Baking Failures

By Erica

Each Monday I do my best to pass on recipes that you will love. Recipes that feed your family and make you think "Hot damn, that Erica sure knows how to make a good meal!" But this week? This is the week that I will, instead, talk to you about my failures a baker.

I cannot make pecan pie.

I KNOW. It's one of the simplest pies in the known universe, and yet, I fail at baking it EVERY SINGLE TIME. Want to know something awesome? I'm in charge of making it for Thanksgiving. Do any of you have any tricks? Any no-fail-fantastic-pie-making guarantees you can give me? Other than "buy a pie from the store?" Because I've already thought of that one.

You know what else I can't make? Fudge. Any kind. Seriously. Mine has NEVER turned out correctly. Again, one of the easiest recipes out there and I'm completely stumped. It also happens to be one of my favorite holiday treats. I suppose this is nature's way of ensuring that a wall doesn't have to be removed from my house upon my demise. Which I appreciate, but damn, I'd like some fudge, you know?

Tell me I'm not the only one who's consistently foiled by the same couple of recipes. What's your culinary Kryptonite? 

{Image credit: karosyrup.com}

Comments

[Dani]

I can NEVER make a good pie crust. I'm also really terrible at mincing, as dumb as that sounds.

[Erin]

I've been struggling with over-baking things lately, muffins & cupcakes especially :-(
What goes wrong with your pecan pie? Maybe some of the food lush readers could help!

[heidi]

I too can not make a pecan pie to save my life! I make other pies and other things that turn out wonderfully but not the pecan. Although, now that you mention it, it may be so there is no need to remove a wall when I die. Good thinking.

[Christy M]

I've never made a pecan pie before, but last night on Alton Brown's Thanksgiving special he made an awesome-sounding one that might tempt me to try it. Here's a link.
http://tinyurl.com/7ve23v8

I cannot make No-bake cookies. They never, ever set. No matter how long I cook that mess. I give up and ask others to make them for me.

[Jen L.]

Oh, honey. For THREE YEARS every time my grandma and I tried to make a pecan pie, our eggs scrambled. Three years. We've finally figured it out, thankfully. ;)

[Julie]

Last year, my fudge failed so spectacularly that it turned out as a brick. You couldn't jackhammer through that stuff.

My husband watched a show making pecan pie this weekend, after which he looked at me and said, "Get on that." Charming. But no, I can't make that either. It's a curse, I'm sure.

[Rebecca]

My go to for traditional recipes is the good, old fashioned Betty Crocker cookbook. Granted I am from Minnesota (the home of Betty Crocker) and realize the the BC cookbook isn't a "go to" elsewhere in the country so here it is:

www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/decadent-pecan-pie/ed23a937-97d2-4365-935c-46444a23c1e9

Easy, easy, easy. I make it every year and will be making two this year.

[rebecca]

I CANNOT make pumpkin pie. Anything else, I can work my way through, but that damn pumpkin pie gets me every time. I second the Betty Crocker recipe, by the way.

[Elsha]

I fail at making bread EVERY TIME I try.

[Kat]

Biscuits kill me. It took me over a year to get to the 50% failure rate I am at now. When they don't come out like hockey pucks I do a happy dance in my kitchen but I can never get that to happen twice in a row

[Darcey]

My most spectacular fail was also a pecan pie. The filling spilled over the crust, and it quickly became known as the Pecan Pie That Ate the Oven.

We ended up scooping it out as a trifle and serving it with bourbon whipped cream - it was still very tasty, just not pretty to look at.

In fact, it even ended up in Rachel Ray's cooking magazine!