Secret disasters in the kitchen

By Maddy Clegg, Third Year Liberal Arts

The Croft // The secrets are out, it's time to confess your most embarrassing kitchen disasters...

We’ve all been there. Guests are sat at the table patiently waiting for the dinner you promised them 3 hours ago, the cake you’ve made for dessert is flat as a pancake and you suddenly remember why restaurants exist and regret not booking a table. But, we’re students living on a budget and experimenting in the kitchen. Mistakes are bound to be made! There is also a lot of fun to be had and some great stories to be told. I asked students to share some of their biggest hosting mishaps in the kitchen with The Croft. Anonymously of course, your secret is safe with us!

• I was making a Christmas dinner for my friends and set the pigs on blankets on fire!
• Instead of baking my boyfriend’s birthday cake, I ended up grilling it.
• I made a big curry for my friends (one of whom is allergic to nuts) and accidentally put nuts in it…She very gracefully just said ‘don’t worry just shove some bacon under the grill and i’ll have that with the salad’. I then forgot about the bacon and burnt it to a crisp.
• My mum served frozen berries for dessert & my family friend cracked his tooth when biting into them.
• At a dinner party, I took the sweet and savoury trend to the next level and once served gravy with sticky toffee pudding instead of toffee sauce.
• Once we were so behind on serving dinner for people when cooking we changed the clocks and took the batteries out so they said 8pm (it was 11pm at the time) and hoped that people were so fuelled with cocktails that they wouldn’t notice!
• In my gap year, I worked as a chef and used to host supper clubs which people paid to attend. The main was an absolute disaster. I plugged it as the best lasagna you’ve ever eaten but it turned out to be a total flop and can only be compared to school meals before Jamie Oliver saved the day. I had to maintain face and serve it but was so embarrassed. The final nail in the coffin was when a guest said ‘I actually quite like it’!
• I once made the crispiest roast potatoes with duck fat and served them forgetting that one guest was a vegan, and had been for her entire life…She confirmed that they were the most delicious roast potatoes she had ever eaten and we couldn’t summon the courage to confess to our disastrous mistake. To this day she still doesn’t know, ignorance is bliss right?

Hopefully, when you’re next covered in flour in the kitchen and setting off the smoke alarm, you’ll feel a little less alone. Cooking is about making memories, trying new things and having to be flexible when it’s not going your way and your Ottolenghi creation looks nothing like the pictures (disclaimer: this is an impossible task, undertake with caution).

featured image: Epigram / Maddy Clegg

What will you confess?