I Did That on Purpose....Really

Here is a guest post from my friend Heather. Take it away...

One of the most important rules of entertaining is to only serve food you’re confident about preparing. This makes life easier on you as you’re experienced with the dishes and won’t be stressing over whether that roast pork tenderloin is supposed to look like that, or if the white sauce has the right consistency, what have you.

Sunday evening we had a few friends over for dinner, one of whom really likes cheesecake. This means Saturday afternoon I went shopping for ingredients and then set out to make a version of the Barefoot Contessa’s Rasperry Cheesecake. I have made this cheesecake probably 8-10 times in the last year. I feel pretty happy with it and like serving it.

But I do have this one problem with cheesecake, which is that the butter from the cookie crust inevitably melts and drips into the bottom of the oven and then smokes there while the cake is baking. And I know this is going to happen, and yet I never never do more than put a piece of tin foil under the cake.

And so on Sunday I served what I like to call Fire Roasted Cheesecake. Here’s what happened. I bet you can see it coming.

Black smoke was wafting gently from the oven vent when I went into the kitchen to check on the cake. I then opened the oven door to get a better look. The influx of oxygen fed the heat, and flames! flames erupted in the bottom of the oven.

I closed the oven door and thought, Gee, what do I do? Seriously, the first thing in my brain was, I spent $15 on ingredients. I had one hand on the unbleached flour, ready to dump into the oven, but I thought, what if I just wait a teensy weensy bit more?

The flames died. No flour spilt. Lots of air venting and open windowing. The cake finished its tenure in the oven.

Fast forward to Sunday when my guests noted a complex earthiness contrasting with the vanilla and lemon. Ahem.

So I’d love to hear your mixups and accidents and oh nos! in the kitchen, too. Just to make me feel better about mine.

2 Comments

1. Rachel
   Posted March 23, 2010 at 11:08 am

   Mishaps in the kitchen? Like I ever mess up when I cook! J/K Recently I accidently put worcestire sauce in our chinese food instead of soy sauce. It was very gross. I do stuff like that. I feel like I am a pretty good cook, but my brain is also scattered a lot so I do screw up recipes at least every once and a while!

2. Jessica
   Posted March 23, 2010 at 10:47 pm

   There was the time I accidentally set the paper towel roll on fire when I was making dinner for the missionaries. Also, every time I cook it takes at least twice as long as I think it’s going to. Uh . . . I am absolutely certain I have had a ton more food mishaps, but I can’t remember any of them right now.