Dammit, I messed up!

What to do when things go sideways in the kitchen.

The cake that didn’t unfold, sadly a common sight for bakers.

“But one of the great things about cooking is making mistakes. It's a meal, and if it doesn't work out, there's a new one in a couple of hours." — Ruth Reichl

I’ve been cooking since I was about 12, so that makes 45 long years now that I’ve been messing up in the kitchen. It happened when I was a kid, and it happened just last week. It happens less these days than in my early years, but still, perfection in the kitchen still eludes me. Some would say that’s what keeps cooking interesting, but I disagree. I’d be thrilled to never turn out a less-than-stellar dish again. But it ain’t going to happen. The more you cook, the easier it gets, but mistakes are simply part of the process.

A chocolate cream, tasty, but sadly granular.

My biggest mess ups as a young cook always revolved around pastry. Pie dough stuck to the counter, custards were lumpy, cookies were tough, bundt cakes clung to their moulds, and many a génoise caved in the centre. I distinctly recall making a raspberry mousse in an aluminum springform pan where the outer edge turned purple, and watching chocolate seize in a double boiler when I added a tablespoon of hot water to help it melt. Who hasn’t experienced that one?

As a professional pastry chef I once ended up throwing 20 cakes worth of chocolate mousse in the garbage as the filling separated into two separate masses before our eyes. That’s what happens when you overwhip the cream. And then there was that engagement cake I made for a famous politician’s daughter that I burnt but didn’t have the time to remake. To mask the smoky flavour, I added enough Kirsch in that cake to surely inebriate any of the kids who had a slice. Oh and the icing on that one was a bit runny too so I told the waiters to keep it in the fridge until just before service time.

Naturally I have an excuse for all of these mishaps. The bottom of my work oven tended to burn the base of cakes, and the icing was a new, untested, recipe. Happily, I learned a lot along the way. These days the bundt cakes don’t stick (hello PAM!) and the genoise cakes don’t cave, but I still tend to overcook my cookies.

A runny pie filling, good to eat, but not ideal.

Eventually you learn the seized chocolate can be saved by simply adding a bit of oil or turning it into a sauce. Overwhipped cream is always a drag but catch it in time and you can save it by adding a shot of cold milk. If not, keep whipping and you end up with some nice homemade butter.

However, there’s not always a way out. Burnt rice is unsalvageable. An overcooked roast beef is a tragedy. A soupy tart filling is a sorry sight, and there’s no turning back time to get those grey Brussels sprouts back to the ideal green.

My sister, Lorraine, often calls me up for cooking advice. I try to guide her but sometimes I have no idea what went wrong. Her recent dilemma: gooey meringues. “I think it must be the humidity,” she said. Or maybe something else, I thought, like her wonky oven, the French icing sugar she used, the length of time she beat the whites… So many factors are involved in making meringue that I’m often surprised when things go well. It’s an eternal learning experience.

Have you messed up in the kitchen? I’d love to hear your stories too!

My sister thinks cookbooks should include a paragraph under each recipe pointing out what to do when things go wrong. I’m afraid that paragraph could go on for pages. Yet ideally, if the recipe is well-written, nothing should go wrong.

Notice I said, “ideally.”

Here are my guidelines to avoiding kitchen disasters (which maybe should be a page at the beginning of every cookbook).