COOKIES! discussion

Yesterday, I had a baking disaster due to which I loudly declared, I would NEVER bake again! We are going to have a family get-together on Saturday, and I wanted to make 2 of my new quick breads that I developed for the gathering. I admit it is clearly all my fault. I over filled the pans, and knowing this, I put them in the oven anyway. Mistake #1. I also neglected to place a cookie sheet under them to catch run-over. Mistake #2. There was also a small fire.....

One ran over,the middle colasped on the other. And of course I said, " Oh! Gosh! Darn! What an inconvience!" Narzain can tell you how calm I was and all....NOT! I'm surprised that all of you didn't hear me screaming at the top of my lungs about 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time, no matter where you live.

The oven is clean. The one bread is in chunks, the other, if I slice it first, is salvageable. I will bake again. I am contemplating making a Scandanavian Almond Cake as we speak,to pad out what I can't salvage.

There were tears, curses,a sore throat, and thankfuly a very un-flappable, suportive boyfriend who offered a lot of hugs and encourgement. (Thank you Narzain....)

Have any of you had disasters like this, that made you vow you would never bake again, all the while thinking of the next thing to bake? Or am I a Macadamia Nut cookie with Dark Chocolate chips and Toffee Bits?

I am the INCONSISTENT COOK, which means most everything I make is a disaster. It is so sad, my dish never looks like the one in the magazine, it never taste fantastic, but my family keeps smiling, and I keep trying.

Today we (a friend of mine who is a professional home chef) baked dozens upon dozens of cookies! It was a Christmas cookie day, oatmeal, pecan bars, chocolate chip, gingerbread, chocolate cherry, coconut macaroon, and a new one this year - a sugar cookie with orange zest. Now for all you great bakers, you probably already know how to make this one, but I will share with you just in case - go to the recipe page and look for my post - Classic Sugar Cookies - very light and yummy - oh and I think the key to the lightness of this cookie - I beat the heck out of the butter sugar mixture before adding the flour. My chef friend said that when I walked away for 10 mins! (oops sorry, got distracted) and forgot I left the mixer going, it made the cookie lighter because of all the air I beat into the mix - there I go again, another blunder, but this time it worked in my favor. All was well, YUM!

I knew some one,who was a good cook by the way,who once turned whipping cream into butter by over beating it in the mixer.

Kim wrote: "I knew some one,who was a good cook by the way,who once turned whippping cream inot butter by over beating it in the mixer."

OH NO - I've done that too!

I have had my fair share of things go wrong over the years. I mean, we all make mistakes no matter how long we have been baking. My mom used to make and decorate cakes when I was a kid. She had a small, home based business. One time, she forgot to set the oven back to bake after broiling chicken, and she broiled a cake. We got to eat the mistake. It tasted fine, it was thin... Another time, she was making red frosting, which is really hard to get it right without tasting funny, for a fire engine cake. She dropped the bowl on the floor. We had a redish stain for about 2 months.

i've burned cookies and i've ruined a loaf of bread. i have over cooked cakes and biscuits.

Not exactly a disaster, but I forgot to set the timer on a batch of cookies the other day. Needless to say, they came out rather 'crispy'.

I've done that but i don't know how I knew, but I did get them out while they were still eddible... one of those things I guess.

mostly that. but once i really burned the whole lot.

I usally don't burn too much unless it runs over the pan. Otherwise, I'm pretty good. My mom is known for burning grilled cheese sammies on at least 1 side...

i'm going to make cookies NOW!!! my mum and maniac bro is away to play ping-pong so i can do something NICE.

What are you making? Something from here or one of your own standbys?

my invented recipe.

Ooooh! What kind?

chocolate. can't put up the recipe though... i just did it by feeling.

Sometimes that's how I cook too. A little of this, little of that, eyeball it, etc.

I almost had a disaster for Thanksgiving this year. Almost. I did save the day with some quick thinking. I was going to make a new recipe that is in the new Barefoot Contessa cookbook by Ina Garten called "How Easy Is That?" It is for a an easy cranberry and apple cake that you make in a 10" pie plate (yes, glass not metal, there fore plate not pan). I only have 9" so I made a mini one in a disposable pan. That wasn't the near disaster. You need to use fresh cranberries and I bought mine 2 weeks before I needed them. I forgot the cardinal rule with fresh berries. If you are not going to use them right away, store them FLAT or preferably, FLAT and FROZEN.

I stored them in the veggie drawer of the fridge, just where they lay. So, flash forward to the DAY BEFORE Thanksgiving, and there I am setting our my ingredients so I can bake this thing after my Tai Chi class. I go to rinse my berries to find 1/2 of them are no good. A fresh berry bounces since cranberries are hollow inside. These were squished or squishy.

TOTAL PANIC MODE! Wonderful boyfriend, Narzain, was there to keep me calm and took me to the store (which was 8 kinds of stupid the day before a major holiday) to seek our more berries. *Sigh* no fresh joy (as expected) but bought dried instead.

The recipe calls for the zest of 2 oranges and 1/4 c. juice from 1. I did that, juiced the other, warmed the juice in the microwave, and soaked 1/3 c. plus one generous handful of dried berries in the warmed juice. I let them sit until plumped.

It all worked out in the end. When baked, the fresh berries burst (they are not chopped) so they blended well with the plumped ones. I was very pleased with my self, eventually.

This past weekend, we finally had a chance for me to have my at home birthday dinner of my choice. Since my birthday is in March and since Easter was early this year, there was conflict of scheduling a day to have the dinner. I had chosen Mrs. Cobb's Macaroni and Cheese which to me is the BEST mac and cheese recipe I have ever made. (I veer off of it a bit, with more cheeses and such, but anything made with 1/2 and 1/2 is aces in my book.) I have made this tons of times since I read the "Cat Who cookbook" which contains recipes from the "Cat Who" mystery series by Lillian Jackson Braun. (The early books are most worthy of reading. The later ones when her name was on the books but you can tell she wasn't writing them, well, not so much as far as I'm concerned.)

My original desert was Alton Brown's Tres Leche Cake, but I recently acquired a new cook book for bake sales by Sandra Lee and a chocolate desert got my attention. I think I was trying to do too much at one time and because one of the products listed is no longer available nor is the size, I was stressing a bit.

Now, you use a cake mix as a base,but you don't make the cake as a cake. Cool. I know how to do that, so no big. This desert had 3 distinct layers, cake, pudding, and ganache. According to the instructions, you make the ganache first, then the cake, and finally the pudding. Fine. Except for two things. The cake needs and hour to cool and the ganache becomes so thick after an hour that it is truffle filling and not spreadable.

My cream started to boil over, so I had to pour it over my chocolate chips, but couldn't stir it up right away because I had to clean up my burner (electric stove) so there I am, thanking the heavens for the OveGlove my friend gave me because I was able to take out the element and the drip pan while they were still hot and the cream liquid. Drip hot cream all over the floor, counter and the sink putting drip pan into said sink. Mop up cream that went under dip pan and stir ganache as best as possible. Some chips don't melt, metal bowl, so no microwaving here,thank you very much!

Cake in oven, realize 1 hour cool time, start cussing out lack of reading skills. While cake cools, make mac and cheese, barely keep water from boiling over, done, assembled and in fridge. Go to make pudding. Queen of semi-homemade says to use cold chocolate milk to make pudding. I have chocolate syrup, I'll make my own so I know what's in there! Follow directions on bottle and NOT the normal way I make it (LOTS of chocolate) and realize too late that the pudding is the SMALL box, needed the big one, *sigh* chocolate soup.

Basic physics. Syrup has volume. Should have under measured milk, added syrup and topped off as needed or just bought the prepared stuff to start with. Pudding refuses to set up, ganache needs to go over simmering water to loosen, and plorps onto pudding.

Cussing our the author up one side and down the other.

It tasted fine, I realize my mistakes and take back what was said about author.

I perpetrated one yesterday of stupid proportions. I have written a recipe for my friends birthday next month. Whenever I go to make anything, even if I wrote it, I go over it several times. I dropped the ball on this one. Not only did I forget an entire cup of flour, I left out a stick of butter,which may have been the saving grace to all of this yesterday.

I misread the butter as the flour content, never minding that I always put all the dry ingredients together,and I ended up with an edible mess. I knew the dough didn't look right, but I plowed ahead anyway. I got what looked like cookies, but they wouldn't come off of the sheet and ended being scrapped off. Again, they are edible and I am on the right track with the recipe, but I messed up big time.

Moral here,READ,RE-READ,and READ every recipe before using.

Yesterday I tried a new version of the "Peaches and Cream" cookies in my on going mission to make them taste the way I envisioned. This was my third time making these and I had a few things go so wrong that I am not happy. The cookies may have had too much liquid so they took longer to bake, so they got a little over done, not burned, but a little too brown for my taste. The first batch got broiled since my mother had had it one the night before and did not reset the control to bake. (She blamed me for not checking. That is a whole other can of lard.) They fell apart, but are edible shrapnel.

I tried 4 TBSP of preserves this time and it was too much. I also minced the peaches with kitchen shears which made them easier to eat,so good on that. What may have helped is that if I had remembered to line the sheets with parchment paper since I was working with white chips. It was warm and humid yesterday,but I have baked on hotter days with more humidity and had no problems.

So, I got 80 cookies, only 46 survived duet to sticking.


ARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!