Cooking Fails: When Cooking Turns Disasterous

I’ve had two cooking fails in the same week.

Ughhhh!

I’m choosing to share them to show that not everything comes out beautiful and tasty in my kitchen. I only post the best of the best recipes. If it was just okay, it doesn’t get shared. I make a minimum of 7 new dishes each week to account for the “so-so” dishes that aren’t worthy of the blog. 

And then there are the complete disasters. I can brush off having a cooking disaster, but two in the same week? It was a blow to my cooking self-esteem. I know it shouldn’t, but it does. It is mostly just frustrating. I try to push myself, be creative with new recipes, and grow as a chef, but the failures still hurt. 

But, have you ever watched Top Chef or Top Chef Masters? They fail, too! Sometimes rather miserably. These are people that are highly trained or experienced, and with the Masters they are at the top of their field with very successful restaurants. Even they have their bad days.

So, when you make something that doesn’t turn out right, or even so turns out awful, just remember that even the best chefs have their bad days and it is okay. You can stick with the same old recipes day after day, week after week and probably master them. Or, you can branch out and try new things. With exploration comes the possibility of failure. And that is okay. You can’t get many places in life without falling flat on your face first.

And so I present to you my cooking fails of the week:

First up we have what we ended up calling “baby poop.”

I tried making a spicy cauliflower puree. I wanted to give some full and interesting flavor. The first mistake was adding turmeric. Turmeric turns everything yellow and I was hoping for a bright yellow dish. Instead it looked exactly like baby poop. I tried adding in a bunch of paprika to turn it orange and ended up with this:

And guess what? It didn’t even taste good at all. In fact, it tasted bad. I didn’t make anyone eat it. Straight to the trash can. And it dyed part of my food processor bright yellow so I get a constant reminder. Nice.

The next fail happened at the absolute worst time. I threw a birthday party for my son on Friday afternoon. He was having a shark party. I don’t do fondant cakes or anything involving intricate details and decorating. It’s just not my style. Instead I convinced him that I could do a roll cake (like a giant Little Debbie’s Swiss Cake Roll) and the cream filling would look like a wave. I’d cover it in chocolate and stick gummy sharks to the top to make it look like they were swimming over the waves. Sounds cool right?

Well, my cake was a bit sticky so I generously dusted both sides with cocoa powder. It absolutely prevented the sticking. Once I rolled it up I realized that it would also prevent the chocolate ganache from sticking. I dusted off as much excess powdered sugar as I could and decided to still give it a go and at least try and get some of the ganache to stick. What was I thinking? Maybe it would just end up being a drippy looking cake. There was one small crack on top of the roll. The ganache went into the crack and tore up the cake from the inside out.

AHHHH! Party disaster! I was on the verge of tears.

If you’ve ever read my “about me” section then you know I have a disability autoimmune disease which leaves my body incapable of dealing with stress. With a cake disaster on hand and a party looming, my stress levels were peaking and my body was crumbling. I headed to Costco, cursed my pride for not getting a handicap placard, and stumbled my way across the parking lot, all the way to the back of the store, and picked up their 7 pound chocolate cake. I threw the gummy sharks on top and had them swim in a circle around a lego man.

The redemption was that this cake still tastes delicious. It is almost gone, while the Costco cake is only half eaten. I doubt any adults in the house will eat another slice of the Costco version. It pales in comparison to the decadent chocolate cake they are accustomed to. 

What was your latest fail in the kitchen?

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