Baking Debacles
Mistakes, absent-minded moments, slip-ups -- whatever you want to call them -- they happen to us all, professional bakers and devoted home bakers alike. In fact, I’ve come to appreciate these disasters (except when ill-timed, such as when dinner guests are about to arrive!) because I learn from my mistakes when I am baking and developing recipes.
And they are always worth a good laugh after the fact. Here are my top 3 baking disasters:
1. The Melting Wedding Cake Caper -- I had built an elaborate 4-tiered, meringue-covered cake for a wedding with a “winter white” theme, and the cake was gorgeous. Until...the wedding photographer arrived and set up extra lighting to shoot the cake, and the hot lamps started melting the back of the wedding cake! It looked like a giant meringue mudslide and the cake was peeking through the frosting! I was still in the building and while the bride and groom were in the foyer starting their reception, I was in the middle of the dining room with a fresh batch of meringue re-icing it! Fortunately, I was able to rescue it.
2. The Flat Bread Puzzle -- Early one morning (very early -- bakers usually start work by 5 a.m.), I was sleepily starting a batch of baguettes for the day, and after setting the dough aside to rise I went on to my other tasks. When I checked in 90 minutes later, I was surprised to find the dough hadn’t grown at all. Turns out I completely forgot to add the yeast! At this point I didn’t have time to start a new batch (of 30 loaves!), so I quickly tried to work in some yeast and rolled and shaped it, giving it 30 minutes to try and rise. It rose just a little, and the baguettes really were awful. I thought about renaming the recipe “biscotti bread” because that’s what it looked like: flat, rock-hard biscotti. But I decided that it’d be best to just not offer any at all and turn the batch into breadcrumbs. I never ran out of breadcrumbs that year!
3. The Mystery of the Salty Cake -- As an apprentice baker, you often will visit other bakeries or restaurants to do what is called a “stage”: a short-term work assignment that you take without pay in order to gain experience. I was doing a baking stage at a prominent restaurant in Toronto, and didn’t really know my way around this new kitchen. I was following the pastry chef’s recipe for a Pecan Sponge Cake -- a big batch that made 6 cakes. I measured everything out carefully, and followed the method to a T and the cake came out looking fine. When the chef took a taste, he spat it out. It turns out that I used 3 kg of SALT instead of sugar in the recipe! I had to remake the cake, of course, and while the chef was frustrated, he was very patient.
What baking dramas have you had? Have any occurred while prepping a cheesecake? Maybe a cheesecake that you’re thinking about entering in our Cheesecake of the Year contest?
Submit your cheesecake recipes now for your chance to win $5,000 and the title of Cheesecake of the Year. Plus, we’re giving away two KitchenAid® Stand Mixers in this week’s random draw! For every valid recipe you enter by Sunday, August 26, at 11:59 pm ET, you will automatically receive one entry into the random draw. The more recipes you enter, the better your chances are at winning a stand mixer!
Good luck!
Anna
6 comments
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my baking disaster turned out to be a lemon pudding cake. Having made it from scratch before, and being an overconfident teenager, I thought I could speed up the time for baking it by just making it in the microwave, not realizing that recipes liquid and other ingredients needed to adjusted for microwave cooking. It turned out a kinda tough mess, that noone wanted to try, except one of my cousins who said I will eat it with you. So I go out to dish up 2 servings for myself and my cousin, as well as get a drink with ice for my cousin. Unknown to me while I am banging the metal icecube tray on the counter to get ice free for the drink, they are all killing themselves laughing thinking that is me trying to dish up my rock hard lemon pudding. The pudding was a bit of a disaster, but nowhere near as rock hard as they were giggling about LOL -
My most recent oops turned out really well. I was making an upside down rhubarb cake and I didn't have a cup of sour cream, so I decided to use plain Greek yogurt instead. I got busy in the kitchen, was on the phone with my mom, and I guess I got overconfident too because I didn't check the recipe often enough and I forgot to add the eggs. It was only when my cake was in the oven that I realized my mistake and that was too late to fix it. Luckily, my overconfidence turned out to be a good thing because I thought my batter looked too thick and added extra yogurt. The extra yogurt worked in place of the eggs to bind the batter and to make the cake moist. I don't think I'll use eggs again in that recipe! -
Quite a few years ago,when I was a teenager, I decided to make a sponge cake for my family. Boy was I proud of myself. My excitment was mounting as dinner was ending and the grand dessert was waiting. Well,to my surprise, Dad couldn't cut the cake! That cake knife kept bouncing back no matter which way Dad tried to cut it. Since my Dad was the biggest tease, I was thinking Dad was a joking, I tried cutting my masterpiece. Everyone, Mom and my three brothers tried to slice the cake ... Nope, the knife wouldn't cut. Of course, I had to try figuring everyone was was being a tease, but the knife bounced right out of my hand onto the floor!! Dad being Dad, went to the basement and brought up a hand saw!! Well, you can guess what happen, the saw didn't cut the sponge cake! My masterpiece was truly a sponge for sure! We all started laughing till the tears were rolling down! And to this day, the story of the sponge cake lives on!
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Wow, Kate, that certainly is dramatic! Reading that felt like a suspense film, luckily with a happy ending. I once tried to "improvise" a recipe for a spice bread when I had some leftover zucchini and bananas, forgetting that baking is so based on chemistry -- I must have added too much of one thing and not enough of something else. The thickness of the batter was perfect going in, but it came out more like a...pudding? It was tasty, but the texture had something to be desired... -
Once I made a wedding cake for my girl friend. A Martha Stewart copy, it was 4 tier, covered in chocolate ganache with simple icing embellisments. The real decoration came from pomegranates, pears and mandarinswhich we dusted with edible gold; the wedding was 31 December. It took me 48 hrs of work and as I finished it at about 6:30 am on the morning of the day, it was good - not professional by a long shot, but good.
I went upstairs to have a shower and came down to find the dog was eating. About one third of the bottom tier ... gone.
33 unexpected inches of snow had paralyzed Vancouver the day before. Only the bride had a 4 wheel drive so all her careful assignment of tasks - out the window. We raced to the grocery store to get more chocolate, it was still closed. We raided every friends cupboard for stored chocolate and managed to make enough ganach to cover the hole, suitably trimmed.
The cake had pride of place, with the missing part turned to the back and shrubbed up with more fruit. The dog survived the day to live to a ripe old age. The bride and groom are still happily married. -
I love your baking oopsies Anna, and you are right, we all have them. Most of mine now get hidden or altered and no one is the wiser. I have what my kids refer to as the tofu cheesecake that I reinvented to become these wonderful desserts that I had to figure out how to make again so I could enter into the cheesecake contest. Tasted great, but reminded the kids of tofu, so they would not eat it...like they ever ate tofu! Sometime it is all in the mind.
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