Joy the Baker’s Cutting Room Floor
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I think it’s important that you all know something about what comes out of my kitchen: it ain’t all pretty folks. Not every creation that comes out of my kitchen is pretty, polished and ready for its blog debut. The reality is that I have my fair share of flops, dropped eggs, burned butter and dirty dishes… I just don’t usually show those kitchen tidbits with you. Tricky, right?
Today is your lucky day. Here’s a peek at the flops, disasters and otherwise icky recipes I’ve tried and trashed.
Chilled Blueberry Soup. Ok, seriously. Who are you trying to fool? This was just an elaborate recipe for blueberry juice. You tricked me and I resent you Blueberry Soup. This won’t be soon forgotten.
Low Fat Chocolate Mousse with tofu. I think I over whipped the eggs with this little darling. It was so thick and tough just all around noooooooot cute.
Greek Yogurt Frozen Yogurt. I wanted to love you, but holy heck you were thick and rich. Too thick. Too rich.
This Nectarine Cobbler overflowed… big time… while I was one the phone. There was screaming and cursing… mostly because I should have known better.
You were supposed to be a fresh peach scone. Instead you decided to be a bland peach cookie… that’s just not good enough.
Ooooh Cinnamon Rolls. You didn’t fail me. I love you.
Chocolate Chip Potato Chip Cookies. I must have eaten a cool dozen of these cookies trying to decide if they were good or not. I knew with each cookie that they were absolute rubbish. Bleck.
Apricot Scones. Flat and beige Apricot Scones. Note to self: figure out how to make scones. Seriously, how have you not mastered this yet Joy?
Avocado Milkshake. Boooooring picture plus do not like. The photo and taste gods were not with me on this day. For this, and for all of these recipes that I tried and failed.. well, I suppose I just have to shrug my shoulders and laugh you off. Thanks for the lessons… and the memories?
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How I love you!! You’re simply a very special normal person! Everyone has something to be embarrassed in the kitchen…and someway the most “perfect” one tries to fool us: but everyone knows the truth. You’re so pure to sharing with us every “failure” that everyone of us feels you Right. Thanks to bring me your joy…even when it’s not soo joyful!!
kisses
Martina
You should see the sourdough bread I made this past weekend, it looked like a deflated whoopee cushion. Edible, I just sliced it horizontal instead. :-)
Frank
It’s reassuring to know that nobody’s perfect. But even your failures don’t look bad to me. My biggest were the cupcakes which grew too much then collapsed and of course the potato gratin where the milk separated. Ugh!
This makes me feel so much better – an upside down cake I tried this weekend was a HUGE fail.
But avocado shakes can be really good!
I love this!! I love the humble adventures and sharing them with us… I have so many flops behind the walls of my kitchen but the amount that come out successful make up for it, right?!
Ok those cinnamon rolls…. mmmmmmmmmmmm
I’m with the rest . . . Love this post! And the cinnamon rolls were a huge hit at work, I was asked to scribble your website onto several scraps of paper to pass on the Joy.
It gives the rest of us great hope to know that you’re only human after all Joy. Such a lovely person you are.
For my sisters wedding, I attempted to make a three tiered wedding cake. ALL of the cakes I made sank in the middle. I had used this recipe once before and it sank, but I had figured it was a fluke. I tried reducing the amounts of batter, slapping it and not slapping it on the counter a couple times, mixing barely, over mixing, reducing the temperature. My baking powders and sodas seemed active enough. Such a failure, but a consistent failure and my fault for trusting this recipe again. But, I cut the tops off and managed a cute chocolate two tiered cake with tiny white flower details.
I made a butter and shallot sauce to accompany a chicken dish a few weeks back. It came out purple. PURPLE! I followed the directions…or I thought I did.
Glad to see you’re human and one of us. (Even though we know that’s really not true.)
You are amazing! Thanks for showing us this stuff. Glad to know you have the same kitchen mishaps as the rest of us!
I wrote a little blurb about you in a special post on my blog: http://buttercakes.squarespace.com/blog/2009/8/2/these-are-a-few-of-my-favorite-things.html
Oh, our dirty little secrets! I love this post. Thanks for the smile.
You have me curious about the Greek yogurt ice cream since I make my own Greek yogurt all the time. See http://www.salad-in-a-jar.com/skinny-secrets/healthy-homemade-greek-yogurt. Where did you get the recipe?
hi joy,
i love this post! made me think about all the ‘could have beens’ on my blogs. thanks for all of the lovely posts and dishes, your blog is a joy to ready. :)
You’re not perfect. It’s wrong to think, but it make me very happy to know this. I was beginning to worry that you were some sort of supernatural kitchen goddess. Whew. And your flops only make us admire and appreciate you more! Thank you for sharing. (OH and if you like, I have a very easy, highly delicious, pumpkin scone recipe)
What a fun post–I’m so glad to see I’m not the only one! My blog’s got a “failures” tag and everything. Sigh.
truly Joy, only one word comes to mind every day that I read you…precious!
-and that is high praise because only my three wee ones get that word used about them so consitently, so in my eyes, you are in pretty high company!
thanks for a smile this morning and many others!
i have yet to come up with a decent irish soda bread. i mean, how simple is that? apparently not for me!
bahahhahahaa..blueberry soup.
Hilarious. Love this blog Joy! :)
It’s an interesting thing; the best cooks and pastry chefs I know each have their own private bete noir. And usually, they are seemingly simple things, things other people master approximately right after boiling water. Me – and I’m a retired professional pastry chef – it’s shortbread. Love to eat it, can’t make it to save my damn life. Comes out grainy or falls apart or tastes funny – you’d be amazed at all the ways that one person can screw up shortbread. My friend who is a fantastic cook cannot cook a potato. No matter what she does, they’re inedible. This is a woman whose Christmas Eve dinner every year is Beef Wellington wrapped in homemade puff pastry, but man, those potatoes suck.
So for you, Joy the Baker, scones are your bete noir. Welcome to the club.
For scones, try the Confessions of a Tart blog…her strawberry scone recipe is magical. It’s incredibly easy and I’ve made them a bunch of times now with no problem. The recipe is so basic and easy, that it can be adapted without problem – I used it as a guideline in making savory cheddar dill scones.
Here’s mine, and a link to hers is in this blog post.
http://arugulove.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/a-hearty-breakfast/
Good luck!
Thanks for the scone love you guys! Maybe I am rolling them out too thin! I’ll give your recipes a go! I need to get over this problem… and fast!
I’m so glad you guys like this post. I also (forgive me) love hearing about your kitchen flops too. Is that bad?
You all are great! I’m so glad you’re here!
Good to know that all your recipes don’t turn out lovely & perfect – even though a vast majority look (and probably taste) fabulous, fabulous!! My downfall is usually I envision this magnificent masterpiece & when it comes out oozed over and burnt up I basically just want to cry!! Yea for cooking!!
what a great idea for a post, so much fun! and man, i have the same problem with scones – they always come out beige and raw-tasting…what’s the deal?!
Such good news to hear that even you have flops – makes me feels better!! Love this post by the way – I laughed the whole way through on your take on things. Funny!
I love this post! Thanks so much for sharing your “out takes.” :)
My husband and I love choco chip potato chip cookies! Don’t know if it’s the same recipe, but they were delish.
I don’t like to think of them as flops, I like to think they are learning experiences… unless it is the 10th time that it has happened, then I like to call it forgetfulness. If it weren’t for flops (I mean learning experiences) we wouldn’t appreciate how often things actually turn out ‘just right’. And we wouldn’t learn about what works and what doesn’t. It is after a flop that we say, I should have done this… and try something that works. Or decide that we will never again try that type of thing. Thanks for sharing!
As far as scones, I am definately not an expert, but I find that when I brush the tops with some water and sprinkle with sugar, or brush with honey, they tend to become more golden on top. But like I said, I’m not an expert, I don’t make them that often.
I just started following your blog about 2 weeks ago, and have loved your posts so far!
Hahahaha thank you for sharing this post – I loved it!!!!
“Chocolate Chip Potato Chip Cookies. I must have eaten a cool dozen of these cookies trying to decide if they were good or not. I knew with each cookie that they were absolute rubbish. Bleck. ”
This sounds exactly like me!
oh how I want some greek yogurt frozen yogurt – but I too can’t figure that one out. Super suckage!
Loved this entry Joy – you always bring a smile to my face. :)
Good to know, even the best bakers have disasters and off days. Makes me feel a little better about my mini apple pie fail this week.
It seems like maybe you’re rolling your scones out too thin?
as with everyone above I really liked this post – it’s really sweet of you to share your failures with us as well as every kitchen triumph! For some reason it helps to know that someone as good at baking as you are can get things wrong every now and again too!
That blueberry ‘soup’ made me giggle! x
Joy, thanks for the confession! It’s actually very encouraging to know everyone has a flop now and then, not just me. BTW, I once came thisclose to catching my microwave on fire!
I love that you shared this. Sometimes you see people’s amazing food blogs and think they never make a mistake. This makes me just love your blog even more!!
I have often wondered about the recipes for potato chip cookies. Book marked a recipe and never got around to them. Great post thanks for letting us see your mistakes!
HaHa, great post. I like to think of stuff like that as “experiments.” The mistakes can be better fodder for learning than perfect results, me thinks. I’ve thrown away my fair share of dough, too. Just recently I had to dump a brioche dough because I forgot to add salt. I couldn’t have imagined how imperative salt is to a dough, in both flavor and rise, but now I’ll never forget! :)
It happens to everyone!!
great post! among my many flops, the worst was fresh mozzarella stuffed turkey meatballs (grilled on skewers). my husband told me over and over there would be no way for them to survive. i insisted and told him that *a particular celebrity chef* would not let me down. low and behold, they fell apart on the grill and looked like a horrible disgusting mess. he will not let me live it down… ever.
I’m not a fan of Americanized scones, they’re too dry and crumbly. British scones taste more like shortbread, hard on the outside but buttery and soft on the inside. Here’s the recipe for scones from Lacock bakery in Lacock, England. I’ve made a lot of different modifications to it over the years, but this could be a good starting point for you! http://aestheticpursuits.blogspot.com/2009/07/schoones.html
thanks for sharing your ups & downs with us…it feels good!
i have baked “sweet molly’s cookies” from “adventures in the kitchen”….using potato chips and butterscotch chips & my friends are always asking for more~
http://adventuresinthekitchen.com/2009/03/sweet-mollys-cookies/
You are awesome for posting these failures, Joy. Makes me less upset about my own.
(Each time I make cobbler now, I set it on a cookie tray with foil, I’m not taking any chances because I hate cleaning my oven.)
Ah, failures.. without them we wouldn’t have so many successes. Keep up the good work!
Thank you for the confidence boost — it’s comforting to know that even great experienced bakers have their flops too. I was a bit bummed because I had my first real bad one (I’m still kind of new to this) with some molasses cookies night… It sort of turned into an over crunchy pancake of molassesness and was pretty much inedible.
In terms of scones, a friend posted this for me and everyone around here loved them and even I could make them. I bet you could make them even better!
http://fwog19.livejournal.com/16651.html
Thanks for sharing with us joy! Good to know everyone has their flubs in the kitchen. :)
Your still perfect to me! It’s nice knowing though that not all recipes work no matter how good the cook. Sometimes I think its me …
I thought I would pass on a scone recipe that was pretty simple and produced great results (my 10 yo sister couldn’t get enough!). As far as I can tell, it’s pretty hard to screw up. :)
http://www.raincitykitchen.com/2009/06/whole-wheat-apple-scones.html
ooh, avocado milkshake. I had an amazing avocado daquiri once that then I spent WEEKS trying to replicate (the bartender wouldn’t share his secret). so, essentially, I had many bad avocado milkshakes with alcohol. I feel your pain.
I thought maybe that first pic was biscotti and that is one thing I just cannot make. They always get burnt or taste burnt. I don’t even like biscotti that much, I just wanted to say that I could do it. But I can make scones. :-)
The mousse with the tofu actually looks kinda good to me.
I had a big flop the other day…I made 200 cookies for my sister’s bridal shower (a recipe which I’ve made before with great success) and they were totally mediocre. Bad, even. It was awful. And now I have to make 200 more because the shower is on Sunday!
Anyway, I thought I’d pass along this scone recipe. So delicious, and SO easy. She has another variation in her book with lemon zest and crystallized ginger, if you have it.
http://orangette.blogspot.com/2004/08/i-took-deep-breaths.html
i tried potato chip cookies one time…except the only chips i had on hand were pringles and they don’t count! (low potato percentage or something) they were soggy and GROSS. i kept eating and eating them hoping that they would taste better but they never did!
It’s nice to see that not everything is so nice and perfect all the time – one of the best things about this blog is how approachable it is. You’re in good company, too:
http://jezebel.com/5329798/childs-play-the-temptation-of-eve-a-disaster
That’s a clip of how Julia Child dealt with a tarte tatin that didn’t come out right.