The Sacher Cake Disaster

To bake, or not to bake, that's the question ?

Looking at this picture I guess the second option would have made more sense. I had this incident recently when getting the cake out of the form it broke into pieces.

I guess that's why someone came up with the chocolate glaze to cover up that baking disaster.

Well, anyhow the taste wasn't impacted by the looks, and it wasn't for a birthday or so. However I got myself a better baking form for cakes which allows it to get it out much easier.

Cooking Disaster: making mustard

While on Holidays I had time to recall a few incidents in the kitchen recently and I found some pictures I took about it. 4 weeks ago I   thought I have to be fancy to prepare my own mustard.I went to get some seeds from a local store, for 4 Euro !!!

Then the grinding, I spent at least 20 minutes on it to get the seeds to a fine powder.



I added the other ingredients such as vinegar, sugar, and salt and filled the"mustard" into a jar and stored it in the fridge.

After a few days I checked the result, doesn't look as attractive than the mustard from the shop, I guess I have no artificial colours in. Also it doesn't taste as good, and overall, I spent more money on it than from the store, and I feel I wasted my time...

That's why this blogpost gets the category, cooking disaster !

Hollondaise from Hell

I recently posted about how to make Sauce Hollandaise, well, one lesson i have learned when i produced now this disaster on the left (basically its scrambled eggs now) is to watch the heat !

Good side is,
its pretty fast to make a second attempt to get it right !

How not to cook a duck

via Face book,
since the last post was about duck,
this video demonstrates, how not to cook one.

Have fun:

How / How not to pepare a hot irish Whiskey

Thats a perfect post for my Cooking Disasters category.

So here what happened. I wanted to prepare a hot Irish Whiskey, since its a great Medicine for a sore throat or a cold.

It should be simple to do so you might think, since all ingredients are simple. A few gloves, sugar or honey, Whiskey as much you want and hot water.

I know, I was told always to add a spoon in the glass, before adding the hot water. What should I say, I was naughty and wanted to see if thats true.

And as you can see on the picture on the left, it is !
The glass cracked, all the good whiskey and hot water was running through the cracks.

So remember, alsways add a spoon in the glass before adding hot water, or heat the glass before. What ever you think its easier. And yes, a plastic spoon doesn't count, and if you don't have a spoon, use a fork or knife, as long its metal it should do the job !

Cheers !

How to make Pickled Eggs ?

I categorized this recipe with cooking disaster, and I will explain later why...

But first let me start to explain, why i had the idea to make pickled eggs in the first place ?

You might remember my article of my chicken Heidi high preforming, and she is still together with the other chickens producing a lot of eggs every day.



So I was looking into it, how to conserve some eggs I wont use straight away, and add value to the product egg.

On a visit to London i heard about pickled eggs, so I had to try this.

On the above "pickture" you see what is needed:
4 eggs
100 ml vinegar
200 ml water
1 teaspoon English mustard
a bit of salt
a bit of sugar

1 onion

Boil the eggs hard, put them into a conserving glass, mix the other ingredients well and add them to the glass. There should be no air remaining in the glass

This way you can keep it for up to 2 month, you should anyway see or smell in case the egg goes bad.

I tasted it myself after 5 days, and here comes my point why I declared it as a cooking disaster. The egg was very much tasting like vinegar and mustard. I hated it and barley could eat that one egg.
Anyway, to be completely sure what I have done, I have asked on Face book for a English men to taste my pickled eggs. I shortly found one so I passed by Grahams Shop  to bring him the remaining three... He loved it...

Well, all ladies out there, if you want to make a English man happy,
you know now what to do !

So, will complete now the remaining Xmas Shopping !

Review: Steak tartar

We all know the scene from Mr. Bean dinning in a French restaurant ordering steak tartar. I have seen this on TV years ago, and last summer on holiday in France I spotted this dish on the menu, and had to smile while thinking of the funny slapstick from Rowan Atkinson. For all who don't know it, see at the end the video.

Anyhow, my wife suggested i shouldn't go for it if i am not really sure if i like it.

Anyway, No risk no fun. So I tried it.
the secret apparently is to mix the egg, the onion, the carpers and cucumber with the meat, spice it with salt and pepper and have a go.
Its actually really good, and somehow I felt like a real cave man eating rare meat ! WOAW !

I have to admit I could each all, as you see on the right, but I didn't dare to distribute the rest over the table...

.....Unlike him 

The Germknödel Incident

To be, or not to be a Germknödel, thats the Zwetschken !?

To be fair, I will report from time to time also about my cooking disasters, which happen from time to time. It might take a while to tell this story and I hope you have a good laugh.

If you try it yourself, let me know if you did succeed !

To clarify, we start with the basic recipe, which is not that complicated. Whats a Germknödel ?
Its a Yeast dough dumpling filled with plum relish.
The Ingredients are:
500 g flour
20 g yeast
1 Egg
250 ml milk
70g butter and a bit salt

Mix the ingredients together to a nice dough, than let it rest for 20 minutes, form than this kind of balls, which are filled in the middle with the plum relish.

After leave it rest again in a warm place for 40 Minutes.

Than the grow further, the tricky part is to form them good so the filling stays inside.
After the should be thrown into boiling water for 12 minutes, 6 minutes on each side.

After serve them with vanilla sauce and melted butter.

Here comes the disaster, it seems the water wasn't hot enough or the dough not consistent enough, so the final dumpling tasted like dough, not like it should taste. Also we couldn't find any poppy seeds here in Ireland which should go on top....
My friends and I sitting there trying to eat our cooking result decided to make the best out of it, give all of the dumplings in a form and an other 20 minutes in the oven.
That kind of rescued the cooking night.

However, as you can tell from the pictures it isn't a ideal result, check it out here how they should look like.

Thanks God that day we cooked also the Irish Stew,
which was very tasty and filling :-)

If you try this recipe, let me know how you get on.