Win a bundle of cookery books worth over £80

I once used salt instead of sugar in a Victoria Sponge cake, hence I have since joined the WI !

When my husband first got together I made him a meal ( I never cooked before). I made something with rice. The rice was burnt at the bottom. ( not sure why).
I then baked a victoria Sponge which turned out well but unfortunately I didn't know you don't put icing on a hot cake and said icing just dribbled down the side and look awful.

I like to think I am quite a good bread baker. Very recently I invited the family to tea and made Chelsea buns which involved a lot of rolling out and coiling. I used the very best ingredient and even added walnuts. After waiting over an hour for the buns to rise I noticed an unopened packet of dried yeast lying on the work top. Those buns were never going to rise were they?

Unfortunately not even the pigeons would eat that horrid tasting dough!

When I started going out with my husband, I decided to make a sausage casserole, but was worried that it looked a bit 'thin'. I looked in the fridge and thought that adding red cabbage would be a good idea. Sadly, it turned the sausages a horrid blue with purple blotches colour - I've never seen anything so revolting. Although I'm sure that it would have tasted fine, we couldn't face it and ended up with fish & chips instead.

Pastry base banoffee pie a family favourite

First prepare the base and blind bake.
Place 3 tins of condensed milk in a saucepan of cold water.
Put lid on saucepan and leave on a low heat to come to boil.

Go upstairs, forgetting afore mention (unpuctured) tins in saucepan.
Wonder what enormous bang in kitchen is
Find saucepan lid in kitchen ceiling and liquid toffee dripping from every surface imaginable (also INSIDE drawers)

Daughter returns from school at this point and asks -
'what can I have to eat?'
'Just lick the walls and floor darling the toffee is lovely' !!

Memo to self ….. !@£$£$%IO !!!!!

Once when I was asked to do an event, catering night for some friends,as a favour, I had created a large meal of Beef Bourguignon, Rice and Baked Alsaka (To be finished at the venue) and was transporting it in the back of a van to the venue, when a taxi pulled out in front of me, I immediately slammed my brakes on, not thinking about the food but more about my van!!
Of course needless to say I ended up with food all over the back of the van. Trying to clean up Beef Bourguignon and rice as well as a baked alaska was a nightmare.
I arrived about 30 minutes late at the event, they were wondering where I was, when I explained what had happened all they could do was laugh, I was so taken aback, I offered to pay for a meal to be brought in for everybody, about 25 people. They said NO, they had already aranged it, and had already decided I was going to join them so had ordered extra for me!
And to cap it off they still paid me.
So Disaster to result!!
THe next time they asked as a favour, I did it for free!!

Many years ago, my newly-married sister asked me to help her with her first Christmas cake.
The cake turned out fine but we didn't quite get the right consistency of Royal icing. Still, we slapped it on the top and sides of the cake, and duly planted a Father Christmas and a few trees on the top.
We then watched in hysterics as Santa and the trees slipped down the sides of the cake as if they were in the midst of an avalanche!
I haven't iced a Christmas cake since....

As a student I warmed up a tin of spaghetti in a saucepan in water. It was a sunny day and I went outside in the garden and forgot about it - until I heard a loud explosion from the house. The water had boiled dry and the unopened tin had exploded the contents all over the walls, ceiling, floor - everywhere!

When I was at school doing a cookery exam, It was important to me to get it right and get a decent mark.
Well we had to cook a dinner with a dessert and drink, table had to be set properly and everything had to be put back in its place all the wood had to be scrubbed, even if you hadn't used it, which was the chopping board, rolling paper, bread board, we had to scrub it and go the way of the grain of the wood vegetable board and the drawer had to be taken out and everything put in it and left on top of the table until Miss had checked it.
Anyway I did my dinner which was toad in the hole and mashed potatoes, carrots and peas, gravy. Then I had decided that I would make apple pie and custard. Well I was doing well until I had almost finished and as I was cutting the surplus pastry off the pie, and the teacher came and stood beside me, started to shake and I dropped it on to the table, the lid and apple all fell on to the table what a mess, and I said shall I throw it in the bin Miss, No you shall not, what a waste she said. Think girl what can you do with that???? Think she said, anyway it was turned into small apple pies and where the pastry was left on the plate I used that to line the tins and then scooped up the apple and then used the lid of the pie for the lids. As far as I was concerned that was me at the bottom of the class, I will be a laughing stock of the class, I had the mickey taken out of me as I was the girl from the home. Anyway a few weeks later the list went up and I thought NO point me looking I know where I am the bottom of the class, I was the only that had dropped my dessert. A friend of mine came and said Have you looked, No I said I know where I am??? come on she said lets have a look and I really didn't want to go as the kids would start again. I looked and couldn't believe it when I saw I was top with 95%. When Miss seen me she said if I hadn't dropped it, I would have had 100%, so my dropping the pie cost me 5% and she went on to say everything in my drawers and cupboards everything was perfect. I couldn't believe it, at last the kids stopped laughing at me because I had beaten them all. I was so pleased.

I decided to cook a special meal to mark my first wedding anniversary. As cash was in short supply at the time,our usual diet was more sausage than steak. However,in honour of the occasion, I splurged out half a crown on a piece of steak. Having no experience at all of either eating or cooking steak I was at a loss how to deal with it, but a friend advised me to fry it over a medium heat. I duly cut the meat into two portions and cooked it as advised. What I failed to appreciate was that I had bought stewing steak, not frying. Sadly, the finished product was more suitable for soling shoes than fine dining! Although my husband valiantly tried to assure me it was a lovely meal, our neighbour's dog had a nice steak supper that night. It was some time before we had steak again.

I once made a chocolate and plastic brownie
My DM had brought the DCs chocolate Gruffalos for Easter but left them in the car on a hot day and they were completely melted. I decided to make brownies with them instead... thought I'd managed to peel all the chocolate off the plastic case, whizzed it in the food processor and made brownies. It did smell a bit funny when it came out of the oven but it wasn't until a friend got a shard of sharp plastic stuck in her teeth that I realised. Not sure I've ever been so embarrassed

When living in Zambia in the 1960's, I refused to eat bread produced by the local bakery,as it was reputedly baked with flour weevils intact, and not removed by sieving as I always did. I had made my views well-known to anyone who cared to listen. I invited several friends round for afternoon tea and set about baking bread buns. I set them to rise on the kitchen unit and bustled off to get ready. Unfortunately, I had reckoned without the presence of my neighbour's greedy Labrador, who had managed to get into my kitchen when the kids had left the back door open. Expecting to greet my guests with the tempting smell of baking bread, I was devastated to find an almost empty baking tray (a solitary bun left on the back row!) sitting on the unit. It was too late to start over, so I snook to the baker's to buy bread. I did not eat it. What was worse, a short time before this I had heard of a dog which had died of a ruptured stomach after eating uncooked bread. I was too cowardly to confess to my neighbour, but spent a very anxious few hours watching the aforementioned pooch for signs of distress.

Chucking way too much of this Polish seasoning in a chilli and it was so salty it all had to be binned.

I baked one of those huge cupcakes for my son's birthday cake and when we sliced into it, it was still runny in the middle.

Had spent hours preparing a fill Sunday roast everything timed to perfection and all looked appetising until.........Carving of the chicken got underway and it soon became apparent that I had forgotten something fairly important when we were greeted by the sight and smell of melted plastic as it was in the days of the giblets being stored in the body cavity!!Ah well there was lots of veg so we all became reluctant vegetarians for the night

Using my pressure cooker years ago the valve broke and blew off, the soup I was making at the time shot through the hole at the top and a mountain of green soup and steam covered everywhere the ceiling and walls looked like they were mouldy the floor was wet through and green it was such a mess even when we cleaned up that we had to redecorate and I bought a more modern steam cooker

did mashed swede with nutmeg - added too much - yuk

Glazed carrots, very 1970's posh vegetable, all going well until the neighbours knocked at the door to tell us the kitchen was 'on fire', well just masses of smoke from the caramellisation of the carrots.

When first married in 1969 it took many attempts to get my Yorkshire pudding perfect. At last I did it..only to press the knife into the tin to cut it..the tin skidded across the worktop and landed in my soapy washing up water. shock

I had to make an important meal where it was mostly cooked in the oven. I heard the fan of the oven and everything looked good but when I went to take out the meal - the oven hadn't heated up at all. I had nothing to offer my guests! Cooker now repaired and hope it doesn't happen again.

its a long time ago but I was newly married and had two Aunt in laws coming for dinner I decided to make a chocolate pudding from scratch using gelatine but it wouldn't set so I added more gelatine. the end result was rubber which they tried to eat!

On a log cabin holiday I followed instructions to pierce an egg before cooking in the microwave, then spending the rest of the afternoon removing exploded egg from my hair and every rafter of the kitchen roof!

I made a legendarily bad cauliflower cheese with random vegetables when I realised I had hardly any cauliflower in the freezer.

Had another couple round for dinner and bought a duck not realising it was all bone and skin, ended up with meat for 1 and a plate full of veg x

First year we were married, I cooked the Christmas dinner for the first time . I was very pleased with how it all looked delicious. It wasn't until we started to eat it that I realised something was wrong with the turkey, it tasted like plastic. I soon realised I had cooked the turkey with the plastic innards bag still in side . We still laugh about it 26 years later.

My most lasting disaster was the simplest thing ever to cook, microwave popcorn. I forgot about it and the house filled with a disgusting smelling smoke, the alarms went off and me and the kids had to stand in the garden for an hour while the house cleared. I was making it to watch a film with them, so we were in our dressing gowns in the chilly evening air. The inside of the microwave looked nicotine stained after numerous cleans and smelt of burnt popcorn everytime it was used until I replaced it.

I buy the ready made stuff now.