Kitchen calamities afflict even seasoned chefs

By Kathy Stephenson
The Salt Lake Tribune

CONFESSIONS

Slumped cakes, charred turkey, doughy rolls. Whether you are a novice cook or a seasoned baker, chances are there is at least one kitchen calamity in your past.

Most cooks suppress the memory, hoping never to dredge up the experience -- especially in a newspaper.
But a few good sports offer to share their kitchen disasters with The Salt Lake Tribune. Think you've made mistakes in your kitchen? Read on, and feel better:

The hollow bundt: For Salt Lake City's Jim Light, the bundt cake mystery is still too recent to forget.

"This cake looked great on the outside," said Light. But inside the cake was a huge air pocket, the kind a tiny gerbil could run circles through. "It looked like I had put a small inner tube inside the cake."

It wasn't until Light attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park New York that he discovered his crime -- overmixing.

Beating batter until it's silky smooth seems like the natural thing to do -- after all, who wants to bite into a chalky glob of all-purpose flour? But too much stirring causes the air bubbles in the batter to deflate, making pancakes, muffins and other baked goods tough and dry.

"Loosely incorporate the liquid into the dry ingredients, otherwise it throws all the gluten out of whack," said Light, who now teaches others through his new cooking school HomeCooks.

The sunken cake: Michelle Squire has always been a confident cook. As a young girl, her grandmother taught her to make English toffee on the back of an old coal stove. Later, her mother guided her through the finer points of fudge, caramels and chocolate turtle treats.

It wasn't until years later, when Squire offered to make a wedding cake, that her kitchen convictions crumbled.
"I pulled the cake out of the oven and watched it sink, "said the Bountiful cook. "I made it five times until I figured out to change the leavening."

Her offense: Failing to adjust for Utah's high altitude. Most of the state lies more than 4,000 feet above sea level.
At higher altitudes there is less air pressure which means baked goods will rise higher -- and fall quicker -- than at sea level where most recipes are tested, explains Pauline Williams with the Utah State University Extension Office in Salt Lake County.

If the cake or bread rises too high "it doesn't have the structure to hold and it will collapse," she said.

Williams said Utah cooks should decrease leavening -- either baking soda, baking powder or yeast -- in small increments, 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon, until they get the desired results.

Another option, said Williams, is to add one or two additional tablespoons of flour to make the batter stronger. Boxed cake mixes suggest this method for high altitudes.

Anyone who has tried -- and failed -- to make peanut brittle, carmels or other candies should also think about making an altitude adjustment, said Utah's Ruth Kendrick, author of Candymaking (HPBooks $19.95). Due to the differences in air pressure, candy will reach the cooked stage at a lower temperature in Salt Lake City than at sea level, she said.

"Cooks have to ignore what the recipe says and adjust their thermometers two degrees down for every 1,000 feet above sea level," she said.

The gritty leeks: Most cooking disasters could be avoided if we just spent a little more time thinking about the task at hand, said John Taylor, the corporate executive chef for Wild Oats stores.

Taylor said he learned that lesson early in his career when he was working at a hotel and preparing a banquet meal for 250 people. He was told to clean the leeks for the cold vichyssoise soup.

"I cut the corner and didn't really clean them that well," said Taylor. The result was a gritty liquid that the chef immediately tossed.

"I still have scars from that day," he said.

The too-small pan: Jane Frohs can testify to the importance of using the right size pan.

"I pulled a pan out of the cupboard and thought, this will work," said Frohs, family and consumer science teacher in Murray. Soon after putting her whipping cream pound cake into the oven a burning smell began to fill the house. Frohs knew immediately she had not chosen wisely.

"The batter was oozing out of the pan and spilling all over the oven," she said. "You just want to kick yourself when that happens."

The molten sugar: And Robert Barker, chef at Salt Lake City's Bambara restaurant, will never again walk away from a pan of caramelized sugar. As a young chef he did just that and burned the entire pot. If that wasn't bad enough, he then poured the hot mixture into a plastic garbage can. The can quickly melted and the sugar hardened like a rock.
"It took me days to chip all that off the floor," he said.

Nobody's perfect: Finally, Sara Phillips makes a living trying to rescue home cooks from disaster. But even she admits to being bumbling baker on occasion.

"I'm one of the biggest baking klutzes on the planet," said Phillips, creator of a Web site, www.baking911.com, and the corresponding cookbook, Baking 9-1-1: Rescue from Recipe Disasters (Fireside, $14).

Phillips said she has dropped cheesecakes, used the wrong size pan and even forgot to put the baking soda in a chocolate cake.

"I pre-measured everything and just forget to put it in." she said. About 15 minutes later, she realized her faux pas. Quick on her feet, and because guests were arriving for a party, Phillips moistened the soda in some warm water and folded it gently into the batter.

It wasn't her best effort, but the cake -- and party -- was served without a hitch.

The lesson, said Phillips is that "perfection is highly overrated. Be yourself and do what you can do," she said. "And always pat yourself on the back for trying to make something homemade."

And if all else fails, have whipped cream on hand, she said. "It hides most baking sins."

kathys@sltrib.com

Here are some tips for keeping kitchen disasters -- and stress -- to a minimum this holiday season:

• Read the recipe several times before beginning to make sure you have all the ingredients and cookware.
• Purchase the best quality ingredients you can afford.
• Start cooking only after all the ingredients are measured and prepped.
• Never measure ingredients directly over the mixing bowl. Excess ingredients could spill into the bowl, upsetting the recipe's balance.
• To measure water, milk, oil or other liquids, use a glass or see-through measure. Place the liquid measure on the countertop and pour in liquid. Bend down and read the measurement. Do not hold the cup up at eye level, the liquid will tip and may cause an uneven measurement.
• For sticky liquids such as honey or molasses, spray inside of a liquid measure with cooking spray first; ingredients will pour easier.
• For dry ingredients such as flour and sugar, use dry measure cups that come in nested sets. Spoon ingredients into the cup and level with the straight edge of a knife. Do not tap or press ingredients into cup before leveling. The only exception is brown sugar, which should be packed firmly into the cup and leveled with a knife. It should hold its shape when dumped out.
• For spices, use a standard set of measuring spoons, not your everyday flatware.
• For ingredients like nuts, coconut and chopped dried fruits, fill the measuring cup and level with your finger.
• Follow each step in the recipe, including using the proper size pans and baking dishes.
• Consider purchasing a kitchen scale, which works well for measuring amounts from a large container, such as 3 ounces of nuts from a 12-ounce bag.
• Most sticks of butter and shortening come with measurement markings on the wrapper -- 8 tablespoons or 1/2 cup equals one stick. Otherwise, measure fats at room temperature with a dry measuring cup, making sure to pack them down so there are no air bubbles.
• To prevent overcooking meats, invest in a meat thermometer -- either an instant-read or regular. Insert thermometer into the thickest section of meat, without touching a bone. Remember, meat temperature will rise 5 to 10 degrees after being pulled from the oven.
• To ease stress, prepare some dishes in advance. Make room in the fridge for your early preparations, too.
• Clean as you cook. It is important for food safety, but there's nothing worse than tackling an avalanche of dishes.
• Remember that not everything must be made from scratch. Buy gourmet condiments, freshly baked breads or artisan cheeses to help cut preparations.
• Ask for help! Have friends and family bring a dish. Pick up side dishes from a caterer.

-- Sources: Knight Ridder Newspapers, Culinary Parts Unlimited, The New Food Lover's Tiptionary.