Bakes That Fail

Between the idea and the reality…falls the shadow.

– T.S. Eliot.

It’s inevitable. The meringue is soup. The cake is lead. Your caramel burns and your cake falls. And when it happens, there might be tears. Self-recrimination. Cursing. (Definitely cursing.) As you pour $$$ down the garbage disposal because even the dog won’t eat your food, you might feel as though the baking gods* have abandoned you to your fate. I am, of course, talking about the Bakes That Fail.

Oh sure, life will go on. The sun’s gonna rise and set whether or not your macarons have feet or your buttercream curdles. But it’s So. Damn. Disappointing.

Once you’ve stopped shocking your family with language they didn’t know you knew, you get it together and think. What went wrong? Was it the recipe? The weather? (Sourdough bread, I’m lookin’ at you.) Ingredients gone bad? Or was it just (ahem, polite cough) baker error?

(*Make that baking god or goddess; did you know that Fornax was the Roman goddess of the ovens?)

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

– Thomas Edison

Love All Your Bakes

It may be only recently that I’ve wised up to this, but there is much to be learned from the Bakes That Fail. (That doesn’t mean I’m wanting a string of bad bakes, so don’t get cute Fornax.) The worst bakes, for me, are the ones where I just can’t diagnose the problem. (Three, count ‘em THREE bad batches of macarons for my mom’s Christmas party – I wasn’t so sanguine about determining what went wrong that time. I just got annoyed and gave up trying to figure it out. )

But generally, the Bakes That Fail can tell you a lot (besides how you deal with failure, though that’s pretty important, too). As Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

So….I give to you my failed bakes in all their glory and what I think went wrong. (That gulp you just heard was my pride being swallowed.) Fair warning: a lot of the pictures are pretty ugly, too, because this was before I decided to love all my bakes, not just the pretty ones.

Category Is: Not-So-Pretty But Still Tastes Great

Macarons

Let’s start with one that trips up a lot of us well-intentioned bakers – macarons. This is an interesting example, because I actually got some wonderful macarons from the same baking session. (See Macarons with Earl Grey Tea Buttercream for the recipe – and the macarons – that worked.)

Reality Bakes

So, what was up with the cracking macarons?

• The shells were fairly hollow and crumbled easily. As a second batch of macarons from the same mix came out perfectly, this was most likely due to oven temperature and/or time cooked and not a mixing issues. (Undermixed macaron batter isn’t deflated enough and can lead to cracked and hollow shells.) I moved the next batch to the bottom shelf, baked an additional two minutes, and voilà, beautiful, non-hollow macarons.
• Indulge with Mimi has an excellent guide to the most common macaron problems and their fixes.

Category Is: Edible But Needs Some Work

Celtic Knot Cookies

I was excited to make these (supposed-to-be) pretty cookies, full of fragrant spices like anise and mace. I first saw them on The Great British Bakeoff and went into the bake overconfident.

Well. As you can see, my shaping is terrible and I ended up with pale, small, anemic-looking cookies.

Reality Bakes

So what went wrong?

• I used too much flour in rolling out the strands. They got dry and wrinkly and the final product was a bit tough and chewy. Over-handled dough leads to over-evaporation in the oven which leads to a tough cookie.
• Why so pale? See aforementioned too-much-flour issue.
• I was heavy-handed and sloppy with the egg wash.
• The silver lining: the spice mix was wonderful. Almost wonderful enough to make up for the iffy texture. I will definitely try these again, probably around the holidays.

Category Is: Inedible

Lemon Cake with (Attempted) Ombré Frosting

Where do I start? What didn’t go wrong?

Reality Bakes

• The cakes didn’t rise properly to begin with – they rose too fast and then collapsed, which was probably due to inaccurate oven temperature. In my defense, this was right before said oven decided to give up the ghost, right in the middle of baking an almond cherry cake. (Two weeks after the oven died, the refrigerator decided to follow suit. That was a fun month.)
  • Cakes that sink can also be due to old baking powder that’s lost its oomph. (Not the issue here.)
• I decided to frost the cake anyway, to practice my frosting skills. (Always.) As per usual, I got overambitious and wanted to do this interesting ombré thing, shading from the palest of lilacs to a deep violet. Ha. In the end, what I had was a purple brick.
• Takeaway: Sometimes your oven is on the fritz, your cake doesn’t come out, ditto your frosting. Into each baker’s life, a cake or soufflé must fall. (Sorry , I know – that one was groan-worthy.) Chalk it up to bad baking mojo and thank your lucky stars the inedible bakes don’t happen more often.

I’d love to hear from you. What bake did you make that just went pear-shaped on you? Do you know why? Or did you just scrap the whole thing and write it off as a bad baking day?