Wednesday 27 December 2017

2017 Recipe Disasters!

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu!

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

It's my most favourite post of the year!
The one where I admit to how many things have gone wrong in my kitchen this year. And, there have been a fair few in 2017. I seem to have a problem measuring things properly and am forever over-baking my eggs. I hope this post makes you smile and gives you a little hope if you are not the most confident of cooks.

Pistachio and Rose Water Pavlova with Honey Greek Yoghurt and Berries - So, I had such high hopes for this dessert but the end result wasn't the best. The pistachio meringue was the main problem. I don't think the egg whites liked being folded with the pistachios as the meringue ended up being really pasty. We literally had to scoop the pavlova off the tray. However, it was Ramadan and at Iftar, anything sweet goes no matter how inedible it is.

Brown Rice Chickpea Pulao - I've received a number of requests over the years for recipes using brown rice. The problem is guys, I'm not a big brown rice. I've tried it a few times and have just never been able to cook it right. Here, I tried it in a chickpea pulao and the result wasn't the best. The chickpeas were soft and cooked but the rice was still hard and almost like rubble. The thing is that I really want to like brown rice but so far I've not had much success.

Gulab Jamun - Back in the Summer, I went on a major gulab jamun making mission. They are my favourite Indian sweet and I really wanted to see if I could make them at home. 
After four unsuccessful attempts, I finally cracked my recipe. The attempts were so bad that I thought I would share them here. This was the first one where I undercooked the balls.
Then, I threw the freshly-fried balls straight into the syrup resulting in lots of oil pools on the surface of said syrup. The syrup was also pretty thin and the balls absorbed so much of it making them practically fall apart on the outside but yet still be really hard on the inside. The worst!

Tuna Potato Salad - Guys, this was something which tasted really good and was then ruined by one tiny thing. I used a little dried thyme in the salad dressing and I don't know, maybe I put too much in, maybe the dried thyme had gone off but the taste was terrible. That pinch of dried thyme ruined the entire salad and gave the whole thing a really bitter taste.

Cake Batter Ice Cream - In the Summer, I wanted to use up a box of vanilla cake mix. It was too hot to bake so I decided to make cake batter ice cream. Everything was going well until I realised that I would still have some of the cake mix leftover. So, I decided to throw it all in. More flavour, right? Wrong! The next day, the ice cream was still not frozen. The texture was really gummy and weird. All that extra cake mix had basically sucked up any moisture in the ice cream. The poor thing was inedible and had to be binned. I should've just baked that cake.

Blueberry Muffins - Which basically got stuck in their tin because I thought they would look cute without their cases. So, I just dropped the batter into the muffin holes and they stuck really badly to the tin. Moral: always use paper cases.

Chocolate Orange Cheesecake - This was our Eid-ul-Adha dessert this year. It tasted great but I did manage to squash one side as I was getting it out of the tin. Oops!

Honey Pie - The first time that I tested this recipe, it was delicious except for one thing. I sprinkled flaky sea salt over the hot pie. Once cool, the salt decided to absorb into the pie, making the top of it really salty.

Crispy Peanut Chocolate Tart - This recipe was one that I really wanted to try - a base made with crisps and a fudgy brownie topping. What could go wrong?
Here's what went wrong - I used the wrong crisps. I should have used those thick Kettle crisps but ended up using normal crisps.
The base looked ok but ....
... once baked, it was really chewy and also had absorbed up way too much butter. Not the best!

Pecan Brittle - This was my first time making any sort of nut brittle. I did end up crystallizing the sugar but made the most of what I had and used the crushed brittle ... 
.... as a topping for my hummingbird cake.

Hummus - I've been trying to crack a smooth hummus recipe for what seems like forever. Here is an example of one of my more lumpy efforts. I basically messed up my measurements and the whole thing ended up not smooth at all.

Breakfast Pizza - Example number one of my baked egg disasters: this one was a pizza over which I cracked on two eggs. The eggs went back into bake and came out really overcooked. One of them even went rolling off the edge of the pizza. So sad!

Baked Egg Cups - Such a cute idea to bake eggs into pieces of bread but this ended up being example number two of my baked egg disasters. Again, I ended up overcooking them and there was no runny yolk.

Meatball Shakshuka - I had leftover meatballs in tomato sauce and decided to cook a few eggs in it similar to shakshuka. Of course, I overcooked the eggs resulting in example number three of my baked egg disasters. 

Dutch Baby - This baked pancake was delicious except for the fact that I got my measurements mixed up and added in way too much butter. The edge of the pancake was lovely and crispy but the middle was super soggy and oily.

Lemon Loaf with Lemon Glaze - Another measurement mix up and the result was a glaze that just ran straight off the cake.

Toffee Popcorn - I had such high hopes for this recipe and I ended up burning the popcorn at the bottom. The result was a sweet popcorn with a weird acrid taste.


Lemon Meringue Cake - Just looking at this cake makes me laugh. I still can't believe that this happened!
First, the meringue that I had baked over the cake was decided to collapse.
Then, another layer of the cake got stuck in the tin.
But I persevered and decided to frost the lower part of the cake with icing.
Literally the worst looking cake I've ever put together. In its defence, the taste was pretty good.

Pinata Cupcakes - This was a pretty good idea. I put in a mixture of sprinkles and chocolate chips into the middle of each cupcake as a surprise.
And then, I dropped one. Cue sprinkles everywhere!

Lahori Chargha - In this recipe, spicy marinaded chicken is steamed before being fried until crispy. The problem here was that the pan I used wasn't the best and the chicken stuck to the pan. Oops!

Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler - This recipe was delicious but I didn't realise that baked rhubarb and strawberries could let off so much liquid.
Do you see? I will definitely be adding in cornflour next time to thicken up those juices.

Chicken Tikka Masala - This recipe is delicious but what you guys didn't see is that I did swirl on a little cream before snapping any pictures. But it looked terrible and curdled and so I ended up stirring the cream into the curry and then taking the pictures.

Chicken Malai Tikka Skewers - The chicken was great but I had a disaster with the Coke whilst shooting the recipe. It overflowed and spilt everywhere.
So, hidden under the platter was a huge Coke stain!

Strawberry Jelly Poke Cake - When testing this recipe, I had a major disaster with the measurement of my jelly. I put in too much water and once set ....
... the cake was really soggy. Thankfully, I managed to rectify the mistake and the next cake was perfect. I make mistakes so that you don't have to!

Fresh Methi Pakoras - The first time I made these, they were delicious. Light, crispy but fluffy inside and spicy. So good dipped in green chutney.
Then, I made them again. This time though, I fried them on a smaller gas hob meaning that the heat was lower. The pakoras looked cooked but once tasted ....
... they were as hard as rocks! It was the strangest thing.
No amount of green chutney could save them. The next time, I fried them on the right temperature and they were delicious.

Coconut Daal - Guys, this was terrible. I cooked daal in coconut water and it was so sweet! Not good.

Haleem - The actual haleem was great but the problem was with the classic fried onions that it's topped with. My Mother ended up burning them really badly. The funniest thing was that everyone else could smell the burning except her. Even the smoke alarm went off and she was completely oblivious with the kitchen door shut.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting - Do you see those butter flecks? That is because my butter wasn't soft enough and so didn't beat properly with the cream cheese resulting in those flecks. In defence of the frosting, it was actually delicious.

Rye Bread - Oh my days, this bread had the hardest crust ever. It was so difficult trying to slice it!!

Blancmange - Guys, do not try to make blancmange with vegetarian gelatine that is a month past its use-by date. Because it will collapse on you.

More recipe disasters: 2016 // 2015

Thank you for coming along on this kitchen adventure of mine! I appreciate you all so much.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu!


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