Sunday, January 23, 2022

Baking Disasters

We know that some of you are Queens in the Kitchen but have you ever had a BAKING DISASTER? Or a baking project that didn't turn out quite the way you planned?


We here at the Infomaniac Bakery would love to hear your story.


19 comments:

  1. Not me personally, but way back in the 1990s one of my housemates - whose boyf usually did the cooking - put two pizzas in the oven, still on their polystyrene trays! Needless to say, the resultant poison-chemical-infused dish was inedible. Jx

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  2. I love to bake, but I am hardly [what I consider to be] a good baker. Back when I worked at larger salons, I loved being able to bake & bring successes and failures into work. It was quite rare that anything didn't get gobbled up.

    I think the biggest problem I used to encounter was testing to see if something was done. You know, the old toothpick, skewer, something thin & long stuck down into the middle. And if it came out clean, it was done. But I discovered, time after time, that a toothpick can come out clean, but the bake is not fully cooked. Fuck. Now that we have these dandy thermometers, one jab & you know precisely where you stand!

    I know I brought a banana bread to a neighbor once, it was one of two I'd made. I ate its twin & the middle was way too wet. She'd once brought me wonderful jammy cookies, so I was, an still am, embarrassed. Not to worry, it doesn't keep me up.

    This past Xmas I decided to do some baking for my clients. Since my clientele is smaller & their devotion so much more appreciated I figured why not. Well, I did manage to give most of them a bit of something, but it turned out I needed to bake even more cookies. My rugelah didn't come out as good as I'd hoped, but the ginger cookies weren't half bad.

    There was a disaster years ago with some sort of cake that I was bringing to a dinner party, but we somehow spackled it up. Don't recall the cake though.

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    Replies
    1. ... caramel ding-dong. I remember the caramel ding-dong.

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    2. NORMA: All hail Norma, one of five Infomaniac Bitches who share the Kitchen Queen crown!

      Something thin & long stuck down into the middle? I prefer a little thickness but each to his own.

      I would love to sample your rugelach. I haven’t the slightest idea how to make it but the best I’ve had is the prune rugelach from a bakery in Montreal.

      MAGO: Everybody loves Norma’s salted caramel ding dong!

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  3. I've roasted carrots to charcoal before, if that counts? I'm not much of a cook - my sponges never rise. I do remember a phase of trying out different food colourings for my butter icing - the green wasn't popular, but it tasted fine.
    Oh, I did once forget to add the sugar to a cake - so the bin ate well that day.
    Sx

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    1. MISS SCARLET: Pay attention. The Mistress said baking, NOT cooking. You may bring your charred carrots to our upcoming “Cooking Disasters” post.

      I would have poured maple syrup over the sugarless cake and eaten it. I'm Canadian that way.

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  4. A few years ago I was invited to a Macmillan coffee morning. I bought a Dr Oetker chocolate chip muffin mix for the occasion, just add milk and eggs etc and away you go, easy. However, I didn't have any bun cases so I tipped the mixture into a spring form cake tin with a loose bottom and baked it for 20 minutes as stated on the box, I didn't take into account that cakes take longer to bake than buns, after 20 mins I saw it had risen beautifully so I took it out the oven and released the spring only for the raw mixture to seep through all over the work top, only the top of the caked had baked, I scraped it all back into the mixing bowl including the baked bits, added more flour and an egg, the heat from the mixture had started to cook the egg, ignoring that I continued to stir the lumpy mixture and tipped it all back in the tin. To my surprise it came out looking like an ordinary cake, stuck a knife in it and it came out clean. My sponge and 'biscuit' cake was a huge success.

    I've learnt from past experience never to whisk flour.

    I'm not very domesticated that's why I keep a maid.

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    1. MITZI: I had to Google “MacMillan coffee morning.” I’m always learning something new from you Bitches.

      We can learn from your experience. Keep your bottom tight.

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  5. Years ago I deceided that it is of absolutely no use if I try to bake. Mitzi did it all right with the prefab mix from the good doctor, but had a problem with timing. Even if I concentrate and do all & everything according to what is printed on the box, the result will be crap. I accepted that I never will bake a cake.
    And I consequently refuse to prepare desserts too, its a disaster predictable.

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    1. MAGO: I wonder if there was a real person named Dr. Oetker or if he's fictional like Betty Crocker.

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  6. August Oetker of Obernkirchen, inventor of baking powder! Jx

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  7. As Jon already mentioned, August is the founder of the company, today a pretty large enterprise. It is still in the hands of August's descendants. I think poor Richard (the grandson ?) is now the head, but I may be wrong.
    "Poor" because he was the victim of a damn brutal kidnapping (in the 1970s, when he was in his twenties) that left him disabled for the rest of his life.
    Dr. Oe became a household name because additionally they produced tons of cooking books, useful stuff like graduated beakers etcetcetc. Their food products are generally good.

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    1. JON & MAGO: Thank you for filling in the gaps in my baking history. I had no idea.

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  8. Bread. Oh, bread. I had a sourdough sponge that I'd kept for quite awhile, and unbeknownst to me, the poor thing croaked. What I had left was a vile, vinegary curd. I blithely added all the ingredients, wondered why it wasn't coming up as I kneaded, wrote that off to the dryness of the day and put it in the oven. What I ended up with was a brick with a nasty, creepy, icky center that was still half liquid. Imagine a tan brick with a horrible cyst. Or don't if you'd rather not.

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    1. STEVE: Make more of those sourdough bricks. We'll throw them at Drumpf supporters.

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  9. When I was a kid a babysitter thought it would be great if we made sugar cookies together. I was so excited; except she used two cups of salt and not sugar and so they ended up being inedible salt cookies. My mom took pity on me and gave me a couple of dollars to go buy cookies from the corner store. Once I made French toast for my son when he was a toddler, and I was very tired that morning. Instead of sprinkling the top with cinnamon I accidentally used chili powder. It's only when he said, "This toast tastes funny that I realized what I had done. Hahaha

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    1. PROXIMA: I would have told your son to shut up and eat his tacos.

      You will be relieved to know that I did not have children.

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