What is the BIGGEST Baking Disaster?

[tangela]

We've all been there; we left our baked good in the oven for too long, we accidentally added salt to our batter instead of sugar, or we mixed in too much liquid and our batter is runny. While some of the disasters are irreversible (sadly), some are.

So my question is, what are some of your BIGGEST baking disaster? If I can think of one for myself I would have to say that I was making cookies and I guess I was doing laundry at the same time and just completely forgot the fact that my cookies were in the oven. Needless to say I had to toss it out after my oven started smoking!

 

[chefjon]

I can think of several. Mine is baking a sponge cake, and somehow the bottom half all turned into a thick piece of gel. It was quite disgusting. Another is pouring flour while the mixer is still running and making the whole kitchen a big white mess. Sometimes when I'm not careful, I grab the salt instead of sugar.

 

[tangela]

I can think of several. Mine is baking a sponge cake, and somehow the bottom half all turned into a thick piece of gel. It was quite disgusting. Another is pouring flour while the mixer is still running and making the whole kitchen a big white mess. Sometimes when I'm not careful, I grab the salt instead of sugar.

Whoa, I wonder how the incident with the sponge cake happened! Was it because there was too much sugar on the bottom or something like that?

And yes, I've also done the flour-in-mixer mistake Not my brightest moment, to be honest.

 

[DancingLady]

Once I was making what was supposed to be a mouse tart for Easter. I misunderstood what bitter sweet chocolate means, apparently it is not the same as unsweetened, but we couldn't find anything with that label at the store, so we though that's what it must be. I mixed it up, took a little taste and it was terrible. Had to fold in more and more sugar till it was OK, and by that point there was no air left in it at all, it was totally solid, not the texture I was going for at all. People said it was good, but I was terribly disappointed at the results. I still don't know what bittersweet chocolate is.

 

[tangela]

Once I was making what was supposed to be a mouse tart for Easter. I misunderstood what bitter sweet chocolate means, apparently it is not the same as unsweetened, but we couldn't find anything with that label at the store, so we though that's what it must be. I mixed it up, took a little taste and it was terrible. Had to fold in more and more sugar till it was OK, and by that point there was no air left in it at all, it was totally solid, not the texture I was going for at all. People said it was good, but I was terribly disappointed at the results. I still don't know what bittersweet chocolate is.

Oh man I'm sorry to hear that!

I think bittersweet chocolate is talking about the amount of cocoa content in the chocolate. Like how if you buy chocolate chips, it'll say semi-sweet chocolate chip or whatever. Bittersweet chocolate can also be known as unsweetened chocolate and, according to a little bit of google search, it says that it is pure chocolate liquor mixed in with a little bit of fat. Apparently you're SUPPOSED to add sugar whenever you have bittersweet chocolate though because bittersweet chocolate itself have a very very low sugar content.

 

[confettine]

My biggest baking disaster... I was a young girl. We had Show&Tell in our English class, and this girl, J., had brought to complement her presentation a box of chocolate chips cookies. They were delicious! Greasy, chocolaty, sugary! She gave us all the recipe and I ran home to convince my mom we should do this exact same thing!

My mom was not big on the baking thing, but she was a good sport, so we prepared the batter (I think she did not even make any comment at the amount of sugar and butter!). When came the time to pop it in the oven, we realized we had no cookie sheet, and the recipe called for one.

We looked around, no such thing. Then we found something.

Now, in baking, it can be a bad idea to make substitutions, as many times, the characteristics of a product are very precise, and for a reason.

This was one of those times.

We put our cookies on what we had: a pizza pane. Into the oven it went, and we resumed whatever activities we had at the time.

The smell was great!

It was just, later, when we went to check on the cookies... They had melted through the holes of the pizza plate! Cookie batter had fell everywhere in the oven, to the horror of my mom who then had to clean it, and to mine, who realized that meant ultimately less cookies!

It had also made the whole thing cook a bit wonky.

Great memories!

 

[Mara]

I was much younger, but I baked a cake for my brother's birthday and it sank! I don't think I mixed it long enough and opened the oven too early. It could not be saved, so there was no cake for him!. It did teach me to be patient though, and has only happened a couple of times with a toad in hole since.

 

[AuntJamelle]

Too funny! Other than burning things when trying to "learn" my new ovens I can remember one spectacular Oops moment years ago. Was making a batch of quick breads - peanut butter chocolate chip as I recall. Got them all done, baked and cooling. Opened the microwave and there were the two sticks of butter for the recipe that I'd put in on defrost for a few seconds to finish softening them.

Could have just kicked myself!!!