Christmas disasters in the kitchen!

This post was written as GoodEggFoodie.com. Please excuse any wonky formatting. Visit the homepage SHE-EATS.com for the latest, shiny new content.

So that was Christmas- did you all have a good time?

It’s been a great one here. I was ready for a good ol’ chill out and seem to have had my wish granted.

One thing which didn’t run quite as smooth as usual, was the food. Mum wanted to contribute to the cooking this year, and between us (and Andrew, my hubby) we had some comical calamities. So, in no particular order, here are this year’s top of the Christmas culinary cock-ups!

Chocolate Truffles

I wanted to give home made truffles to a couple of people so on the 20th I made the ganache centres. They were taking too long to set, so I popped them in the freezer while I covered the Christmas cake in marzipan…and then promptly forgot about them! Fast forward to the 22nd, when I took them out of the freezer and found a sticky mess which melted when I tried to cover with tempered chocolate. They sat in the fridge, looking misshaped and lumpy and I just couldn’t give them as gifts!

Rescued Christmas Cake

The Christmas Cake Mark II

Christmas Cake

The biggest calamity by far was with the cake. Sunday before Christmas I was just about to go out. ‘I’ll feed the cats’, I shouted to my hubby. ‘You already have done’ he said pointing at our kitten Ginger. ‘Look’. There she was licking her lips like she’d being chowing down. I ran into the kitchen. There was the cake which I’d spent 2 ½ hours decorating, cover flipped to one side, a big, wet lick mark up the side. My heart broke, and I burst into tears. I was gutted. Andrew was far more sensible, and immediately started to strip the icing off the cake so all was not lost. I was ready to chuck it all in and not bother to re-ice it. After all, I was working until Christmas Eve and it was another chore I wasn’t sure I could find time for. The lovely bakers of Twitter talked me round and convinced me that I couldn’t be beat by a cat. So hubby went out for a new board and icing and Monday night was spent re-icing the cake.

What about the cat? Well she knew straight away that she’d done wrong. When she saw me crying and swearing in the kitchen she hid away under the bed and didn’t come out for about six hours!

But did I learn my lesson….

Ice Cream

Christmas Eve I set about making the custard base for ice cream to go with a delicious sticky toffee pud from Ma Beans.

After making the custard I covered it with a tea towel to cool. I didn’t cover in cling film as that would retain the heat, and I left it in the kitchen as it was the coolest room in the house.

Fast forward to bed time, and I went to put it in the fridge. One of the cats had jumped on the counter, stood on the tea towel and it had soaked up the custard. I had to assume it had been licked so it had to be binned. No custard on Christmas day.

Ham

Mum had cooked a ham for Boxing Day, took it out of the pan and it fell apart! She was ready to do another one because ‘it looked a mess’ but I managed to talk her off the tinsel-lined ledge and convinced her it was about the taste. It was delicious and once sliced you’d never have known it had fallen apart.

When this happened she joked ‘what next, the turkey?’ Then came Christmas day…

Turkey

Christmas dinner was at our house, but mum had requested that she bring the turkey. She had cooked a massive crown, enough to feed ten never mind four! I was in charge of veg, stuffing and gravy, and Andrew was on spuds. As everything was coming together I asked Andrew to bring the turkey over so we could slice it. He picked the foil covered bird up off the tray (why didn’t he leave it on the tray) and BOOM – dropped it!

Luckily, it landed bacon down and was picked up as soon as it hit the floor. No harm done. Phew!

So calamities aside, all the food this Christmas was delicious and my own little Christmas miracle occurred- I got the hubby to eat sprouts! Well maybe just one, but a victory is a victory!

Surely I can’t be the only one to have a chaotic kitchen this Christmas? I’d love to hear of your kitchen calamities as well!

Posted by Claire

She eats. She drinks. She cooks. She travels. She learns. She tastes. She bakes. A foodie with exceptional taste! Always looking for the best food and drink producers from far and wide. Chocolate brownie queen. Judge: International Cheese Awards. Cheese fiend! Travel lover. What better way to discover new food, than to travel to it. Massive fan of The Archers. Crazy cat lady and proud. NW England / Manchester / UK Twitter & Insta: She_Eats_Blog Facebook: SheEatsBlog

2 comments

Leave a Reply

Required fields are marked *.


CommentLuv badge

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.