set to and made another one... another pancake. About to make number 3 when I decided to check the ingredients- I had been using plain flour instead of SR! Cake number 3 worked well ...but what can I do with 4 single pancake-like cakes please?

Not exactly a cooking dilemma, but once, when friends were coming for dinner, I made an apple and mincemeat pie, homemade pastry top and bottom.

I’d probably had too many G&Ts, but after I took it out of the oven, the whole thing somehow slid off the plate - straight into the dog’s basket!
End of that pudding, then. 🙁

Another time (same dog) I’d spent ages making a salmon mousse for a starter, all beautifully decorated with slices of lemon and cucumber.
Put it on the table, called everyone to come, but they were a bit slow, and in the meantime, said dog had managed to get up close enough to take a big slurp out of one side!

Luckily all guests were dog owners/dog lovers, so nobody was remotely bothered, in fact they laughed. I just sliced that part right off, and we had it anyway.

My neighbour did this with the new year party mulled wine

I once spent ages making a roasted veg lasagne from scratch. Slow cooked tomato sauce, bechemel sauce, slow roasted veg, then carefully layered it up …… only to realise that I hadn’t put any pasta sheets in it 🫣 what a plonker!