Kitchen Catastrophies

Everyone has bad days in the kitchen, even me! Yes, I know it is hard to believe considering it’s me we are talking about! I have been fortunate that these catastrophes have only happened a few times but some of them have been pretty traumatic.

The first time something really bad happened was a few years back. My form teacher had asked me to prepare some baked goods to sell at our class stall during the Christmas bazaar. I was looking forward to spending the evening baking however I probably should not have done shortbread as it is something I have never quite perfected. The shortbread I made did not work as the mixture was wet and I added too much flour. Then when I baked them, they did not cook through. However, the worst part of that night was setting the oven on fire. How you ask? Well, I did not cut the parchment paper to size and it was touching the top of the oven. My oven tends to have a mind of its own sometimes and so the grill turned on magically. You get the picture.

The next catastrophe happened in December. I had been wanting to make Italian Meringue Buttercream for ages so I decided that I would do it that Saturday morning. My first mistake was not having a sugar thermometer. I searched everywhere for a thermometer but the best I could find was a meat thermometer, so I went with it. I made the syrup, but sugar kept crystallizing on the bottom of my meat thermometer, making the reading inaccurate. So I stupidly tried to get it off the bottom and burnt my thumb in the process (I still have the scar). Then the motor on my Kenwood overheated and a cloud of smoke exited the machine and I was sure I had broken it. Fortunately, it recovered and I am still able to use it (Hallelujah!) I am too scared to try making it again.

The most recent fateful event happened on Friday. I was asked to bake something for a church function and so me and my mum decided it would be nice to make caramel squares. The shortbread turned out fine and the chocolate was okay, but the caramel turned into toffee. We couldn’t eat the caramel squares as they would have broken teeth. I then tried the next day to blend them up into a crumb, but my food processor did not like the toffee, I am pretty sure it was screaming! We had no other choice but to chuck them. We renamed them toffee torments and swore never again to use Mary Berry’s caramel recipe.

These are just a few of my kitchen mishaps…no doubt there will be a few more! But that is how we learn.