What was your worst cooking disaster?

Answer 1

When I was teaching myself to cook I made a pumkin pie for the main course, not realising how sweet it would be.
So we had dessert then dessert lol

Answer 2

I went to an Army Cook School (too many years ago to remember) and was just removing a large pan containing 10 or 12 Meat Loafs out of the oven when the Squadron Commanding Officer entered the kitchen and someone called the kitchen to Attention. Having just received Basic Training, I did exactly what I was ordered to do and dropped the pan of Meat Loafs and came to attention with the rest of the kitchen personnel. Needless to say, there was Meat Loaf scattered all over the kitchen floor.
I expected to get my rump chewed out but good and was quite worried about it until the Mess Sargeant called me into his office, and handed me a copy of an order that in short said: "At no time will anyone call "Attention" when an "Officer enters the Mess Hall". He then proceeded to shake my hand and gave me a three day pass.

Answer 3

I was in the 8th grade and I had a pan of grease cooking on high and I was cooking home made french fries. I left the kitchen to answer the phone and when I came back in the pan was on FIRE. I was only thinking how do I get this put out so I thru a kitchen towel on it thinking that it would smother the fire out and well it didnt happen it just made it worse the fire flarred up and caught my moms curtains on fire and I got that put out by knocking the curtain down and stomping on it and then I picked up the pan still flaming and walked thru the house with it trying to make it outside with it to dump it on the ground I was sooooo lucky not to be burned but I kept on walking thru the house and the grease still burning and flaming splashed a drip on my arm it scared me and I dropped the pan and the next thing I knew I saw flames shooting from the pan and I ran outside and yellled for help and when the neighbor came over to help the fire was out I guess the pan had smothered out the flame when it dumped over. The worst part was that I had dropped that pan on the new carpet my parents had just put down. Imagine the trouble I was in when my parents got home. Lesson was learned never cook French Fries in a pan on the stove, get a fry daddy and keep a lid handy and some baking soda handy for flare ups!!! Oh and never use a kitchen towel or water on a grease Fire.

Answer 4

I tried to make a tomato stew out of hamburgers once, which was probably asking for trouble in the first place. At some point during the process I decided that maybe beer would be a good thing to add. After all, I'd seen chefs using beer in beef stew, how hard could it be?
I proceeded to pour a half bottle of Asahi beer into the mixture, which was a gift I hadn't drunk already (since I don't like the taste of beer, a fact that somehow vanished from a crucial part of the equation) Anyways, my friend's whole flat filled up with a noxious cloud of boiling lager, and I ended up with a strange brown goo and some spaghetti.
Suffice to say it was utterly horrible, and tasted something like thick, boiled beer with lumps in. Next day I asked a chef where I worked how much beer you'd normally add into a stew, and he told me a large bottle would do for forty people or so...

Still, it could be worse. A friend of mine claims that when he was young and his parents were away, he invited some friends round for a barbecue. Unfortunately it started raining and they all had to go indoors. Not to be peturbed by the English weather, he promptly set up the barbecue in the bath (since it was "ceramic and fireproof") and managed to scorch holes into the walls and ceiling :)

Answer 5

When I was 12 I spent the night with my school friend E. who had a really small kitchen with just a toaster oven. Her dad was out for the evening. E. thought we should make an angel food cake from a mix. She mixed the batter and poured the whole batch into a small loaf pan. I was not an experienced cook but I knew that when you make angel food cake, the batter is only supposed to be 1 or 2 inches deep in the pan. I told her, but she said I was being silly. We put it in the toaster oven and went into the living room to play the piano. In about 10 minutes, her adorable 6-year-old brother came tearing in, his eyes as big as saucers, yelling "Come quick! The cake's all over the oven!!"

We ran in the kitchen and you couldn't even see into the window in the toaster oven door--it was all cake batter. We took the pan out and cleaned up the interior of the oven as best we could. Then, not ready to give up the ghost, we put the pan back in and set the timer for 5 minutes. Every 5 minutes we'd take it out and slice off (horizontally) the top inch or two of cake that had risen over the side of the pan and eat it. I think we had about two and a half hours' worth of cake. Needless to say we shared it with the younger brother. :)

Answer 6

Cooked ham&beans. PROBLEM- Didnt let the beans soak long enough,talk about a disaster, I used some of it to hold down the tile in the basement, it's still holdin after 3 months!

Answer 7

From scratch angel food cake; it looked done, but minutes after I turned it over on a bottle to cool-it slipped out of the pan down the bottle and a mess all over the counter. Pillsbury is my friend now!
I forgot a bigger Oops was on New Years Day having 25 people for dinner- I had to braise a crown roast at high temp, I wanted to add a little water for moisture and when the water hit the pan (which was Pyrex) it exploded. What a night mere, thank God for good neighbors, they owned the local grocery store -opened it for me to get a new roast.

Answer 8

I have had lots of disasters. I once cooked a lettuce thinking it was cabbage, the Yorkshire Pudding that stuck to the top of the oven and my famous exploding Chicken stew that landed in the hallway of the apartment building, and hit a workman painting the walls. I stay out of the kitchen as much as I can.

Answer 9

I had a little umm after supper "tree" and I made my nightly treat, different every night, but every night everyone nknew around 730p or 8p there was a dessert. So alwyas had to cook double LOL. Anyway I decided to make rasin squares. I mixed everything up double batch, put in oven and checked on it, it wasnt getting golden or rising. Just looke dlike sauce, I rechecked the recipe and rechecked squares, could not figure out what happened. I reread ingredients and discovered that I had forgot the one ingredient that was most needed, the FLOUR!!!! I had house ful of hungry dessert eaters and a double pan, bigger than 9 by 13, of this raisin mess. So i sent hubby(ex now) to sotore for vanilla ice cream and, served thisa bubbling mess over it, they loved it nad noone but hubby knew i had messed up. They never expected me to ever mess up anyway LOL

Answer 10

That would be my Garlic Meatloaf.

I was experimenting with fresh garlic because I kept seeing the chefs on tv using it in everything. I normally use garlic powder in my meatloaf but I thought I would try some fresh garlic cloves. I had heard that as the garlic cooks it loses flavor. I wasn't sure how much garlic to use since I don't measure anything so I just started crushing garlic cloves and throwing them in there. I think I used about 10 cloves or so. Needless to say nobody ate meatloaf that night. My husband tried to say it wasn't that bad and ate about a half of a piece. He was worried that he would hurt my feelings but when I told him that it was nasty a look of relief went over his face and he stopped eating it. Now my husband will tease me that he loves everything I cook except the garlicy meatloaf.

Answer 11

First year of marriage, young and still green behind the ears! Wanted to make a delicious beef stew in my crock pot so when it cooked all day and my husband got home from work, the hot meal would be waiting for him! Oh, it went well! Had the cubed beef, potaotes, carrots, celery, onions, green beans...the works! Smelled delicious!! One problem I had, it was too "runny" for me and was not thickened. So, I looked in the cabinet and found a box of corn starch. OH! THICKENER! Great! I placed a half a teaspoon in, stirrred it. Nothing happened. I placed a little more in and still it was not thickening! So, I put a cup on it in! Now it looks good!! Husband got home said dinner smelled good! Sat down, took a bite!! Yep!!! PURE STARCH!!!!! For now on, I do not use corn starch!