Argh! Careless cooking errors

[Zsofia]

I'm making my Very Famous French Onion Soup tonight, because my mom is out of town and my dad's all by himself and I thought he'd like a treat. (It's best the next day.) So I go through this huge pain in the ass - cut up four pounds of onions, roast them in the oven for hours, deglaze and deglaze and deglaze (the deglazing takes about an hour of actual standing-by-the-stove cooking) and then throw in the broth... and I wasn't looking and put chicken in instead of beef. Now, there's supposed to be some chicken broth in there, but BEEF is the taste you want to taste. Just reached out and picked up the wrong box.

It's... chickeny. I threw in some Better than Bullion and some MSG (don't tell) and am hoping for the best. I've spent three hours on this stuff and didn't pay attention and fucked it up in the home stretch.

Make me feel better - what enormous effort have you wasted lately? (I mean, Dad will love it. But I'll know.)

[blondebear]

I made meat glop instead of meat loaf. Too much liquid. But, I could serve it with an ice cream scoop.

[Renee]

I don't know if this counts as careless, or just a newbie mistake, but I'll share.

I was 18, had my first appartment, and was cooking my mom's wonderful chicken and dumplings for my boyfriend. I'd never made the dish before (in fact, I hadn't really ever made anything more complicated than a grilled cheese sandwich,) but had seen it done a lot and have the recipe in hand.

So the chicken is cooking and I start to make the dumplings. I get my tuperware container of flour and add the appropriate amount to the liquid portion. And it disolves into a thin soupy mixture. Baffled, I start over. Same thing. I'm getting upset at this point. I can't imagine what is wrong here--I'm folowing the directions exactly!

So my boyfriend decides to help. I thought maybe the flour was old/bad, so we open a new bag of flour, and, low and behold, perfect dumpling dough. Yeah. So I'm still kind of upset. He did the exact thing I did! Exactly! Except, you know, using flour instead of powdered sugar. Won't make that mistake again. :)

[Lightray]

I once used Cook's Illustrated's very good mac & cheese recipe to make for a potluck BBQ. Except, instead of evaporated milk, I accidentally used... sweetened condensed milk. *retch* :smack:

Fortunately, I was making the night before, so had enough time to go to the store (at midnight!) to buy another pound of cheese, etc., etc.

[Zsofia]

Heh, evaporated vs. condensed is a classic mistake, and one that genius me almost made in the grocery store yesterday. (As it is I should have brought the recipe with me, since I assumed it was one regular tiny can of evaporated, not one big 12 oz can. The onion pie turned out awesome anyway.)

[Lightray]

Ah, it wasn't a complete waste... I saved the abomination, and took it, too, to the potluck. To no end of amusement when I presented that as my masterpiece, and watched my friends frantically try to think of something nice to say whilst keeping their gorge from rising and trying to figure out how to surreptitiously spit the crud out.

All the kids thought it was a magnificent prank -- and then devoured the real stuff like hungry wolves when I 'fessed up. :D

[Lavender Falcon]

When I was a kid, my mom was making a lasagne for company, and it was my job to assemble it. I put the entire thing together, and then noticed I hadn't used the big bowl of shredded cheese sitting on the other counter. Have you ever unlayered and rebuilt and entire lasagne? It's not fun, and it's a mess.

I also can't count the number of times I've set eggs to boil, forgotten about them, and some time later wondered what the weird exploding noise coming from the kitchen was. I always mean to set an egg timer, but sometimes I forget to do that. Now I use a bigger pan and more water so I have a wider margin of error before the eggs go nuclear.

[Harmonious Discord]

The last one was chocolate chip cookies with a missing cup of flour. I thought it was a bit off and only did one pan. They spread into a pan of chips and bubbling butter flour, which had to be scraped into the garbage. I added flour to the rest and finished what I still had. I hate trying to cook on a bad memory day. I had problems with the next thing burning so that was it for cooking that day.

[Eureka]

Recent careless cooking error--bad cornbread (not a huge waste of time and energy).

The recipe was for low-fat moist cornbread. Calls for a Jiffy Muffin mix, creamed corn, yogurt, fresh or fozen corn . . .

I subbed low fat sour cream for the yogurt, didn't thaw the frozen corn, threw in a few extra ounces creamed corn, put it in a 9 by 13 rather than 9 by 9 inch pan (made of glass) and undercooked the whole thing. *

I think if I reheat it properly and top it with enough cheddar cheese the rest will be edible.

*Recipe called for baking 30-40 minutes, but I couldn't figure out why it was not getting brown. I forgot the extra corn and still frozen corn (and glass pan)and just focused on the flatter cornbread.

[Carson O'Genic]

So I go through this huge pain in the ass - cut up four pounds of onions, roast them in the oven for hours, deglaze and deglaze and deglaze (the deglazing takes about an hour of actual standing-by-the-stove cooking) and then throw in the broth...

I suggest looking up Alton Brown's recipe for FOS to see if you can incorporate his methods to remove the rectal discomfort without altering Very Famous greatly.
Almost hassle free.

[FilmGeek]

There is a big difference between a 1/2 cup of canned pumpkin and a 15 oz can.

That bread was tasty, if spooned up from the pan.

[Athena]

So I go through this huge pain in the ass - cut up four pounds of onions, roast them in the oven for hours, deglaze and deglaze and deglaze (the deglazing takes about an hour of actual standing-by-the-stove cooking)

What's up with that? Deglazing usually only takes a few minutes.... even when cooking up tons o' caramelized onions. I'm curious about what you do for an hour.

[MsWhatsit]

I was making a lemon meringue pie for Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. The recipe I use calls for a cornstarch/water paste to be added to the meringue at the last minute, to help it keep its structure and stop it from "weeping." So I made up the cornstarch/water paste and had it ready to go, and beat the egg whites for like 15 minutes until they were forming stiff peaks. Went to drizzle in the cornstarch paste and.... suddenly the meringue started foaming up out of the pan! I had to drop it in the sink, where it continued to foam and spit for the next several minutes.

I usually buy store-brand baking necessities. The store-brand baking soda and the store-brand cornstarch come in the same shape and color box. Guess which one I mixed into the meringue? :smack:

[WhyNot]

Recent careless cooking error--bad cornbread (not a huge waste of time and energy).

The recipe was for low-fat moist cornbread. Calls for a Jiffy Muffin mix, creamed corn, yogurt, fresh or fozen corn . . .

I subbed low fat sour cream for the yogurt, didn't thaw the frozen corn, threw in a few extra ounces creamed corn, put it in a 9 by 13 rather than 9 by 9 inch pan (made of glass) and undercooked the whole thing. *

I think if I reheat it properly and top it with enough cheddar cheese the rest will be edible.

*Recipe called for baking 30-40 minutes, but I couldn't figure out why it was not getting brown. I forgot the extra corn and still frozen corn (and glass pan)and just focused on the flatter cornbread.
No no, you made corn pudding instead!

It's all about the spin, people. I never tell my family what we're having for dinner until it's done and I can name it appropriately.

[Zsofia]

What's up with that? Deglazing usually only takes a few minutes.... even when cooking up tons o' caramelized onions. I'm curious about what you do for an hour.
It's the "so you want to REALLY make great onion soup" recipe from Cook's Illustrated. You let it go in the oven on its own for two and a half hours and then you bring it up to the stovetop and carmelize the living crap out of it (you keep stirring but you'll be sure it's burned.) You deglaze it with a bit of water, cook it down again, deglaze, etc, three or four times, and then you do it once with sherry and then you can add the liquid. It's a multi-deglazing process. I've made onion soup plenty of other ways and I can tell you that when you really want to do it right this thing is a prizewinner. Just sort of labor-intensive.

[Lamia]

My cooking skills are limited, so anything I'm willing to cook is going to be pretty hard to mess up. But just last night I went out and, when I asked about the dessert of the day, out very entertaining waiter explained that the only dessert options that day were those on the regular menu because there'd been a Bad Mistake with the daily special.

Apparently the dessert prepared earlier that day had been a delicious looking pie, butterscotch I believe, topped with whipped cream mixed with bittersweet chocolate chips. But when this pie was served, the customer said it was terrible and sent it back. The staff tasted the pie and found that it was indeed revolting. The waiter said it was "a taste I will never forget". So they sampled the different elements that had gone into the pie to see where they'd gone wrong. Butterscotch: fine. Whipped cream: fine. Chocolate chips: not fine. Very, very not fine.

It turns out the chocolate chips had been stored in a container that was normally used to hold garlic. They had absorbed the garlic flavor, and apparently garlic and chocolate are two great taste sensations that DO NOT go great together.

[Ukulele Ike]

....I wasn't looking and put chicken in instead of beef. Now, there's supposed to be some chicken broth in there, but BEEF is the taste you want to taste. Just reached out and picked up the wrong box.
What I want to know is how you keep your broth in boxes.

[WhyNot]

Broth in boxes. (http://www.amazon.com/Imagine-Vegetable-Broth-Organic-16-Ounce/dp/B000LKXAEW)

[Ukulele Ike]

Oh, okay, then. I was nervous that it was gonna be a box of boullion cubes.

[pulykamell]

Zsofia - I don't think your error is a big deal. Sure, beef is traditionally the broth (and I use 100% beef broth in my French Onion soup), but chicken broth will still make a perfectly good soup. I mean, hell, they make it with vegetable broth for vegetarians, too, and the soup comes out fine.

It's not like the time I spent hours roasting and mashing pumpkin for pumpkin pie, only to, at the last second, grab the unmarked container of salt instead of sugar. My excuse is I was cooking at somebody else's kitchen, and who in the hell keeps their salt and sugar in clear containers right next to each other. Had to go out to the market, buy more pumpkins, and start again.

[Savannah]

It's all about the spin, people. I never tell my family what we're having for dinner until it's done and I can name it appropriately.

That--is brilliant.

[Fish]

...who in the hell keeps their salt and sugar in clear containers right next to each other.
I do! But then again, I know which is which, and the salt is in a tiny clear container without a dispenser thingy, and the sugar is in a great BIG clear container with a 1/4 cup scoop.

[Zsofia]

Yeah, but that vegetable broth is tasteless and yuck. :) It's just that the deep carmelized onion flavor goes bestest with beef.

And the thing with pumpkin pie made from real pumpkin? People can't even tell, IMHO.

[pulykamell]

Yeah, but that vegetable broth is tasteless and yuck. :) It's just that the deep carmelized onion flavor goes bestest with beef.

And the thing with pumpkin pie made from real pumpkin? People can't even tell, IMHO.

I was in Hungary when I was making the pie for an expat Thanksgiving meal, so I didn't have the choice of using canned pumpkin.

[pulykamell]

I do! But then again, I know which is which, and the salt is in a tiny clear container without a dispenser thingy, and the sugar is in a great BIG clear container with a 1/4 cup scoop.

Yeah, think of a couple of one-pound containers, side by side. I should have noticed from the granularity of the salt, but I just assumed it was just a finer grade of sugar.

[Athena]

And the thing with pumpkin pie made from real pumpkin? People can't even tell, IMHO.

No kidding. I grew up with my mother making pumpkin pie from real pumpkins, and I always thought that's why it was so good. I followed in the tradition, meticulously roasting & pureeing pumpkin every time I made pie.

Then one year, I was busy, and I said "screw it, I'll make it with canned this year." I couldn't tell the difference. I'm never doing it from real pumpkin again.

[Athena]

It's the "so you want to REALLY make great onion soup" recipe from Cook's Illustrated. You let it go in the oven on its own for two and a half hours and then you bring it up to the stovetop and carmelize the living crap out of it (you keep stirring but you'll be sure it's burned.) You deglaze it with a bit of water, cook it down again, deglaze, etc, three or four times, and then you do it once with sherry and then you can add the liquid. It's a multi-deglazing process. I've made onion soup plenty of other ways and I can tell you that when you really want to do it right this thing is a prizewinner. Just sort of labor-intensive.

Y'know, I've made that recipe. I guess I just don't remember the deglazing step. I probably was cooking with wine, if you know what I mean. It makes the time go faster :-)

[Zsofia]

Y'know, I've made that recipe. I guess I just don't remember the deglazing step. I probably was cooking with wine, if you know what I mean. It makes the time go faster :-)
Why do you think I put the wrong broth in? :)

[Skald the Rhymer]

This thread gives me the excuse to link to the two greatest posts of all time, both by the same poster in the same thread;

Master Wang-Ka's story about a friend's doomed attempt to cook a turkey (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2735281&postcount=31)

His epic on the cooking misadventures of a man called Gorilla. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2737610&postcount=50)

The SDMB earned its existence by eliciting these tales.

[shantih]

The last one was chocolate chip cookies with a missing cup of flour. I thought it was a bit off and only did one pan. They spread into a pan of chips and bubbling butter flour, which had to be scraped into the garbage. I added flour to the rest and finished what I still had. I hate trying to cook on a bad memory day. I had problems with the next thing burning so that was it for cooking that day.

I had something similar happen once -- I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies for a group of people who were coming over later that day, and I had absolutely no time to run out and get another bag of flour. So I just used each individual flour atom that I could coax from the bag and the result was cookies that were super-thin, with the chips rising magnificently like ... like ... magnificent things rising from a super-thin base. Or something. I set out the cookies with abject apologies for their appearance and hoped for kindness.

They were devoured. They were adored. I have never had such a dramatic reaction to anything I've ever baked, and I'm no slouch as a baker. It's been three years, and people are still talking about them!

I've tried to reproduce the results, and I always put too much flour in, so I finally just went back to the recipe as written.

Aaaaaaaaand ... I just realized that this is exactly counter to the point of the OP. :smack: Sorry -- got carried away by the memory of those cookies.

*slinks away*

[carnivorousplant]

Hollandaise sauce. I don't have a double boiler, and sometimes in a teflon pan it just goes to hell. Twice in one evenling was really bad.:)

[Zsofia]

Well, the soup got screaming raving reviews from my dad and his buddy, but I knew. :)

[Kaio]

I once made dark-chocolate-spicy brownies. Didn't realize that I'd totally forgotten the flour until I started eating one.

They weren't too bad as a flourless chocolate cake, though.

[Harmonious Discord]

I had something similar happen once -- I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies for a group of people who were coming over later that day, and I had absolutely no time to run out and get another bag of flour. So I just used each individual flour atom that I could coax from the bag and the result was cookies that were super-thin, with the chips rising magnificently like ... like ... magnificent things rising from a super-thin base. Or something. I set out the cookies with abject apologies for their appearance and hoped for kindness.

They were devoured. They were adored. I have never had such a dramatic reaction to anything I've ever baked, and I'm no slouch as a baker. It's been three years, and people are still talking about them!

I've tried to reproduce the results, and I always put too much flour in, so I finally just went back to the recipe as written.

Aaaaaaaaand ... I just realized that this is exactly counter to the point of the OP. :smack: Sorry -- got carried away by the memory of those cookies.

*slinks away*

I wouldn't have thrown them away if edible. The chips had even gone grainy from frying in the butter I guess. The dough covered the entire pan. I prefer crisp cookies.

[flex727]

This thread gives me the excuse to link to the two greatest posts of all time, both by the same poster in the same thread;

Master Wang-Ka's story about a friend's doomed attempt to cook a turkey (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2735281&postcount=31)

His epic on the cooking misadventures of a man called Gorilla. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2737610&postcount=50)

The SDMB earned its existence by eliciting these tales.
Those are indeed hilarious stories, but I have to say the all time funniest SDMB tale involved someone being awakened at night by a helium balloon thingy. I can't remember enough specifics to perform a proper search. Anyone remember that one?

[Athena]

Those are indeed hilarious stories, but I have to say the all time funniest SDMB tale involved someone being awakened at night by a helium balloon thingy. I can't remember enough specifics to perform a proper search. Anyone remember that one?

The horror of blimps (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=160851)

[Bryan Ekers]

There was that time I tried to make a coffee milkshake and couldn't sleep for a day and half...

[Dolores Reborn]

I tried making chicken and rice in a slow cooker once. I usually made the dish in a casserole in the oven. Put about a cup of dry long grain rice in the bottom of a casserole dish. Add two cups of stock, some diced celery, onion, and carrot, and stir to combine. Place raw bone-in chicken parts on top and cover. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes to an hour.

When you do this in a crock pot, you have dessicated chicken and burnt rice block. Yum!

Another time I forgot to put flour in Toll House Cookies. I saved them by pouring all the melted chocolate and butter into the omitted flour, and had chocolate cookies!

[Harmonious Discord]

There was that time I tried to make a coffee milkshake and couldn't sleep for a day and half...

The ice cream always melts in my Mr. Coffee when I try to make that. How do you do it?

[Bryan Ekers]

The ice cream always melts in my Mr. Coffee when I try to make that. How do you do it?

Blender, a tray of ice cubes, about a cup of skim milk powder, some packets of artificial sweetener. I guess it's more of a smoothie than a milkshake. Normally I throw in five or six large strawberries, but this time I thought I'd try some instant coffee, figuring it would dissolve pretty readily. Trouble is, I don't generally drink coffee and grossly overestimated the amount required. A few tablespoons would have sufficed - I think I used half a cup.

"Wow, this is bitter," I thought while drinking it. And the next 36 hours are kind of a blur.

[pulykamell]

Blender, a tray of ice cubes, about a cup of skim milk powder, some packets of artificial sweetener. I guess it's more of a smoothie than a milkshake. Normally I throw in five or six large strawberries, but this time I thought I'd try some instant coffee, figuring it would dissolve pretty readily. Trouble is, I don't generally drink coffee and grossly overestimated the amount required. A few tablespoons would have sufficed - I think I used half a cup.

"Wow, this is bitter," I thought while drinking it. And the next 36 hours are kind of a blur.

Half a cup? Holy crap! Even a "few tablespoons" would probably have been way too much, depending on the size of the drink you're making. When I'm in a pinch and resort to instant, I put about a teaspoon or two teaspoons at the very most per 8 oz serving. For those who don't want to do the math, a half cup is 24 teaspoons. I'm not surprised your next day and a half was a blur. I probably would have gone into full cardiac arrest with that much coffee swimming in my system.

[Mangetout]

No kidding. I grew up with my mother making pumpkin pie from real pumpkins, and I always thought that's why it was so good. I followed in the tradition, meticulously roasting & pureeing pumpkin every time I made pie.

Then one year, I was busy, and I said "screw it, I'll make it with canned this year." I couldn't tell the difference. I'm never doing it from real pumpkin again.
All the pumpkin pie recipes I've seen have so little pumpkin in them, I think they'd be the same if you substituted mashed potato or gypsum. Well, that's a slight exaggeration, but I'm still amazed at how scantly pumpkin is represented in pumpkin pie.

[Ephemera]

Sweet potato pie is an incredibly similar dessert and I, for one, cannot tell the difference.

[MadPansy64]

If one invites guests for dinner, and one plans on serving said guests a beautiful huge honking Standing Rib Roast with Yorkshire pudding, one must actually turn the freaking oven ON at some point before preparing the pudding batter. :smack:

Thank goodness for good Chinese delivery and patient dinner guests who love me anyway.

[Lily Milliner]

I have a cross-cultural cooking error where I can only surmise what happened. Right after college I joined my then-boyfriend (now husband) in Germany, where he had moved to study after he graduated. I didn't speak German. During one of our early weeks together I attempted to cook a fantastic roast chicken with chopped vegetables and provencale herbs. The problem was that the chicken I purchased had absolutely no meat on it. It was skin, bones, and a bit of dripping. Boyfriend spoke German but had absolutely zero cooking knowledge, so he was no help. I can only guess that German markets sell soup chickens for making broth alongside the roasting chickens, and I bought the wrong kind. Maybe someone with experience of Germany can come along after all these years and confirm that that is what happened?

[Ferret Herder]

No kidding. I grew up with my mother making pumpkin pie from real pumpkins, and I always thought that's why it was so good. I followed in the tradition, meticulously roasting & pureeing pumpkin every time I made pie.

Then one year, I was busy, and I said "screw it, I'll make it with canned this year." I couldn't tell the difference. I'm never doing it from real pumpkin again.
Even Cook's Illustrated agrees. I made their pumpkin cheesecake from their The New Best Recipe cookbook, and it called for canned.

[shantih]

I have a cross-cultural cooking error where I can only surmise what happened. Right after college I joined my then-boyfriend (now husband) in Germany, where he had moved to study after he graduated. I didn't speak German. During one of our early weeks together I attempted to cook a fantastic roast chicken with chopped vegetables and provencale herbs. The problem was that the chicken I purchased had absolutely no meat on it. It was skin, bones, and a bit of dripping. Boyfriend spoke German but had absolutely zero cooking knowledge, so he was no help. I can only guess that German markets sell soup chickens for making broth alongside the roasting chickens, and I bought the wrong kind. Maybe someone with experience of Germany can come along after all these years and confirm that that is what happened?

I might be able to help! Where did you buy the chicken -- in a butcher shop or in a grocery store? Most meat of good quality is found at the butcher's here, and what you find at the grocery is a pale, sad, scary imitation.

And don't feel bad -- in my first couple of months in Germany, I decided to make myself useful one day and started the dishwasher. After the entire machine disappeared behind the wall of bubbles coming out of it, I figured that it might behoove me to learn the German for 'hand dishwashing liquid.' :smack:

[gonzomax]

I was making bean soup and had it going on very well. Then I had to add sage. I poured it in a spoon over the soup. It clumped out and dropped a big chunk in the soup. I ate it because I had a lot of time and money tied up in it. I learned a lesson that time.

[flex727]

The horror of blimps (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=160851)
That's it! Thank you, thank you.

[pulykamell]

All the pumpkin pie recipes I've seen have so little pumpkin in them, I think they'd be the same if you substituted mashed potato or gypsum. Well, that's a slight exaggeration, but I'm still amazed at how scantly pumpkin is represented in pumpkin pie.

Hmmm....When I made the pies, I actually didn't use pumpkin, but rather butternut squash, which tastes very similar, and each 9-in pie had an entire 2-3 lb squash in it. That said, when you squeeze an entire roasted squash (or pumpkin) through a cheesecloth, you end up with about 2-3 cups of flesh for your pie. I wouldn't really say that pumpkin is scantily represented in pumpkin pie. The traditional Libby's recipe (http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/detail.aspx?ID=18470) uses a 15 oz can of pumpkin puree for a single pie, which, to me, is a whole lot of pumpkin.

As for sweet potato pie, I have to say, I like it better than pumpkin pie. It's got a better flavor and slightly thicker texture.

[Lily Milliner]

I might be able to help! Where did you buy the chicken -- in a butcher shop or in a grocery store? Most meat of good quality is found at the butcher's here, and what you find at the grocery is a pale, sad, scary imitation.

I'm sure it was from an anonymous grocery store... I wouldn't have had the chops (pun intended!) to ask for what I wanted in German at a butcher's!

[Fiona_Greenlee]

Last Tuesday I was making Mexican Spoonbread from my MIL's recipe. When I started cooking the ground beef, I splashed blood on the recipe card. I shrugged, figured I'd copy the recipe onto a clean card and kept cooking.

Mixed the batter, got the cheese shredded and the beef spiced perfectly. I layered them into the pan and put it into the stove. I sat down to handle the recipe card and started re-writing...to realize that I'd forgotten to add the oil into the batter. :smack:

I added the oil a tad later than planned and had to destroy all the layering that I had done. Still tasted the same and that's all that mattered.

[Pyper]

I once put 2 tablespoons of vanilla into a cheesecake instead of 2 teaspoons. When I realized what I had done, I added some lemon zest to try to counterbalance. It was surprisingly tasty!

A not-so-tasty outcome was my mother's Christmas morning attempt at "hot fruit." Hot fruit is a family recipe consisting of a mix of peaches, pears, apples, and other fruits in a tapioca base flavored with cinnamon and spices. Despite having made this recipe many times before, it must have been an early morning, or a late night, or my grandmother's writing on the recipe card was faded or smudged or something, because instead of 2 tablespoons of cinnamon, my mother added 2 cups!

The result was like hot spicy mud. We still ask her to this day if she thinks this or that recipe needs more cinnamon.

[Solfy]

This weekend I decided I was finally going to make the no knead bread that gets such raves here and elsewhere. I put the dough together Friday night and put it in the fridge as I wouldn't have time to bake it until Sunday.
I pulled it out Sunday morning to rise.
I made the mistake of saying hello to my neighbors. My neighbors are sweet people, but I think a little lonesome. Two hours later I went back to find the bread insufficiently risen and insufficient time remaining until dinner.
I tossed the dough on floured parchment paper in a skillet. Our usual bread trick is to let it rise in an oven that's been turned on for just a moment. (other favorite places - the top of the radiator in winter, the dishwasher just after it's done running)
I forgot how short that moment should be and went outside to collect my offspring. Offspring collection always takes longer than it should. The dough burned, as well as the parchment paper.
We had hotdogs for dinner.

[stargazer]

The first time I made cupcakes again after having my son (so, let's see -- I was probably 6 weeks postpartum, and incredibly sleep-deprived), I screwed up the frosting. See, I make frosting often enough that I don't use a recipe (unless it's a special frosting), I just wing it until it's the right texture. The flavor usually works itself out (we're talking powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, and salt, or maybe substituting peanut butter or melted chocolate for some of the butter -- simple stuff). Well, like I said, I was sleep-deprived and out of practice, and I added a whole teaspoon of salt to my chocolate frosting. You're only supposed to add a pinch of salt. This frosting was very salty.

I frosted the cupcakes anyway, and tried one -- it almost worked as a "salted chocolate" flavor, since that's so in these days, but... not quite. I could only get through about half a cupcake before feeling queasy. Ew.

(I scraped the frosting off the cupcakes, but didn't have time to make a new batch of frosting before I was supposed to be at the event for which I had made the cupcakes. I made more frosting later that day, though, so the cupcakes did not go to waste!)

[Kaio]

A not-so-tasty outcome was my mother's Christmas morning attempt at "hot fruit." Hot fruit is a family recipe consisting of a mix of peaches, pears, apples, and other fruits in a tapioca base flavored with cinnamon and spices. Despite having made this recipe many times before, it must have been an early morning, or a late night, or my grandmother's writing on the recipe card was faded or smudged or something, because instead of 2 tablespoons of cinnamon, my mother added 2 cups!

I'd love to know how she managed that. You'd need to have like 8 large bottles of cinnamon to make that amount -- I don't think I've ever had more than one bottle on hand, ever.

You'd think after the second or third bottle she'd start wondering if this was really right. :D

[The Devil's Grandmother]

I also can't count the number of times I've set eggs to boil, forgotten about them, and some time later wondered what the weird exploding noise coming from the kitchen was. I always mean to set an egg timer, but sometimes I forget to do that. Now I use a bigger pan and more water so I have a wider margin of error before the eggs go nuclear.
WWABD? *
Get an electric kettle like this one (http://www.cooking.com/products/shprodli.asp?BrandNo=0014&DeptNo=3000&SubClassNo=3122), put eggs in, add water, turn on and walk away in complete safety.

Of course, the eggs will be easier to peel if you dunk them in cold water soon after boiling. And some tongs are handy for getting the eggs in and out.

*what would Alton Brown do?

[jsgoddess]

I was making snickerdoodles for my roommate, but I only wanted to make half a batch. I halved all of the ingredients except salt. For an unknown reason, I doubled salt.

Salty snickerdoodles are... not good.

My roommate LOVED them. :D

[MadPansy64]

I'd love to know how she managed that. You'd need to have like 8 large bottles of cinnamon to make that amount -- I don't think I've ever had more than one bottle on hand, ever.

You'd think after the second or third bottle she'd start wondering if this was really right. :D

I bought a full pound of powdered cinnamon last week. The tiny, overpriced jars are more visible, but larger amounts are readily available to cooks in the US.

[Casey1505]

My mom was staying with me for a while as she was battling cancer. I decided I was going to make stuffed cabbage one night, like my grandmother taught me, so she came in to watch. I get it all done, and we had a lovely time conversing as we cooked. I dished out a few for myself, since she wasn't up for eating at the time, and put away the remainder. I dropped one of the casserole dishes and spilled some (a lot) of the sauce all over the place. We still chatted away as I cleaned up, and had a great time. I finally got to sample some of the fruits of my labor, and spit it out. "The rice isn't even cooked!!" I yelled.

Mom hit the floor, laughing harder than she had in months. "You didn't use cooked rice?"

"No, she never said 'cook the rice.'"

More laughter from mom. "That's why you spilled that whole dish of pigs. She was mad that you never paid attention!"

It was one of the last hearty laughs she had (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=238446).

Haven't tried making them since.

[Pyper]

I'd love to know how she managed that. You'd need to have like 8 large bottles of cinnamon to make that amount -- I don't think I've ever had more than one bottle on hand, ever.

You'd think after the second or third bottle she'd start wondering if this was really right. :D

I believe she had one of those economy-size jars from CostCo or the like. She must have been really sleepy. :dubious:

[FallenAngel]

Hollandaise sauce. I don't have a double boiler, and sometimes in a teflon pan it just goes to hell. Twice in one evenling was really bad.:)

For decades, my emulsion sauces sucked so badly I avoided them. Then, 2 things happened. I read Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook, and he recommends that you approach emulsion sauces with absolute confidence. They can smell fear.

Then I found a different approach to prepping the sauce that's made all the difference for me. Here's the recipe.

In a metal pan over low - med-low heat, beat three warm egg yolks until creamy. add 2 T of lemon juice diluted half and half with water. Whisk until frothy. Add a large pinch of kosher salt and about a teaspoon of white pepper. Total whisk time about two minutes for the whole process.

Whisk in a stick to CLARIFIED butter that's been cooled to nearly room temp. Start a drop at a time, then drizzle in a steady stream, stopping when you reach the milky solids, until fully incorporated.

That whole, blend in knobs of solid butter thing is for the birds. All my varieties of Hollandaise and Bearnaise have improved geometrically since going the melted butter route.

[FallenAngel]

A double dose of carelessness almost bot me into trouble cooking for my (now) mother in law for the first time.

I'm a hobbyist French and Caribbean cook. If I do say so, myself, I've got some game.

My now-wife/then fiancee and I were visiting her family in Montreal. Her mother, an old school Francophone in her early 70s, had only QUITE recently begun to warm up to me. Like, at all.

Figuring the way to the heart is through the stomach, I decided as a hostess gift to make a three course French meal for the mom, the brother, the girl and myself.

The main course was to be beef bourdelaise with duxelles, sided with asparagus in herbed butter.

For whatever reason, maybe it was the small kitchen space in the mom's apartment, maybe I was over confident because I'd made this dish a kabillion times before, maybe I was suffering from poutine for brains, I didn't bother to set up my mise en place.

For those who don't cook, your mise is where you lay out absolutely everything you'll need to prepare your meal. This serves two purposes: you can lay your hand immediately to whatever tool or ingredient you need, and you make certain you actually HAVE everything you need before you start cooking.

Whatever the cause, I didn't do it.

I had the beef pulled off to rest and was making the bordelaise sauce when I realized there was no beef stock. Beef stock being the thing that makes beef bordelaise a sauce rather than a red wine roux, I nearly had a frickin' stroke.

I raced to the panty and found a can of beef broth. Okay, maybe I can salvage this. I rummaged around and found a can of chicken stock. Okay, this could work. I added the broth and stirred it in. A little salty and a little too thick. I added about a quarter can of the chicken stock, then a bit more of the red wine and the drippings from the steak platter.

It turned out one of the best bordelaise sauces I've ever done and drew raves.

My two careless mistakes: Beef stock was written on my shopping list, but it was on the list where the paper folded and I didn't see it. Lesson: Open the bloody list. The second: Not setting up the kitchen properly.

All's well that ends well, but I'd have been hosed if she didn't have the stuff in her pantry, and I would have made a bad first meal for my soon to be mother in law who already didn't like me much. Disaster averted, but only just.

[wolfman]

I'm sure I've said this one a half-dozen times on here, but it was a lesson to never forget about paying attention.

Coffee cake with cinnamon crumble = good.
Coffee cake with cayenne crumble = not good at all.

[Kyrie Eleison]

You remember that little removable paddle that you're supposed to place in the bottom of the automatic breadmaker pan before dumping in the ingredients? Me either. Three times, so far.

[Emergency911]

The horror of blimps (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=160851)

I laughed until I cried!

[phil417]

Make me feel better - what enormous effort have you wasted lately? (I mean, Dad will love it. But I'll know.)

Thrifty person that I am, I use my husband's pickled bologna jars to hold flour, sugar, etc; I *used* to be proud that I could pull out the right jar & measure out whatever ingredient I needed for a recipe.

That was before I tried to use powdered sugar to thicken a gravy (hey, it looked like flour).

When I decided I needed to label my jars: I taught Childrens' Sunday School at our church. The Sunday before Christmas, we had a short birthday party for Jesus. I made a cake, & we put candles on it (one candle for each child in class), lit the candles, sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus, then all blew out the candles. There was always cake left over, so one year I decided to make a coffee cake w/a crumb topping. After I cut & distributed the cake, the kids ate the cake, but left the topping. Why? "It's kinda chewy, Miss Phil." I had substituted cornmeal for sugar.

Now all my jars have large, easy-to-read labels.

Love, Phil

[carnivorousplant]

approach emulsion sauces with absolute confidence. They can smell fear.
I'll keep that in mind. :)


Whisk in a stick to CLARIFIED butter that's been cooled to nearly room temp. Start a drop at a time, then drizzle in a steady stream, stopping when you reach the milky solids, until fully incorporated.


Define "clarified" and "milky solids". Does it have anything to do with those little yellow squares of, well, solids I see throughout melted butter? My worst results are with completely melted butter.

[Athena]

Define "clarified" and "milky solids". Does it have anything to do with those little yellow squares of, well, solids I see throughout melted butter? My worst results are with completely melted butter.

Yup, that's the stuff.

What you want to do is melt your butter, then let it sit for a few minutes. All the solids will sink to the bottom. The stuff at the top - golden yellow & clear - is your clarified butter.

It's easy to make if you put some butter in a 2-cup pyrex measuring cup and melt it in the microwave. Let it sit til the solids come to the bottom, then just pour off the clarified butter. It stores in the fridge just fine.

It's nice to have around, because it has a much higher burn point than normal butter. You can saute with it without worrying about the butter browning, for example.

[FallenAngel]

I'll keep that in mind. :)



Define "clarified" and "milky solids". Does it have anything to do with those little yellow squares of, well, solids I see throughout melted butter? My worst results are with completely melted butter.

Melt the butter. Skim off the thin white stuff on the top. You'll have a pot of golden oil with thick white stuff in the bottom. Stop pouring when you get to the thick white stuff.

Another thing to keep in mind with emulsion sauces like hollandaise and bearnaise, you can use a little heat with your eggs, but if you use too much, you'll scramble the yolks and screw things up well and truly. I know that sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed how many people think, "If I can use medium-low, I can use medium."

[Athena]

Oh, and for all you Hollandaise Sauce people - forget that double boiler stuff, make blender Hollandaise. I use Joy of Cooking's recipe, but this (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sara-moulton/blender-hollandaise-sauce-recipe2/index.html) looks pretty similar.

Super easy. Never breaks.

[WhyNot]

Define "clarified" and "milky solids". Does it have anything to do with those little yellow squares of, well, solids I see throughout melted butter? My worst results are with completely melted butter.
You need completely melted but not hot - not even really warm - butter. Melted, but room temperature. Hot butter will scramble your eggs instead of emulsify with them.

FallenAngel's being a little loose with his (her) terms. Properly speaking, "clarified" butter means you melt it and then pour off the clear yellow liquid, leaving behind the white solids in the bottom of your cup. The clear yellow stuff is clarified butter, and if you do that, you can add all of that to your sauce. But FallenAngel, like me, is a lazy cook, and doesn't do it in two steps. ;) Melt the butter and let it separate. You'll see solid white chunks on the bottom. Let it cool, and then drizzle as directed. As long as you pour slowly, the white chunks will stay on the bottom of what you're pouring. Stop before you pour out the white stuff, and you'll have used clarified butter to make your sauce.

[carnivorousplant]

What you want to do is melt your butter, then let it sit for a few minutes. All the solids will sink to the bottom. The stuff at the top - golden yellow & clear - is your clarified butter.

I will buy some asparagus tomorrow!

[carnivorousplant]

but if you use too much, you'll scramble the yolks and screw things up well and truly. I know that sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed how many people think, "If I can use medium-low, I can use medium."

Sir, I find your insinuation insulting! Spatulas at dawn! My Second shall call upon you in the morning.

:)

[NinjaChick]

Generally my idea of cooking is microwaving some ramen, so any story I have will pale compared to most of these, but there was this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8380003&postcount=1) episode, during which I managed to ruin a newspaper, cause myself bodily harm several times including drawing (a drop of) blood, damage the floor, and terrify a dog...

...while trying to cook scrambled eggs.

[Mama Zappa]

It's the "so you want to REALLY make great onion soup" recipe from Cook's Illustrated. You let it go in the oven on its own for two and a half hours and then you bring it up to the stovetop and carmelize the living crap out of it (you keep stirring but you'll be sure it's burned.) You deglaze it with a bit of water, cook it down again, deglaze, etc, three or four times, and then you do it once with sherry and then you can add the liquid. It's a multi-deglazing process. I've made onion soup plenty of other ways and I can tell you that when you really want to do it right this thing is a prizewinner. Just sort of labor-intensive.
Detailed recipe please? I love some good onion soup but the time or two I've tried making it from scratch, the results have not been pleasing.

My biggest kitchen goof was the time I made a twice-cooked pork dish from a friend's recipe. It called for cutting the pork into bite-size pieces and then frying it briefly in oil, letting it cool, then doing it again. No idea why. I thought the pork looked "done" after the first round but the recipe said "twice" so.... I wound up with charcoal bits in a sweet and savory sauce. This is the only time I've made food that was quite literally inedible.

Earlier experiments, as a teenager, demonstrated that when doubling recipes, one should double *all* the ingredients. The chocolate chip hardtack was tasty, if a bit rough on the teeth :smack:.

[Mama Zappa]

OOohh - wait - I just remembered one relatively recent one.

One of the CIA* cookbooks has a recipe for roast chicken in a salt crust. You mix a whole lot of rock salt with a little water and some beaten egg white, and totally surround the chicken.

I couldn't find the rock salt at our regular grocery store so I went to a different chain, got the rock salt (in a blue box), made the dish, and the results were fine. The blue box, by the way, mentioned that it was also good for making ice cream and de-icing sidewalks.

Fast forwrd to a year or two later and I want to make the same dish. At our regular grocery, I didn't see the blue box, but I did see a big plastic *bag*, which mentioned it was good for ice cream and de-icing.

So I mixed up the egg white / water mixture, tore open the bag of salt... and as I dumped it in, saw that there were bits of gravel or something mixed in. OOPS!

Had to make an emergency run to the other grocery store for the familiar blue box!

*Culinary Institute of America.

[Mama Zappa]

If one invites guests for dinner, and one plans on serving said guests a beautiful huge honking Standing Rib Roast with Yorkshire pudding, one must actually turn the freaking oven ON at some point before preparing the pudding batter. :smack:
...
Corollary: One should not turn the oven *off* while in the middle of preparing a meal, either. (Gettysdope attendees were treated to an uneven mixture of overdone and underdone chocolate cookies as a result of *that* gaffe!).

[panache45]

I was once making a batch of peanut butter cookies from a new recipe. Instead of adding 1/2 teaspoon of salt, I added 1/2 cup. I wouldn't recommend my version of the recipe.

[Zsofia]

Detailed recipe please? I love some good onion soup but the time or two I've tried making it from scratch, the results have not been pleasing.

Sure! Seriously, this stuff is GOOD.

4 lbs yellow onions (NOT sweet onions)
3 tbsp butter
2 cups water, plus extra for deglazing
1/2 cup dry sherry
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 cups beef broth
6 sprigs thyme, tied together with kitchen twine so you can take them out
Bay leaf
Salt and pepper

Baguette and gruyere for cheese topping

Preheat to 400. Take your big heavy Dutch oven and spray it down really well with cooking spray. Chop your onions into crescent pieces (you know, whack the ends off, cut them in half pole to pole, and slice them kind of radially so the pieces end up like little crescents. They should be about a quarter inch wide, but it isn't fussy. Throw the butter and the onions and a teaspoon of salt into your Dutch oven (it better be big, because this is a LOT of onions), cover it, and stick it in the oven for an hour. Stir and put the lid back on a bit ajar this time and put it back in there for another hour and a half or so, stirring it in the middle (you want to kind of scrape the sides down too.) If you want to you can stick it in the fridge and do the rest tomorrow after this point, but personally I suggest doing the whole shebang the day before because it tastes even better that way.

Now, you do not want to rush this part, because it's the important part. This step should take from 45 minute to an hour, and don't assume you're done until you're done. Put your pot on the stove and turn it on medium. Cook it, stirring frequently, for 15 or 20 minutes until the liquid evaporates and the onions turn brown. There is going to be a point in this where they turn so brown you think they're burned - they're not. You can turn it down a little if you think they really might be burning, though. Once the liquid is gone and the onions are brown, keep going and stirring for 6-8 minutes or until a dark crust forms on the bottom of the pot. Deglaze it with a quarter cup of water, get all that stuff up (make sure it goes in the onions instead of on your spoon), and cook it some more for 6-8 minutes until the water evaporates and you've got fond on the bottom again. Repeat the deglazing 2 or 3 more times until the onions are VERY dark brown. Then throw the sherry in and cook until that liquid is gone, too.

Now you can stir in the broths, water, thyme, bay leaf, and a bit of salt, make sure you've got all that fond scraped up, and simmer it for 30 minutes. Take out the thyme and the bay leaf and check the seasonings - add salt and pepper if need be.

For the little bread and cheese deal on top, toast some bread rounds in a 400 degree oven, put some soup in broiler-safe bowls, and put the bread and cheese on top - under the broiler for 3-5 minutes and you're good.

It's an annoying amount of work just for soup, but I PROMISE you won't be disappointed.

[jackdavinci]

I was making microwave cookies from scratch and used baking soda instead of baking powder. Caused electrical arcs! Miniature lightning attacked my cookies!