It was mentioned in the comments last week that doing a post on our worst cooking or baking fails might be fun. So, I'll share mine, and you can add yours in the comments.
I was 19 and sharing a house with two girlfriends for the summer, while we all did local farm and cannery work. (I know, I used to live such a glamorous life. Aren't you envious?!) My roommates worked the day shift driving combines while I worked 3rd shift (overnight) packaging asparagus. My sense of time was askew all summer long. I slept in the day and was up all night. I did my grocery shopping literally at the crack of dawn, after my shift ended. On my days (nights) off, I was often at a loss for something to do. If I tried to sleep during the night, it would throw me off for my next shift. So, I just stayed awake on my nights off, reading, playing solitaire (with actual cards), going to the 24/7 laundromat in town, going for midnight bike rides, and baking or cooking.
One night, I had a thought to try baking yeast bread. I'd never baked yeast bread before, but had baked a lot of biscuits, cookies, and cakes growing up. I went to the grocery store and bought a small bag of whole wheat flour and yeast. It was around 3 AM when I came home, and my roomies were sound asleep.
Being young, stupid, and impatient, I thought something like this, "oh, you don't need to really follow these instructions to make bread. I'll just mix up the dough and bake it." I used all whole wheat flour and didn't knead the dough at all. I don't think I even knew what kneading bread dough looked like. I just stirred together the flour, water, sugar, salt, butter, and yeast, then plopped it all into a loaf pan. The recipe on the bag of flour said that this made 2 loaves. We only had one loaf pan. So into the single loaf pan that dough went. I didn't allow the dough to rise, instead I popped it into the oven as soon as the oven was hot.
I decided to lie down on the sofa and listen to some music, quietly, while my bread baked. Our range was really old and didn't have a timer function. So, we'd have to keep an eye on anything we were cooking. I bet you can see where I'm going here. I fell asleep, and the next thing I knew my roommate was yelling at me to wake up, saying that the house smelled like smoke. (no smoke detectors in those days) I was able to retrieve my blackening brick of whole wheat from the smoky oven. Was that thing ever a brick! It was not sliceable. It was not at all salvageable. I did learn a lesson on following instructions. I wouldn't try making yeast bread again for another 9 years after that disaster.
This was the one cooking/baking that I would give myself a grade of a complete F. F, not only for the result being a failure, but also to myself for thinking I didn't need to follow instructions. Oh well, we're all young and stupid once, right?
Your turn. Share your biggest cooking/baking fail ever.
