by Laura Vincent
I’m coming clean, while covered in spilled cake batter: kitchen disasters, I’ve had a few.
I’m unfairly clumsy and a bit heedless and forgetful, so this really isn’t surprising, but it’s still no fun.
Where to start? From the spillages of yoghurt to flingages of gravy, I’ve been there.
I have issues with making gnocchi – the three times I’ve tried, the balls of dough show no interest in becoming light puffs of pasta, instead disintegrating on impact upon landing in the pan of water. I get gnocchi soup. Massive amounts of effort, peeling and boiling and mashing and shaping, getting gluey dough somehow stuck in every crevice of the kitchen, all for nothing.
On a similar ratio of wasted effort to disappointment, I once forgot to turn the oven heat down partway through baking as specified in a pavlova recipe. It was not so much a pav, as a circular charcoal briquette. You know the elbow sweat, mental agility, and expensive quantities of egg whites that go into pavlova. That was a sad afternoon.
It goes on. Vegan cupcakes that tasted heavily of baking soda, a wooden spoon and food processor lid both munted when the former accidentally fell into the rapidly whizzing latter… But rather than dealing entirely in such bleakness, I present a few tricks you can use to turn things around it’s looking unlikely in the kitchen.
Let’s start with cakes. Surprisingly, a sunken, overcooked, or bland cake can be your ticket to a land of deliciousness. Firstly, it’s amazing how effective serving dry cake as pudding, with a zap in the microwave and a pool of milk for it to absorb, can be.
Transform cake into joyous cakeballs by crumbling and mixing with golden syrup, melted chocolate, and a slosh of liqueur. Roll into balls, lick your fingers, drizzle over melted chocolate and spear with a lollypop stick if you like.
Trifles are obvious, but wonderful, and can be as simple as slicing the cake, sprinkling with liqueur or orange juice, and covering in floppily whipped cream and berries.
If your pav turns out entirely flat, either just serve it up with pride anyway – I certainly have – or break it up, stir it through whipped cream and add some raspberries, for Eton Mess. Or, stir it through some softly whipped cream with some lemon curd, and either serve as is or freeze it and call it lemon meringue ice cream.
Made bread that failed to rise, or that’s gone stale? Easy, turn it into breadcrumbs, butter-soaked croutons, or use it to make a bread-thickened Italian tomato soup.
Lumpy gravy, custard, sauce: if it basically tastes good, just strain it, rather than flinging your whisk across the kitchen in frustration.
If your ice cream won’t freeze it could be the alcohol or sugar content, both of which inhibit that process. Give it a bit longer, but if you’re really desperate just throw it all in your food processor with some more alcohol for homemade smoothie cocktails.
If you’ve overcooked a steak or a roast – this is a little tougher (get it?) but try making it into a shepherd’s pie, or perhaps shred it finely and mix it through juicily dressed couscous or bulghur wheat with some parsley, cumin and slivered almonds.
With soup or stew that’s too salty, I hear simmering a potato (which you then throw out) in the mixture helps absorb it. You could also try watering it down significantly.
Overwhipped cream – go all out and make homemade butter. Delicious.
If your cake tastes like baking soda though, there’s unfortunately not much you can do. To prevent it, measure very carefully, sift, and whisk it in well.
Truly, being given food by someone is one of the nicest things there is, and the right people will not only be delighted that you’ve put time and care into making them an exquisite meal, they also won’t start a smear campaign against your name if it all turns out horrible and you have to go out for takeaways. But it’s good to be prepared, both with some cover-up tricks and also with the knowledge that at least you haven’t made gnocchi soup.
Laura Vincent is the author of food blog Hungry and Frozen.
source: newshub archive
