Cooking Catastrophes – 5 Common Kitchen Disasters (And How To Handle Them)
Have you ever set out to buy cookware online and a really fancy cookbook with the intention of trying out some new recipes, only to almost burn your kitchen down in the space of a weekend?
Learning how to cook can be a kitchen catastrophe waiting to happen, and some of these mishaps can make you feel completely incompetent. But the truth is, we all go through it at some point or another.
To help you out, here are some of the most common kitchen disasters and how to fix them.
1. Salt Assault
The funny thing about recipes is that they expect you to adjust the salt in your dishes to your taste preference. So you add a pinch of salt, only to realize that you need more salt. Then you add more salt, and suddenly you’re stuck with an overly salty dish.
In this case, cut a potato in half and add it to the pot. Add some extra water while you’re at it. After 25 to 30 minutes you’ll notice the potato soaks up a lot of the salt. Always remove the potato before serving the dish.
2. Cake Mistakes
Throwing away a cake that you spent hours attempting to bake is heartbreaking. Thankfully, you don’t necessarily have to ditch it because icing can fix most cake disasters.
You might have burnt your cake slightly (we’ll blame the oven for that one), in which case, you can simply scrape off the burnt sides with a knife and apply the icing twice.
If your cake breaks in the center, you can simply ice it, so the frosting acts like the glue that holds it together. The cake is going to be cut anyway, so temporarily holding it together with icing or lemon curd isn’t an issue.
If the cake breaks in a way that makes it difficult to disguise it with icing, crumble it completely and convert it to a trifle.
3. Egg Dilemmas
Are you unable to use eggs in a recipe that calls for them? No need to throw in your apron. There are other household ingredients that you can use as a substitute for eggs.
If one egg is what you need, you can use 1 teaspoon of baking soda and a teaspoon of vinegar instead. A ¼ cup of applesauce could also be a substitute for an egg.
4. Blender Blunders
Have you ever tried using a blender only to have your entire soup end up all over your kitchen walls? The trick to perfect blending lies in giving soups and sauces time to cool off before you blend them. Blending very hot soups or liquids will cause the blender’s lid to pop up in the midst of the action.
5. Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire
Cooking is a task that requires all of your attention. Heating oil in a pan on your stove for a long period of time may cause unwanted smoking. If you don’t notice the smoke, the oil in the pan can soon catch on fire. Adding water to a burning pan can cause an even bigger fire.
Covering the flaming pan with a metal lid to prevent oxygen from fuelling the fire is your best option. Add baking powder and salt into the pan to help with the flames. Lastly, use a fire extinguisher to finish off any remaining flames.
Avoid kitchen catastrophes with these handy tips and you’ll soon be whipping up a storm in your kitchen, worry-free.
