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I managed to cook the Xmas turkey with a poly bag of giblets still inside it, and then when we went to set fire to the Xmas pudding the cracker hats and party popper bits of paper that were all over the table managed to set alight.

I often make bannoffee pie by boiling tins of condensed milk in a large pan of water, but I did one time forget to go and refill the water regularly, and the pan boiled dry - I only remembered when I heard a noise like a bomb exploding - which was the can bursting open and firing hot toffee mixture literally all over the kitchen walls, ceiling, work tops and so on! Still finding bits of it in odd places....

I was baking a cake for my 90 year old mother in laws birthday, a fantastic good and one who wasn't known for her tact! I put the sponges in the oven and went of to tidy the lounge. After a short while I smelt burning and rushed into the kitchen. I had put the grill on instead of the oven and the top sponge always burning. I quickly turned the oven on, covered the sponge in foil and hoped for the best. Once cooked I cut the top off the burnt sponge and sandwiched the two together. The bottom one seemed really high and the burnt one really low. It certainly was a lopsided cake but it tasted ok. I think I got away with it!

Well I have 2 so hope I can share them both. Years ago I was desperate to help with the trifle and Mum enlisted me to put "hundreds and thousands" on top and wouldn't let me do anything else until I showed I could do that. Unfortunately there were caraway seeds in the came cupboard as the "hundreds and thousands" and like an idiot I put the caraway seeds on instead.

I was being adventurous and cooked for a new bf (luckily Chris recovered enough to marry me). He said he liked hot chili's so I thought I would tempt him with a chili. Unfortunately 2 tea spoons in the recipe turned into 2 tablespoons of very very hot chili powder.

Newly married and trying to impress new DH he said he loved rice pudding, with a nice golden crust, so I asked my MIL how to make it from scratch.

The amount of pudding rice looked lost in the dish so, thinking she'd written it down wrongly, I poured in half the packet, added more milk and sugar and put it in the oven.

Sometime later I could smell burning so I opened the oven door to an avalanche of molten rice pudding.
It not only filled the bottom half of the oven but then flowed across the kitchen floor, under the cooker and units.
I cried buckets trying to scrape it all up, DH was helpless with laughter and when he told his mother it just confirmed her opinion of me

The oven never really recovered, the smell of stuck on burnt rice still haunts my memories and if DH wants rice pud he can open a tin!

I was helping to look after my sister in law and family when she was poorly.
I made apple crumble,can't really get it wrong can you,unless you use salt instead of sugar. In my defence the jar was not labelled. My Brother in laws face was a picture.

Oh dear where do i start. I remember doing my O level cookery exam and i was making a cherry pie. I was running out of time and used tin cherries. Unfortunately i did not realise they were not de pipped. The pie looked nice when finished, however when the examiner came round to try some she chipped a tooth when she took a bite into the pie. I failed miserably and to be fair my cooking has never really improved.

i once microwaved a cheesecake to defrost. Disaster

I had joined a slimming class and was full of good intentions so when making a sponge I used sweetener instead of sugar and low fat spread instead of butter - my children played frisky with it all afternoon and it still survived.

Sorry that should read 'frisby'.

Made a birthday cake and completely burnt it. Completely black and the house stunk for ages.

I once used salt in a chocolate brownie instead of sugar, disgusting.

I melted butter the other day for a dish I was cooking and I left it too long, it totally burnt the pan, stunk my house out to the point where I could hardly breathe and made it so smokey it was like a dodgy stage from Top of the Pops!!

My mother in law would always do Boxing Day dinner for us as we'd spend Christmas Day with my family. She thought she was a little bit of a Michelin starred chef. We'd have a running commentary through the whole meal of how marvellous it was as she reeled off the list of herbs she'd used - all home grown! Anyway my husband would tell her that I could do a good dinner to which she'd turn her nose up. He suggested this one year that I'd do the dinner for a change. She finally agreed, it was no big deal as i would do a roast ever Sunday anyway. However my oven had other ideas. I think the pressure of cooking for such royalty was too much for it, every single aspect of it burned!! All except the veg which was as sloppy as anything. My darling husband kept telling us all how wonderful but the mother in laws face said it all! It's safe to say Boxing Day dinner was back at hers the following year, although my Sunday roasts were back to themselves the following week!

On holiday with my son and grandson we bought some local pasties for our lunch. Back at our holiday cottage I decided to warm them. I put them in the small oven and turned it on (or thought I did). I had actually turned on the grill. Sometime later smoke was pouring out of the oven and the smoke alarm began screeching away. The pasties were on fire! My grandson (then aged 2) was traumatised. For years afterwards he would come out with "Why did you set light to the pasties, Granny". He is now 12 and thankfully has grown out of this. BUT my DIL was recently asked by my 2 year old DGD to explain the word 'burnt' and to tell a story about 'burnt' What did she tell? That's right, the pasties. My DGD asked the other day "Why did you burn the pasties, Granny?" Groundhog day or what?

I have just had a cooking disaster. As storage space is limited in my tiny kitchen, my microwave doubles as a bread bin. I thought I had put my mug of home-made soup in ready to cook, but in fact I had only decanted it and left it on the side. Therefore I have just 'nuked' the remains of a wrapped sliced loaf! Fortunately the smell of melting plastic alerted me, but it is now in the bin!

When I first cooked pasta I didn't drain it, left the house and when I came back from the movies it was all over the place.

I have many! When I younger I was cooking an omelette and left it for two seconds to put the cheese back in the fridge I then got completely distracted, I came back to egg all over the wall and nothing but black in the pan!

I made a lasagne and the white sauce was like clumpy custard. My friends tried to eat it but had to give up as it was truly disgusting.

I cooked a Gammon joint a few Christmases ago and my son in law was unwell next day, he still tells people his mother in law tried to poison him. Nobody else was ill.

My first microwave and I used the recipe in the booklet to bake a chocolate cake for my son's 8th birthday. The sixth attempt was just about edible, all cooked on the one day !!

There was the time I boiled a ham on the cooker top, forgot about it. The windows were shut. Much later the electricity went off. While trying switches I went into the kitchen and water was dripping from everywhere, the ham was stuck to the bottom of the saucepan.... and the dripping water on the walls had run into one of the sockets which had 'blown' and knocked off the electric.

Not long married and two friends arrived unexpectedly at tea time. Not to be stuck I had two of the infamous Fray Bentos steak and kidney pies in the tin. Got them into the oven and put on some potatoes and veg. After we'd eaten and table was cleared..... I had a violent projectile vomiting episode, followed within a few minutes by my husband. This happened in the lounge all over the carpet and soft furnishings. Friends made a discreet departure. They phoned next day to say that they were ill on the way home. We've never eaten a tinned Fray Bentos pie since.

Around 1974 I was living in Brussels. One evening we had guests for dinner so I thought I play safe and do braising steak with carrots/onions etc, fancy potato dish and nice breads. I had never met the couple before, they were work colleagues of my ex.
Well.... the steak braised and it braised and was still tough, in the end I had to just serve it. We chewed and chewed until I had to say...please just leave the steak.

Next day on my way to work I noticed the horses head above the butcher shop. That had been my first introduction to horse meat. !!

I welded pasta to the bottom of a pan, put it onto boil and forgot about it, 2 hours later smoke filled the kitchen.

One night after I was newly married my husband fancied Haggis. I had never cooked it before but followed instructions and it looked ok,along with mash potatoes and turnip, however I thought it looked a little dry so I made an oxo gravy. All you Scots on here will know.........Sacrilege.

Having made stock, do not pour the saucepan contents into a colander held over the sink.....

If you successfully make stock ( see above ) and reduce it so you can freeze it in an icecube tray to use in small portions, do not let your husband put these 'ice' cubes in cocktails.