Recipe goofs.

I was just making a box of pudding and it came to mind that there are times when even with the simplest of recipes that we can goof so I am creating this thread to celebrate all of those times when we maybe put too much milk in the boxed pudding or forgot to drain the fruit out of the fruit cocktail before putting it in the Jello or maybe you for got to put the baking powder in the recipe or you doubled some ingredients but forgot on others. I have done all of the above as well as not putting in enough flour in some drop sugar cookies one time and they came out very lacy and kind of chewy. We ate them because I grew up in a some what poor family and we didn't throw something out just because it looked funny.

Any how I hope you all enjoy this thread as much as I have in creating it.

I sugar cookies when they're lacy and chewy

I didn't do this (no honest, it wasn't me ), but one year someone told my mum that if she put her turkey in the pan upside down the breast would stay more moist. OMG! That turkey came out of the oven looking like a nuclear holocaust survivor . It didn't brown, yet the meat was straggling off the bones. My mum was famous for her cooking and her turkey dinners were legend. Sundays and holidays were always big dinners that all my 'stray' friends at the track (the ones away from home and family) practically fought for an invite to. We had a houseful that day. Mum just about cried when she pulled that turkey out. Dad made the mistake of teasing her about it and I thought she was going to take his head off

The thing didn't taste bad but it was UGHlee! Still, her table full of delicious side dishes was enough for any ten people to make an excellent meal of!

My turkey disaster was the year Hubster decided we were going to do the "Two Hour Turkey" from the recipe card in the store. Ppphhhtt! The thing was crunchy on the outside and raw in the middle! That was the last time Hubster got to decide on how to do the turkey!

At least you could eat the cookies & turkey. When I forgot to put the rest of the flour in a sponge cake, I was sure glad that I had put a cookie sheet on the shelf below in case it ran over. Nope - it ran THROUGH the tube pan (w parts). Had to start over!

one time, me mama messed up Easy Mac

I was making apple crumble one time and it calls for cornstarch in the gooey juice that gets poured on the apples. I had the crumble and the sliced apples in the cake pan and was thickening the juice and it was bubbling and effervescing, It looked like someone had poured soda pop in it. It wouldn't thicken up for me. I finally realized I had put baking soda in the pan instead of the cornstarch.

Right after I retired, I was very energetic to do things I never had time before.

One of them was baking of christmass cookies
The first batch killed that this particular wish righy away.

I was using the recepe from a cookig & baking site and followed the instruction exactly (or so I thouht),
The cookies were suposed to be soft and delicate;
What came out if my oven was reminding me of a ninja star.
You could throw it, hit your target and the cookie would not even clumble

When married a couple of years I decided to make Strawberry Short Cake. Everything was fine until I started on the Whipped Cream. Do you all know how hard it is to whip cream to the correct consistency???? Had butter three times before I gave up and got store bought in tin. Don't like that!!

I can still see my pan of "fudge" with the spoon in it standing straight up, I could pick the pan up by the spoon and turn it upside down without the "fudge" even jiggling

I'm on a rota, about once a month, for our weekly Saturday cafe at church. We provide all the baking and making sandwiches and as I have a back problem and sciatica I try and spread out the baking the week before, freeze things that can be frozen, make fruit cakes that can be kept a few days etc.etc.
This particular time I made scones on Monday, Teabread on Tuesday, a spiced fruitcake and a milk chocolate cake on Wednesday, but none of them had risen properly.
I was blaming my new oven and wishing I had stuck with the old one. Lying in bed on Thursday morning, wondering what to do about it when it hit me! I wonder if I used the wrong type of flour! Went downstairs and sure enough, I had bought Strong Bread Flour (no raising agent and a very strong tasting flour) instead of self-raising flour.
The packaging was almost exactly the same, just a very slight different shade of blue bag and of course it did say 'Strong Bread Flour' on it.

So of course I had to start again, the first cakes were inedible, so solid and grey looking, we did try - I hate to waste things but there is a limit lol.

Anyway it all worked out ok I managed to do all the cakes etc on Thursday and Friday, hard work but I can laugh about it now.

I double check every single time I buy flour now

Worst one I ever did was gooseberry grumble without any sugar in it was vile .

But the silliest one I ever did was "Pepper Pot Beef" - it an absolutely lovely recipe and DH's favourite. I cooked it again recently a couple of months ago, we both ate it, I thought something was wrong....DH was very quite, so I asked him if it was OK and he simply said "Isn't this Pepper Pot Beef"

Yup i'd forgotten the Pepper .... it's normally a hot (sweet) dish as you put loads of coursely ground pepper (for the heat) in.....DOH Looking on the bright side at least I remembered the beef

Edit: Typos

When I was a blushing bride (just a few years ago ) my husband was a southern boy and they LOVE their gravy. Not the brown, dinner type that I was accustomed to, but thick, white gravy for breakfast. He told me it's just "grease and flour".... so that's what I did!! It's supposed to be a smidge of shortening, a couple tsp of flour and A LOT OF MILK! Oh, it was really beyond disgusting!!! Nothing like thickened up grease in the morning!

My husband likes that thick white gravy also. I just could not stand looking at it because it was not brown like I was used to. So I thought I will put some Kitchen Bouquet (spelling ?) in it to darken it up a bit. I accidentally put Vanilla in it.

My biggest recipe goof of all time:

I was making a Paraguan cornbread recipe that calls for shredded cheese and chopped, sauted onions.

Well, I didn't have any onions in the house, so i thought I'd substitute Anaheim chiles, which we had grown the previous summer and were in our freezer.

We had also grown habañeros, which I had also packaged up and frozen.


Yup, I got the wrong package from the freezer.

I ended up putting 5 (FIVE!) entire habañeros in the cornbread. One bite and I thought I was going to die. Hubby manfully struggled through one piece before he surrendered and we had to throw it out. We even doubled-wrapped it in foil and triple bagged it before putting it out in the garbage can, because we didn't want any dog or wild animal getting into it and possibly being seriously hurt.

Ever since, we have referred to that as the "Napalm Cornbread Incident".

** - If you're unfamiliar with different pepper "hotness", jalapeños are usually at 5 or 6, Anaheim chiles are about 2....and habeñeros are 10.

One year my sister in law forgot to take that bag of "stuff" out of the turkey and cooked it with the innards still in there.

I've done that a couple of times over the years sillyfeet but amazingly the bag didn't melt so no harm done, nobody was any the wiser!

Maybe they make it to withstand heat for that reason

I always seem to burn the first dozen cookies I try to make
I have cooked a ham still wrapped in the plastic
Forgotten to put baking soda in cakes and cookies, and sometimes brownsugar (chocochip cookies)
When I first started seeing my hubby, we were going to a picnic and he asked me to finish putting some potato salad together, I had never done this as I don't care for it, so I put in everything he had cut up an told him it was done. He came and tried it and said " It's a little dry, how much mayo did you use" . Uh none. I didn't know that you used mayo in it. He laughs about it until this day.




edited because I hit wrong button

sillyfeet wrote:One year my sister in law forgot to take that bag of "stuff" out of the turkey and cooked it with the innards still in there.

My DH did that once. Oh the stories I could tell ya about DH and cooking! LoL

As for the cookies Skippy burns... try taking them out 2 minutes before the timer goes off. They bake for two minutes on the pan.
(ya probably know that already, but I didn't until recently so sharing in case others don't know)

Lynxanie wrote:I sugar cookies when they're lacy and chewy

I didn't do this (no honest, it wasn't me ), but one year someone told my mum that if she put her turkey in the pan upside down the breast would stay more moist. OMG! That turkey came out of the oven looking like a nuclear holocaust survivor . It didn't brown, yet the meat was straggling off the bones. My mum was famous for her cooking and her turkey dinners were legend. Sundays and holidays were always big dinners that all my 'stray' friends at the track (the ones away from home and family) practically fought for an invite to. We had a houseful that day. Mum just about cried when she pulled that turkey out. Dad made the mistake of teasing her about it and I thought she was going to take his head off

The thing didn't taste bad but it was UGHlee! Still, her table full of delicious side dishes was enough for any ten people to make an excellent meal of!

My turkey disaster was the year Hubster decided we were going to do the "Two Hour Turkey" from the recipe card in the store. Ppphhhtt! The thing was crunchy on the outside and raw in the middle! That was the last time Hubster got to decide on how to do the turkey!

The secret is to put it upside down for only about an hour, then turn is back over. It works, really!!!

Once bitten twice shy, Selina Thanks for the tip ... but I'll stick with my way I put herbed butter under the skin and it always turns out yummy moist I also cook low and slow for a long time. The year of the 2 Hour Turkey was 'cause Hubster didn't want to get his laziness out of bed to help me put it in at Oh-dark-thirty in the morning. I don't have 100% use of my left arm and hand, so I can't get a 20+ lb turkey in the oven myself. He hasn't had the nerve to complain since the 2 Hour debacle.

On the country gravy ... I feel everyone's pain I was raised on it, LOVE it and my mum could whip it up flawlessly every time. (The version here is actually sort of tan, as it's always made with drippings from fried meat). But mine always seems to be a crapshoot. Sometimes awesome ... sometimes not so much It's nearly always edible, but consistency varies

I once, in high school, made an absolutely gorgeous looking batch of biscuits... problem was I oopsed and used baking *soda* instead of baking powder. Tasted just like when you drink a glass of water with soda in it for a tummy ache.

...another time, still in HS, I made a perfectly serviceable, if somewhat dry, apple pie (my first) to impress a boy. Yeah, impressed he was when his piece had a strand of my very long hair in it...