Today’s Kitchen Disaster Story is brought to you because I’ve been invited to be a part of Pampered Chef’s Spill It! Contest.
By sharing MY story with y’all, I’m entered to win a $3500.00 shopping spree to Pampered Chef to stock my kitchen and a $125 Spa Gift Certificate. {swoon}
UPDATED: 4/11/11 2:10 PM CST
I’m really excited to announce that I was just given permission to do this and I’m SOOO excited!
If I win, I’m going to share this awesomeness of this with y’all!!!!
IF I win, everyone who commented on this post and helped me win — gets entered to win MY $125 Spa Gift Certificate!!!!! Thank you TPC for being SO Generous!!!
How do I win?
With YOUR help! The blogger with the most comments on their post by NOON Friday, April 15th — wins.
Have I mentioned how much I love y’all? How beautiful you look today?
I’m about to share my biggest/most memorable kitchen disaster with y’all — I’d love for you to share yours with me here and Pampered Chef wants you to share it on their facebook page, too!
** Check below the post for a way to ENTER to WIN THE EXACT SAME PRIZE that I’m in the running for!!!!!!
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Do you remember when you were learning to cook?
The thrill of mastering a recipe?
The nervous butterflies in your tummy when you pulled something out of the oven for the first time, hoping, praying that it turns out correctly?
The double and triple checking of ingredients and measurements?
OH! You didn’t double and triple check the recipe ingredients when you first started cooking?
I did — except this ONE time — this time that 20 years later I STILL hear about.
Okay y’all — truthfully, I measured everything I just um……
Well, I was making my Dad’s Raisin Bran muffins which were my favorite favorite thing ever for breakfast and snacks. I was SO confident that I could do it just like he did. I just knew that my muffins would be light and moist and filled with plump raisins and delicious — just as good, if not better than my Dad’s.
{sigh} to be young and cocky confident 
Everything was going perfectly until young teenage me added 3 Tbsp of baking powder instead of 3 tsp of baking soda.
Let that sink in for a moment
This was literally, a recipe for disaster.
The resulting (I hesitate to call them muffins) muffin shaped imposters were horribly bitter and completely inedible and I was devastated.
I’ve had multiple other kitchen disasters in my day but this one — this one stands out to me as my BIGGEST kitchen disaster of all time. Maybe because it was my first, or because it taught me the lesson that I should always read a recipe completely and measure out my ingredients carefully beforehand but mostly because those were hands down the nastiest muffins EVER.
Now, even when I’m distracted — you can bet I triple check my ingredients AND my measurements!!!
What’s YOUR biggest/funniest/most memorable kitchen disaster?
I’d love it if you’d share that here in your comments and help me to win this amazing contest!
Want to know how YOU could win big??
Go to the Pampered Chef Facebook Page and share your own disaster story on www.facebook.com/ThePamperedChef (under the “contests” tab) before Friday at noon!. If you do this.. then YOU can be entered to win your own $3500 Pampered Chef Shopping Spree and the $125 Spa Gift Card.
Pampered Chef is sponsoring TWO giveaways! One for bloggers (I’m participating with MY post here) and one for Facebook Fans on their Facebook page.
Here’s today’s linky! Please leave a comment (to help me win!) after you link up your recipe! Thanks y’all! Happy Monday!
great post. good luck. living vicariously imagining how you will use the spa gift!
Christine´s most recent brilliance ..My 2 Cents on 75 Cents Still Doesn’t Equal One Dollar
Yikes! Who hasn’t done that?
So when my sister & I were little, we decided to make pudding for my mother’s birthday. I think I was 8. My sister was 4. So I could read. (Clearly, it was my fault but still, I blame her. Read on.)
So we put the pudding mix in the plastic measuring bowl. Added the milk. Stirred it really well. (It said to stir for 2 minutes and we actually timed it!)
Then, the directions said to continue stirring over heat until it thickened. So, we put the bowl on the burner, turned it on and continued stirring. We stirred and stirred and it never thickened.
However, the plastic bowl melted all over the burner(doh) and it smelled horrendously bad & yes, when we realized what we’d done, there was no getting it off the burner. We had the wherewithal to turn off the burner. Finally.
Happy Birthday, Mom!
Good luck, ma’am! I hope you win!
I don’t do kitchen disasters. I do kitchen learning experiences. Big difference.
burghbaby´s most recent brilliance ..If You See A Leprechaun- Punch Him For Me
I was melting some chocolate for brownie drops as a kid. Got distracted, came back in, saucepan was on fire! Put the lid on to put the fire out, pulled it off the burner — and inexplicably put it ON THE FLOOR. It melted a hole in the 1970s linoleum and had to be chipped off. We had a rug in the kitchen for the next 10 years.
Dawn´s most recent brilliance ..Get in the Closet
every day is a kitchen disaster for me. probably the worst one was when the lasagna slipped out of the aluminum pan into the bottom of the oven. that was phun..
linney´s most recent brilliance ..How to get UNFOLLOWED on Twitter
How about the time I made oatmeal bread and forgot to add the flour???
Carmen´s most recent brilliance ..Im No Scientist
My first time cooking chicken, I added the raw chicken to straight hot oil.
It was also my first small fire in the kitchen.
Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing]´s most recent brilliance ..Slap a black bow headband on that dog- and you’ve got a new Pangie!
Oh I would have so many stories to add to this list! I hope you win!! xoxo
My worst kitchen disaster was when the bottom fell out of my blender – right after I finished making margaritas (but NOT after I’d put them in the pitcher). Tequila and lime goodness ALL OVER the floor!
Miss Britt´s most recent brilliance ..Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Big Trip
I’m perfection in the kitchen:)
I kid.
But, once my cousin messed up Rice Krispie Treats…I don’t even know how.
Krystyn´s most recent brilliance ..Mommy and Me Monday- Spring Break-60th
Oh that’s good. I have done numerous measurement mistakes. But I also did a milk mistake. I made a beautiful bundt cake and used light vanilla soy milk. Needless to say, the cake never set, and the inside was one big runny mess. I learned to never do that again!
Ohhh I hope you win!! My biggest disaster was cooking boxed mac and cheese as a teenager. I thought what could be easier? Boy was I wrong. It turned out to be a hard, gloopy, disgusting mess of noodles. I don’t know how I did it but thank heavens I have improved greatly since then but my brothers and sisters still remind me about it!
Julie´s most recent brilliance ..Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes
You so need to win. So you can cook me a feast. I don’t get fed feast-like often enough.
Redneck Mommy´s most recent brilliance ..I Have No Idea Where I Am
kitchen disaster? I’ve been known to leave out stuff like sugar, when baking. (you can’t do that).
designhermomma´s most recent brilliance ..It’s Mozzi due in May Giveaway – Lisa Leonard Designs!
Dishwashing soap in the dishwasher after a Thanksgiving Dinner. ‘Nuff said!
Good luck, Rach!
Mishelle Lane´s most recent brilliance ..Weekly Winners Our Staycation
Well, there was this one time where I added WAY TOO MUCH vodka to our jello shots. So, they didn’t fully congeal & were strong as hell. Which made for even bigger drunken disasters later on in the night. One dude fell asleep in my yard… in the rain.
truly a disaster:
preteen me, attempting to make peanut butter rice krispie treats. i had the butter melted before i melted the cup of jif creamy peanut butter. couldn’t figure out why the damn things weren’t sticking together, though. turns out one must melt the stupid marshmallows, too!
(good luck in your contest!)
My most recent disaster was the time I made a 7-up pound cake and used self rising flour instead of all purpose like the recipe said. I was cleaning up burnt on cake forever.
Good luck!
I stuffed a meatloaf pan to the brim with my meatloaf mixture……turns out, those little holes on the bottom are for draining into a bigger pan.
I had grease all over my oven and my “meatloaf” was little gray meat pellets floating in three inches of grease.
I wish my disasters were when I was a kid…
It was 2003. It was time for the Thanksgiving celebration at my office. We were making the mashed potatos (easy, yummy, cheap!) We had about 45 people in our office, so we were making *a lot* of potatos. Anyway, we had just moved into an apartment that had a garbage disposal, and boy was that thing handy! I had forgotten some ingredient at the store, so while I ran back to get it, my husband started peeling. He was almost done when I got back…that’s when I saw it. He was peeling the potatos directly into the drain. “The garbage disposal with get rid of them, right?” he asked. I said, “Well, I guess? Have you tried?” He had not. He thought I was being overly worried. I was not. He turned on the water (none of which went down the drain) flipped the switch (which whirred for 2.5 seconds then stopped) and I groaned. As I put the potatos on to boil, my husband took the drain apart to scrape a couple of pounds worth of potato skins out of the drain. The entire thing was packed with skins from the drain all the way through the U-shaped pipe. The potatos were good, but they took 4 hours to cook (including plumbing time). One of the more memorable moments in the kitchen with my late husband
Sherry Carr-Smith´s most recent brilliance ..Happy Anniversary William!
My college roommate and I were making a birthday cake for our neighbor and (without knowing it) we both added a stick of butter and we both added oil. (Obviously we were paying *very*close*attention* to the task at hand.) And we baked and baked and baked that thing and the center just would *not* get done. Finally we gave up, scooped out the goopy center and had a big birthday doughnut!
Bridget´s most recent brilliance ..She’s right And I’m curious
Oh no! I’ve had my share of disasters, from hard as rock rolls (they didn’t rise) to ruining my mom’s burner because a pan of rock candy boiled over!
Melissa´s most recent brilliance ..Asigo Bagels
I love your link party. What great recipes to chose from today.
carolinaheartstrings´s most recent brilliance ..HAM & POTATO CASSEROLE
Hmmmn, I think my biggest mess would be pushing the wrong button on the hand mixer… I was making angel food cake, which is the world’s stickiest substance, and I meant to eject the beaters. Instead, I turned them on high, flinging that marshmallow cream-like stuff all over my cabinets.
Now? I ALWAYS unplug the mixer before trying to eject the beaters.
Erica Mueller´s most recent brilliance ..10 Ways to Get Inspired to Blog
When I was living on my own for the first time I decided to make my Mom’s famous chicken soup…without her recipe. Big…BIG mistake. I knew that my Mom put in rice and noodles in her chicken soup, I just didn’t know how much. So, being totally unworldly in the realm of food expansion, I put in a cup and a half of both together with all the other ingredients and let is simmer. By the time the *soup* was done, it was so thick that my wooden spoon stood up straight right in the middle of it. Even though it was chock full of chicken chunks, my cat wouldn’t even eat it. Good thing I’d say that today I bake more than I cook. LOL
Best wishes with the contest Rachel, hope you *shop until you drop*
I was making chocolate chip cookies for the first time by myself. And I misread the 1/2 tsp of salt as 1/2 cup of salt. I finally called to my mom that I couldn’t get the lumps of salt out which made her curious enough to come see what was up. Whoops!
(Hope you win – how fun would that shopping spree be?)
Michelle Smiles´s most recent brilliance ..Taco soup
When I was trying to help my Mom cook dinner and I added baking soda instead of baking powder to the biscuits. They were awful.
Heather´s most recent brilliance ..Back to BasicsPasta with Meat Sauce
Raised by a single mother, I tried to help out as much as I could. One night around the age of 8 I decided to make hamburgers to suprise her when she came home from work. I had watched her do it so many times, I felt confident I could master it on my own. When I took the chopmeat out of the package it was (obviously) bloody. So I washed it. I had seen my mother rinse chicken numerous times, same with pork chops…so why not? Yeah, couldn’t have been more wrong. I was so excited that I made dinner – even set the table – that I was too nervous to eat. My mom took that first bite and tried to smile through her gagging. Thankfully, 25 years later I am a MUCH better cook and have even schooled my own 8 year old NEVER to rinse / wash chopmeat!
I am SO no chef…and I’ve had my share of wonky outcomes…but when I get it right…boy howdy! (I made cake pops this weekend, so I’m feeling a bit fab)
Ouch! It’s always horrible when you feel like everything is going to be just perfect and when you open the oven door, BLAM! Horror City. I’ve had that happen a couple of times baking bread, and I still can’t figure out what went wrong. I checked and rechecked the recipe versus my measurements and checked comments on the recipe online and NOTHING. Maybe 3rd times the charm. Good luck!
Kat´s most recent brilliance ..When life comes crashing in
Thanks for hosting! I just linked up my Cinnamon Swirl Pancakes! Good luck with the contest!!!
Christina @ It’s a Keeper
I have an Emeril cookbook that says to fry chicken for 12 minutes. So that’s what I did, I fried it for 12 minutes. Because I was following the recipe’s directions.
We sat down to dinner with our mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, and RAW fried chicken.
I was so embarrassed.
Jennifer, Playgroups are no Place for Children´s most recent brilliance ..Miss I’m-Not-Athletic
Oh no! I once made banana muffins only the baking soda didn’t mix in properly, I must have been rushing through. So when I bite into one specific muffin I hit a pocket of baking soda. Gag! It took me a long time to brave that recipe again.
Good luck on winning the shopping spree!
Allison @ Alli ‘n Son´s most recent brilliance ..Pop Overs
My biggest cooking disaster involved a mango/chicken/cilantro/rice invention in which the garlic burned, I had too little food and had to present it to my extended NYC family (one of whom is a REAL CHEF.
Shame. Total shame.
Oh my, that is hilarious! I am FAMOUS for missing an ingredient. For the MOST part, it hasn’t been anything devistating. Certainly changes the result though. I totally have to double and triple check a recipe. Glad you lived and learned! The muffins sound awesome! Do you have the recipe here for the raisin bran muffins or am I just missing it? I’d love to try them. With the correct amound of baking soda of course.
Debbi Does Dinner Healthy´s most recent brilliance ..Carrot Chipotle Soup
my most recent is a couple nites ago….after melting some chocolate candy melts in the microwave — i decided it was too thick for dipping marshmallow peeps….thought…well, how about a little corn syrup to thin it….as I was pouring a small amount i realized “hmmm i think i read about thinning with crisco for some reason….wonder if this is not a good idea”….definitely not a good idea….adding about 1 teaspoon to a pound of candy melts made it more like modeling chocolate…and overnite it turned into a brick! oh well you bake and you learn….! GL!
michelle´s most recent brilliance ..elvis has left the building cupcakes!
Good luck. That sounds like something I did when I was younger, too, only it was salt not leavening….the results weren’t worth swallowing even one bite!
Kristen´s most recent brilliance ..Your Recipe- My Kitchen- Apple Butter Pie
I’ve had many and that all started with “It seemed like a good idea at the time…” or “But I was trying to go healthier, and it said substitutions would work!” The best advice I ever got was from (of all people) Heloise. We were in a meeting and she did a “test kitchen” with two recipes she was trying out. The cakes were ok, but umm, not very good. And she’s an amazing baker! She said every kitchen is and should be a test kitchen and you just have to keep trying! It doesn’t need to be perfect the first time! You just need to keep trying until you DO figure out how to perfect it. That sure freed me to feel comfortable trying!
Oh! How I was going to IMPRESS my new in-laws at Thanksgiving with MY grandmother’s famous pecan pies! My s-i-l said, ‘are you sure?… I mean, do yall even have an oven at the ranch?’ Well, yes! We did have an oven. We spent all day getting it connected to the propane tank. It was ready to roll! So, I got the pies made, turned the oven on and waited for it to warm up. This is kinda gross… if you’re squeamish and don’t know how things go on a ranch, stop reading here. Next thing I know there is a terrible odor. Undescribable, really. Smoke is boiling out of the oven… I’m thinking ‘fire’!!! Open the oven, there’s nothing in there but smoke… open the broiler under the oven… a toasty fried mouse! Apparently this unfortunate fellow had found a home in our oven while it was parked in the barn waiting for it’s place in the kitchen. Moral of this disaster… always check your equipment! PS… the pies got baked in town. Turns out you can freeze a pecan pie and pop it right into an oven to bake. who knew?!
Oh GOOD LUCK! What an awesome prize!
Disasters — definitely been there. I sometimes get carried away with having a toddler around so I end up skipping some crucial ingredient like sugar in my zucchini bread. Not the lovely bread you’d expect normally.
I recently also left a loaf of bread baking for about 3 hours instead of 1. Surprisingly enough, it was dry but totally still edible. I give full credit to my Römertopf Pane terracotta bread pan for that still turning out ok!
Tiffany @ No Ordinary Homestead´s most recent brilliance ..Made in Germany Giveaway
Oh, I’ve had MANY disasters. My most recent one was making S’mores Brownies, which I’ve done before (successfully, thankyouverymuch). I was using a different box mix than usual (yes, a box mix), though, and I didn’t realize they needed to cook longer. I was in a hurry or cocky or both, and I didn’t even check to make sure they were cooked through. Just imagine – completely NOT cooked through brownies with marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate chips thrown on top. It was a disgusting mess…that we ate with spoons.
Mary @ Giving Up on Perfect´s most recent brilliance ..Monday Morning Mmmm- Ultimate Banana Bread
Thanks for hosting! My most recent kitchen mishap was the flop that occurred just this weekend in trying a new sourdough bread recipe. My husband asked if it was even worth the electricity it would take to bake these disastrous loaves — our flock on laying hens enjoyed it nonetheless.
Lisa @ Happy in Dole Valley´s most recent brilliance ..Muffin Monday – Applesauce Spice Muffins
I cook a lot of experimental dishes because of my food allergies so I have more than my share of failures!
Most are edible- just not the result that I am looking for, but some get dumped in the trash! I have a lot more wins than losses, thank goodness and I always learn from my mistakes!
I am sharing my recipe for Chicken Dijon Stew- it tastes great and it’s really healthy too!
Thanks for hosting!
Andrea (Andreas Kitchen)´s most recent brilliance ..Chicken Dijon Stew
As soon as you mentioned that you were making muffins, I knew where this story was going. I recently got married and my husband was really excited that we had gotten a waffle maker as a wedding gift. The first Sunday we were in our new home, I wasn’t feeling well so he decided to make me waffles from scratch. He was incredibly proud of himself when he presented them to me in bed. He though I was kidding him when I took a bite and said “This is TERRIBLE! I can’t eat this.” It turns out that he made the same mistake as you, but he knowingly did it! He said the recipe called for baking powder, which he couldn’t find. He found the baking soda, which he noticed was powdered, and he thought it must have been the same thing! I didn’t tease him too much about it, otherwise he might never try to cook again!
I was at my mom’s house, making chili. I was stirring a big pot of it on the stove, and when I pulled my arm away, the sleeve of my sweater had caught on the handle of the pot. That pot crashed to the floor! I jumped back and only got splashed, but her kitchen floor was a FLOOD of chili.
Oh, what a giant mess.
amy2boys´s most recent brilliance ..Flaming Dinner
Amazing Story and Great Memories! I have a few of these kinds of stories too! Good Luck in the contest!
Tina @ MOMS CRAZY COOKING´s most recent brilliance ..THIS WEEKS CRAVINGS LINKY PARTY 24 Egg Recipes and Bacon & Cheese Deviled Eggs
Ok I will play….this is a good one.
My husband and I were renting a 2 bedroom apartment, and his best friend was our roommate for a year. My husband was the main cook in the house. When my husband wasn’t around, Eric (roommate) and I were forced to hunt for something to eat ourselves. It was really pathetic to see us trying to figure out dinner most nights. We lived on grilled cheese and quesodillas.
Well one night I got bold and decided to make Regu Pasta Bake. I cooked the noodles and placed them in the 9×13 pyrex. I then poured the meat and sauce on top. With all of the ingredients, the pyrex dish got very heavy. I had the pyrex in one hand and was trying to open the over with the other hand, well of the contents of the dish slid into the walls of the over and into the interior door of the oven.
The red sauce oozed all over the crevices of the door. Eric and I freaked. We had to find a screwdriver to remove the door to the over to clean. We got the over door off and the glass out, but while removing it, we broke off a piece, and then we couldn’t figure out how to put it back together. It was horrible.
To this date, I make my husband put lasagna dishes in the stove, because I have post traumatic stress from that event….
Julie {Angry Julie Monday}´s most recent brilliance ..New glasses and a fresh injury
How about my juicy lucy burgers (the kind with cheese in the middle) that were completely not cooked in the middle and everyone was kind enough to eat around the edges.
I’m gonna delurk today because I have a pretty good one
I had been married all of 5 minutes and I was all ready to make my mother in law’s beef stroganoff recipe. My hubby had all these nostalgic feelings about it and I was determined to recreate this famous childhood meal of his. I made all of these perfect little meatballs, made my beautiful sour cream sauce and I was about to put the finishing touches by adding some pepper. I grabbed the “pepper” and started shaking away. But I immediately saw that I had made a mistake…a HUGE irreversible mistake. It was cinnamon….a lot of cinnamon…all over my beautiful stroganoff. I tried to rinse it… we tried everything to make it even remotely edible. Even ketchup. Alas…we had to order pizza. And I have never heard the end of that now infamous meal. The cinnamon stroganoff. I’d like to think that all these years later I have redeemed myself with many yummy dinners. The more dinners I put in between me and that nasty meal the better.
Ashley @ Mrs.007´s most recent brilliance ..play by play
1st of all, I MUST have the recipe for that bundt cake and the yummy looking glaze!!
My disaster was WAY back before I even cared about cooking. I had my first apartment so of course we had an all out, teenage, liquor-filled birthday party. Someone suggested we have a cake. So we walked across the street to HEB for cake. Of course we were all living on our own for the 1st time (translation: BROKE) so we couldn’t afford a ready made cake. Cake mix was out of the question (No Cake pans..lol). So we came across what we thought was the greatest thing ever! A “just add water” cake!! Complete with it’s own disposable cake pan! It was super cheap so we bought it. Went to the apartment where the party was in full swing. I added the water to my birthday cake and stuck it in the oven. Many beers and shots later someone said “shouldn’t the cake be done?” It had been about an hour and the cake only needed 45 min to cook. Expecting it to be burnt, I took it out and it was still the watery chocolate mess it was when I stuck it in! Oven was working so I figured “oh, the time on the box is wrong! It just needs more time to cook!” An hour later….Still watery but a little thicker. An hour after that (yes, it TOTALLY had been in the oven for 3 hours!)….DONE!! We get out the knife, cut the cake, and it is the most disgusting looking chocolate cake EVER!! Looks like mud inside..LOL! Someone looks at the box (I think it was my now-husband) and says “you added the 3/4 Cups of water like it said to, right? OOPS!! Nope! I added 1 3/4 cups of water!! So moral of the story…YES you can screw up a “just add water” cake..OR maybe teenagers shouldn’t drink…LOL!
Still to this day I never see that “just add water” cake ANYWHERE!