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?
Margaret
They have an avocado drink in Indonesia (Java). It comes with a layer of chocolate, and you mix it. It’s intriguing and pretty, but it was way to thick and gooey for me. The local people LOVE this drink.
Erika from The Pastry Chef At Home
I’m so late commenting here (I only recently found your site). You are a brave woman for posting your recipe flops. I usually bury my failed recipes deep in a file called “You are a Pastry Chef So Why Did You Make This Crap?” And there are plenty of failures because I like to play with classic recipes just to see what happens!
Michelle from Taste As You Go
Although they must have been frustrating as they were happening, I love how you can look back and recognize the humor in your baking failures. Better yet, you know which recipes you want to try again and which recipes you want to bury in a deep hole in the backyard. Thanks for sharing your “flops,” for admitting that not every recipe will be a “winner,” and for encouraging all of us to keep at it!
Leigh Ann
LOL I can not tell you how many times I have tasted and tasted something, knowing FULL WELL that it was not good enough to do anything with or share with anyone, and that I did not really want to eat it… and it’s doubly bad because afterwards you don’t even feel like the calories were *worth* anything. Geez. It’s one of the (few) curses of baking, I suppose. Thanks for sharing :)
sarah
Here is my tutorial on scones: https://syrupandhoney.typepad.com/blog/2009/07/scones.html
This isn’t the food network my friend, we’re all messing up stuff in the kitchen all over the place! My next post is actually going to be about some banana bread I completely screwed up but can’t figure out how. Seriously, banana bread?
mharper
Hey, you gotta take the bad with the good, right? I love hearing about the flops as well as the masterpieces. :)
Becs
Opps forgot to say that lemonade and cream scones are easy and taste the best https://shadowfoot.com/recipe/lemonade-scones . Also the best possible flop you can have which happens quite literally is when a Pavlova falls :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlova_%28food%29 .
Becs
Ellie Krieger has a really great Chocolate Tofu Mousse Recipe https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/dark-chocolate-mousse-recipe/index.html , it has never failed me. I love not to tell people what its made out of and only tell them after they have eaten it all!!!
Beatrice
Best. Scones. Ever. For reals.
S
Joy, you’re an awesome baker! I love baking too, and yeah I know about flops. Sometimes I just get excited about experimenting, and uhh…things don’t taste very good. I’ve made my first scones last week, and they were okay, but I guess I’m not a scone person. I used this recipe though and it was easy! (I froze butter the night before and grated it into the flour mixture and froze it again before adding the liquids/raisins. I used vanilla yogurt instead of sour cream.) Maybe you didn’t add enough baking powder? Or rolled out/kneaded too much? Good luck! Oh, also, Deb from smittenkitchen’s recipe looks really good too, as someone suggested earlier.
https://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Worlds-Best-Scones-From-Scotland-to-the-Savoy-to-the-US/Detail.aspx
sandi @ the whistlestop cafe
I have posted several of my flops as well… not everything comes out perfect. (believe it or not)
Christina
Hey Joy, I love you, you’re great. But can I ask a favor? Could you possibly create a recipe index of all of your recipes on the site? I don’t know anything about blogging, so I don’t know how hard this is. I hope I’m not asking the impossible. I absolutely love your site and I would cook more of your recipes if I could browse them all in one place. Thanks!