MetaChat - I HATE baking! Hate, hate hate

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20 November 2007

I HATE baking! Hate, hate hate So, we're doing the Thanksgiving thing at work, and the only stipulation is that the food you bring you must make yourself. I happen to have some blueberries I need to use up, so I decide on muffins. "How hard can it be?" I says to self, apparently forgetting that those are the 5 words most likely to get me in trouble right after "Sure, make mine a double."

And now it's after midnight. The first batch an utter disaster. (Easy-release pan, my ass.) Second batch is sad, so I'm going for the third batch. If this doesn't work, I'm going to tell them, "Yeah, I made it. I made the trip to Wal-mart."

Any bunnies have Thanksgiving meal horror tales?

post by: thebrokedown at: 01:22 | 14 comments

Geez, sorry for such a long post :(

posted by thebrokedown 20 November | 01:23

I used to bake for a living. I'm here to tell you that Pam (the spray, that is) is your best friend when baking muffins.

No horror stories to tell, but I did walk into a hot sheet pan that was hanging off a rack at eye-level one Thanksgiving. Fortunately all it did was burn off the incipient crow's feet that were then forming near my right eye. It did hurt, though.

posted by bmarkey 20 November | 01:33

First year with a house our families made us hold thanksgiving for approximately 20 people...

We are both vegetarians....

It went surprisingly well, and they've made us do it every year since. But it was stressful to make the vegetarians cook the turkey....

posted by Sil 20 November | 02:28

Not my mistake, but one year a friend's fiance baked the pumpkin pies, only instead of cinnamon, she grabbed the cumin. ... and she used a recipe that called for a LOT of cinnamon.

posted by mischief 20 November | 02:40

Try this:

Pumpkin Muffins:
1 Can Pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix, but canned pumpkin)
1 Cake Mix (any flavour)
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Mix well with spoon or mixer, then bake @ 350 until the muffins are done (you can tell when they're ready, they 'look' done)

No further moisture is necessary. I tried this last Christmas, and was amazed at how good these muffins were.

posted by essexjan 20 November | 02:46

I would love to try that, but I haven't found canned pumpkin here. It sounds so yummy.

posted by taz 20 November | 02:48

Are you using cupcake liners?

posted by bunnyfire 20 November | 08:40

silicone muffin pans are your friends.

posted by syntax 20 November | 09:00

My mom is the worst cook in the history of cooking. The only thing she can make well is reservations. One year, I shit you not, she set the whole goddamn turkey ON FIRE. That and the oven, too. And by 'on fire', I mean 'the fire department showed up'.

good times.

posted by lonefrontranger 20 November | 09:13

Each Thanksgiving I am reminded about the one year I tried to make my Mom's Famous Stuffing Balls. Or, as my version is referred to, "The Dead Sea Stuffing." I used tablespoons of salt instead of teaspoons.

posted by rainbaby 20 November | 10:46

Last year I pulled the creamed onions out of the oven and put them on the stovetop. Without noticing that the stovetop was in fact on. Subsequent explosion of glass dish and creamed onions was, well, interesting. Also, I forgot to make the gravy and was frantically trying to make it in the onion shrapnel as everyone else was serving themselves. This year is going to be better. It has to be.

posted by mygothlaundry 20 November | 11:31

I did use a spray, but not liners. Next time, not that there's going to be a next time, I will use liners. It wasn't just the difficulty in getting them out--they had some sort of "streusel" topping that came out like a turtle shell, and the blueberries are way too tart. The last batch (out of the oven at 2 am) look ok, but still don't taste all that great. *Sigh*

posted by thebrokedown 20 November | 13:26

Once upon a Thanksgiving, my mom called me, frantic, in the morning. Her oven stopped working, so she couldn't cook the turkey. No problem, I said, just bring it here and I'll cook it in my oven, and bring it over. I turned the oven on to preheat it before she got there.
Mom arrives, we open our oven and .....nothing. My oven went kaput, too!!!
Luckily, my next door neighbor/friend was going elsewhere for the holiday, so we used her oven, and Thanksgiving was saved.

posted by redvixen 20 November | 19:41

*scribbles down essexjan's recipe*

That sounds so yummy. I wonder if I can find a spice cake mix.

posted by deborah 20 November | 19:59

← Happy Birthday squirrel dude! || The Alternative-Thanksgiving Thread →

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