2016 Recipe Disasters!
It’s the most wonderful day of the year… if you want to see all the stuff I completely messed upĀ in 2016!
This is one of my favorite posts to write every year – and I actually went back month by month and found things I had completely forgot about. This year was baaaad. I don’t think it was quite as terrible as last year, but it was still rough. I might also dedicate an entire post to cookbook recipe fails. Ooomph.
This is seventh year I’m sharing my disasters and oooooh there have been some great ones. See here for previous years:
And let’s see the worst of the worst to come out of my kitchen.
Waaaaaay too much going on here in this lovely sight. Chorizo, queso cheese, whole wheat orzo… it’s a great recipe! For disaster. I wanted to love this so much but it was a complete mess full of way too many components.
I like this recipe (and actually referenced it in my videos last week) but the photos turned out terribly. Sliced sausage or kielbasa is not my wheelhouse. It always looks so awfully GROSS to me.
First, what am I even doing by trying to use this bowl as a legit… well… BOWL?
Second, this is the blandest pasta known to man.
Third, how awkward is my fork. And is that goat cheese? Or feta? I don’t even know.
These cookie bars had so much hope. But they were dry AF. The end.
My cheesy garlic pull-apart bread literally started to crumble down the center. I don’t think I followed a recipe, because apparently I know everything. Can’t you tell?
Ugh. This was horrific. I think I reverted back to 2009 or something with this photo and recipe of frittata muffins. The most unappetizing photo ever. Egg muffins that weren’t even good. You know life is bad if I’m adding sriracha.
These look like the most perfect chewy hold-together granola bars, don’t they?!
No, they don’t. They were an insane crumbly mess.
My lemon meringue pie was so liquidy that it couldn’t even be cut. WHYYYYYYYYYY.
To be real, I have NOOOO idea what was going on here. I think that I was trying to make blackberry or strawberry sorbet or something. As you can see, it turned out great.
If you liked watered down ice cream.
And. The whole “oh-I-placed-ice-cream-scoops-on-my-counter-in-a-super-artsy-way” really worked out for me well. NOT.
This salad was good in theory but a mess in real life. I wanted there to be kale and fingerling potatoes but also soft boiled eggs and bacon and apparently blue cheese and there was just way too much going on when I tested the recipe again. It was trying to be too many things to too many people. It was like three recipes in one.
Remember the olive oil banana muffins I shared a few months ago?
The first few tries were a complete disaster. And I have no idea what I did.
Oh boy. Doesn’t this just look DELICIOUS. Creamy dijon chicken did not work out so wellĀ for us. I burned the chicken and the sauce was thick and heavy. Ick. Then I tried to throw it over pasta and it was like NOOOOO.
I was SO excited to make this holiday pear pie with snow flake cut out crust!
It came out with edges burned and other pieces completely uncooked, solidifying the fact that I can do crap with pie crust.
Two weeks ago, I tried to make gingerbread crepes to share right before Christmas. They completely sucked. I made up the recipe on the fly and came out with nothing edible.
And just last week, I used my favorite tried and true gingersnap recipe and got this result. I couldn’t figure out WHERE I had gone wrong, until I made it THREE more times the exact same way. And it dawned on my that I doubled the butter for the each batch, but not the rest of the ingredients. So smart.
There were a bunch more fails this year and even some that were regular dinner or lunch recipes. These are definitely the highlights though. Along with dropping seven gallons of turkey brine on the kitchen floor on Thanksgiving morning. THAT WAS AWESOME.
So tell me! What was your biggest of 2016?
61 Comments on “2016 Recipe Disasters!”
I think this is my favorite post of yours to read every year (sorry because I know the misery involved when there are fails!)! It’s always amazing to me that you SAVE them. And have a record of them. I’m always so mad when I am so sure that something is going to work and then it fails that I delete all photos of it and just try to forget about it. Here’s to a super productive 2017!
Errm, actually, can I please have the recipe for that rice/ peppers/ sausage thing? Because while you may think it looks gross, it actually looks awesome!
Second this!
Haha thirded!
fourth-ed…?
Fifthed…
I love this post! It’s one of my favorites of the year–who doesn’t like to know that other people are human, amirite?
I made that cauliflower alfredo sauce that is supposedly amazing and magical and …. it was a big, fat flop. So bland. I tried to add stuff to it to make it better, but it could not be saved. Then I had the genius idea to put it over black bean pasta (which is not pasta, and should not actually be a thing–so gummy). It didn’t help. Some things should not be healthy. Alfredo is one of them.
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i love, love, love this series!! i think my biggest fail this year (that i can remember at this moment) was a fried rice bowl with grilled veggies that i tried to shoot while the sun was setting, our grill was running out of gas, oh & uh we were packing to leave for hawaii in less than 12 hours. real equation for success! =)
Christmas day roast pork! Great flavors, rosemary garlic, parsley, olive oil and grated lemon, perfect…….how dry I am
I just don’t do pork well at all. I never have dry chicken, turkey or beef, but pork……I was so bummed.
They loved everything else. Oh well, learn from your mistakes! Wah!
“How awkward is my fork?” – Things only a food blogger says, lol! I know they can’t be fun at the time, but I love that you don’t take yourself too seriously and can laugh about it later (and post for us to laugh with you). Cookbook fails would be fun to read about! Or even internet recipe fails. Been there a time or six!
This is my favorite post every year and it couldn’t have come at a better time – this weekend I failed horribly at cinnamon rolls. The first rise was gorgeous and the second rise had the rolls literally melting in a puddle of their own grease like the Wicked Witch. Horrifying. Thanks so much for sharing these!
Love this post! It show that you’re human too, because frankly, all of your photos look amazing 24/7! ? Thanks for sharing these. I’ve had so many recipes fails this year, it’s too hard to count. Most of the time, they are in the form of some baked good that I just “winged” hahaha.
hmm. i tried to make dan tats, which are chinese egg custard tarts. i used puff pastry, but didn’t prick the pastry (on try #2 i pricked the pastry and still it happened), and when it poofed, custard everywhere but in the pastry. it was super fun to clean up, and even more fun to have the smoke alarm go off at 1am. my family really loved that!
Jess, I look forward to your annual disaster posts so much! They’re hilarious, and they show vulnerability, which means a lot when it comes from a pro! As an amateur food blogger, it helps to know that despite the beautiful photos and genius recipes, there are some goof up along the way. Thank you!!!Ā
My condolences for all of that wasted time, effort, and food! :( Regarding the cookie bars – I tried something a few years ago and it’s now the dessert I’m known for – thanks to YOU! I took your rainbow cookie recipe (the one where you put two dough balls on top of one another) and dumped it into a 13×9 pan, smoothed it out, and baked at 350 for 15-20 minutes, ensuring not to over bake just like you said in the original recipe. I decorate it with a simple buttercream frosting and TONS of sprinkles, obvi (I’m sprinkle obsessed like you) and then cut into squares – there you have THE BEST cookie bars ever. I’ve also turned it into a “cookie cake” by spreading the dough onto a rimmed sheet pan (and even sold them to a few people after they tried one I brought into work!). So much better than grocery store cookie cakes! Hope this helps. Thanks for all of your great recipes – I’ve been following you for yearssss and you constantly have me laughing. Merry Christmas!
I think my biggest fail was making a mug cake one night and spilling the baking powder…went for a test taste and my tongue immediately started to tingle! And DEFINITELY not in a good way! *insert monkey emoji with paws over eyes here*
Yesssss. My annual favourite post! I think I love this post so much because everything else you post is so damn perfect, the contrast is just too good!
My fav post that I look forward to for weeks! I attempted cherry pinwheel cookies that looked so cute in the magazine version. Stickiest dough ever – anything it touched (including flour) turned into a messy doughy clump. Awful. But on a side note your chai snickerdoodles were again a huge success!
Lemon meringue pie is my nemesis!!! I can’t do it! It turns out soggy every.single.time. I don’t know WTF.Ā
When I studied catering many years ago one of the instructors always said, “Doctors bury their mistakes, caterers cover them with icing.”
your fails are bittersweet and if it helps a bit, your meringue on the lemon meringue pie
looks amazing!
here’s to a sweet 2017!
cheers!
:)
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I know this sounds terrible – but I love these posts. Mostly because when I have bad days in the kitchen, I know I’m not the only one. I did forget to add flour to a batch of brownies that I doubled. The good news is that no one cared and they were super fudgy. Really, super fudgy! I’m awful at cooking rice on the stove, and so I know we ate some hard rice or soggy rice this year, for sure.
I was helping my mom bribe our turkey by holding the giant ziplock bag while she poured the brine in and she commented on how awful it would be if I dropped the bag Ā then I read in your post how you spilled 7 gallons ? You have my sympathies!
I tried TWICE (once on Christmas Eve and once on Christmas morning) to make rice pudding , and it was an utter failure both times. It was basically rice soup.
This is a so nice to read. In a sympathetic “thank goodness for non-perfection” way. Though, may I be so bold as to say plenty of your failures at least photograph better than my regular family meals.
I used to be a toffee-making queen, I’d make batch after batch after batch with a 100% success rate….till I moved to Utah. Now I might get every 3rd batch to turn out, and the rest? The butter separates and will not stay incorporated no matter what. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results and yet, that’s exactly what happens.
I moved to UT from Chicago and have had some cooking woes too! Try using a toffee recipe that has corn syrup in addition to butter (if you don’t already)! I made some this year and the corn syrup totally kept it from separating!Ā
So DISAPPOINTED in my new convection oven! Cookies came out either burnt or flat…….then I decided to read the instruction manual because I too, like you Jessica, know everything! Seems it makes a difference where the racks are, cooking time etc……..geez, who knew?
I love this post!! My biggest failure this year was back when we threw a housewarming party and one of the main dishes was vegetarian chili. Come party time, the beans in the chili were still hard as a ROCK. It was an entiiiire Crockpot full of fresh veggies that I had spent so much time chopping to bite-sized perfection. And of course, the rock beans. I tried to cook it long past the party was over by leaving the Crockpot on overnight, but it ended in a burnt mess and I had to throw it all away. So sad. Cheers to food failures of 2016 – thanks for sharing (:
Thanks for being so candid with us! And thank you for not posting bad recipes and pretending they’re omgamazeballs =)
Hope you’re enjoying the holiday week!
All of these dishes still look so much better than many things I’ve ordered in restaurants…you are a terrific cook with many great ideas…
I’m not totally willing to call this one a fail yet…but that time I decided that since pie dough doesn’t play nice Ā with me either it would be a great idea to use my nutmeg sugar cookie dough that rolls out so smoothly instead. Ā I was smart enough to pre-bake the apples but someone with more patience than me needs to be in charge of wrapping them. Ā Hot apples plus tender cookie dough…takes no imagination. Ā Tasted great but no amount of lighting would make them look edible.
Dear Jessica, it’s so funny to actually share your mess! Makes us feel better! But you put so much magic in our lives that we will forget the bad and only keep the best of you. Have another great year!
So, Ā the SAME thing happened when I baked a lemon pie thi past Easter. I used Alton Brown’s recipe, and the filling was perfect when I poured it in the crust, so I have no idea what happened! I was so embarrassed!!!
This is one of my favorite posts all year! :) And half of those don’t look that bad :DĀ
I LOVE THIS POST!!!!!
it makes me feel so much better about all the recipes I flubbed this year as well. it’s hard as a blogger because you put SO much time and effort into the shopping, the testing, the cooking, the shooting… and then to do all that work and leave it on the table is always discouraging. BUT! it’s good to know it happens to everyone, annoying as it may be :)
i think i peed my pants a few times laughing and reading this….not at your failures but your comments. Ā they always slay me….AF! Ā Happy New Year Lovey! Ā Ā
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Love this! Thanks for being so open and honest about your work. Happy New Year!
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I (giggle, giggle) HEART you. Thank you! My fails…we don’t have that much time.
xo
Your “epic fails” still look more edible than most of my triumphs!! LOVE your blog!
Lol! I love these posts.
I love this! Some times it’s hard not to feel like everyone else is so perfect when really it’s just curation. So this is a great reminder that it’s not true. But I agree with the other commenters who say your fails look better than a lot of their successes.
I *LOVE* your blog! I am amazed that you still take photos of the fails – I don’t even take photos of my successes sometimes! I had grand plans to make a gingerbread house for Christmas this year but the dough I made was just an epic fail. It crumbled even when rolling, and don’t even mention trying to pick it up. More like spoon the crumbs! =P Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
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Haha the chorizo stuffed peppers with queso cheese sounds great IN THEORY but it didn’t come out looking so hot. That’s OK, I appreciate the honesty in this post (well, actually in all of your posts).
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Thank you so much for sharing your disasters, it makes the rest of us realize that it can happen to everyone. ššµ ššš¤Ŗ
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