Back when I was a beginner...

[coffee]

With limited baking experience in high school I thought, "Hey, I will make my mom a three layer cake for her birthday!" So I slaved away in the kitchen. I remember a white cake with store bought container frosting. There may have been imbedded sprinkles or colorful candy pieces.

All seemed well until it was time to stack the cakes. One...two...three...wait for it...after a moment or two the top two layers split apart, and one side was completely sagging.

So I yelled for my brother to come help me. He trotted into the kitchen and laughed. Together we used the frosting as glue, but alas, the cake started to completely fall apart until it caved in. Not having a backup I still presented this sloppy cake like thing to my mom where she laughed and refused to eat it. Even my brother that eats anything would not touch it.

Lessons learned: Slice off the top of each layer so the cakes lay flat. Use frosting as glue between each layer. Don't let family members help you.

Tell us your beginner baking disaster stories.

 

[ACSAPA]

It's kind of messed up that your mom refused to eat the cake you baked for her. If my daughter made me something, I would eat it and lie that it was delicious because it's a slap in the face to refuse a heartfelt gesture.

My only beginner baking disaster was baking cookies using a recipe in a cookbook I bought from the dollar store. If you don't know the publisher and the book is made in China and you bought the book at the dollar store, the recipes probably haven't been tested and you don't know what you're getting. I ended up with some dry cookies that were on the bland side.

 

[dorannmwin]

That is sad that your mother refused to eat the cake. My first kitchen blunder was when I was about 10 years old and I decided to make breakfast. We always ate our scrambled eggs with cheese in them.

I put the cheese in the pan before the eggs and needless to say that resulted in a smoky mess. That was nearly 24 years ago and my siblings still make fun of me for it to this day. I can cook eggs now, but they won't let me.

 

[SmartPea85]

One blunder my mom always tells: When she had first married my dad they had their first Thanksgiving together where she was baking the BIG MEAL for the extended family. She was following a homemade stuffing recipe that called for so many tablespoons of parsley. So she took the parsley out of the container and scooped the required measurements, crushing it down in the spoon until it was superfine. What she didn't realize was the recipe asked for parsley, not crushed parsley, and in doing so she had given herself more room in the spoon to scoop. She ended up adding twice as much parsley than was called for, and the stuffing turned out green!