As I deliberated over the many delectable options for baking for the Christmas season, memories of epic cooking fails began surfacing: the exploding turkey liver, the brownie Pintaster, the cookie lava covering my oven, and more. In retrospect, many of them are hilarious, but they certainly weren’t then. Last year, I wrote about a different type of Christmas disaster in NOT a Hallmark Christmas. However, since I seem to have a sizeable repertoire of things that have gone wrong, I thought I’d give you another laugh at my expense.
If you have ever cooked and served a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, you know that having everything ready and hot at the same time is challenging. Enter the helpful husband. As I was making the gravy and finishing the final preparations for our family Christmas feast, my husband decided to feed the dog, and he included the raw turkey liver as a treat. The dog wouldn’t eat it (clever fellow!) So, the helpful husband had a brilliant idea. While I cooked on the stove, he cooked the liver for the fussy dog in the microwave above me.
Peace and harmony deserted our kitchen that day. Suddenly, there was a huge “bang” in the microwave above the stove. Upon opening the door and peering in to see what had happened, a sight no one ever wants to see met our eyes. The lid had blown off the dish when the outer membrane of the liver burst, and hundreds of little bits of liver-gut shrapnel had exploded all over the inside of the appliance. Yes, at serving time. We laugh about this epic cooking fail now, but please, don’t try it at home. Consider yourself warned.
And then there was the epic Pinterest fail (Pintaster). Someone had posted that you could make brownies in a waffle iron. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn’t. I lost hours of my life that I can never get back. The sugar in the brownie batter caramelized and stuck to the waffle iron, even though I had greased it well. I don’t think super glue could have done a better job of adhering the sweet cement to the iron. The “easy” dessert (with ice cream and chocolate syrup waiting for the moment to add their drippy goodness) turned into hours of scraping and chipping. My previous waffle iron had removable plates—this one did not. Since it wasn’t immersible, the best I could do was spray it with hot, soapy water and apply elbow grease.
You’d think I’d have learned my lesson, but no. Another time, I tried making “stuffles” in the waffle iron, leftover stuffing bound with egg. Enough said.
The Christmas I made chocolate chip cookiegrams on a pizza pan also comes to mind. They turned out well and made fun gifts, but then I got creative. Recipes are often just suggestions in my world, so why wouldn’t I experiment with a variation? Did you know that if you substitute peanut butter chips for chocolate chips in the same cookie recipe, they melt, and the whole thing turns into molten lava that pours all over the oven? I do now.
And how could I mention epic cooking fails without referring you back to The Village That Santa Forgot? I won’t retell that story here, but even if you read it a couple of years ago, you might enjoy a laugh a second time.
There are still ten days until Christmas, so the potential exists to add to my repertoire of cooking fails. Someday, I might share some of my successes with you, but I wouldn’t count on it. Epic cooking fails are way funnier!
Have a joyful Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour, and enjoy the fruit of your labours, no matter what form they take. After all, who among us hasn’t heard these words: It still tastes good…
Until next time,
Brenda Erb Roberts
Thank you for reading about my silliness and my spiritual reflections over the past year. I appreciate your support and encouragement.
For further reading:
My previous Lighter Side (Humour) blog post: Stuff You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know.
Looking Back: Last December’s Lighter Side article: NOT a Hallmark Christmas.
My most recent Inspirational reflection: Does Hope Fit into 2025?