Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The Muffin Fail

Things do not always go right for me in the kitchen!  Sometimes the fails are my fault and sometimes they're not, but I take comfort in knowing that all of my friends fail sometimes in the kitchen.  Right??  Just nod yes and make me feel good.  :)

Sometimes fails aren't pretty...

like this one...
Pound cake fail.
Or this one.
Strawberry ice cream fail.
But sometimes they are deceptively pretty...

like this one...
Chocolate chai fail.
Or my latest failure ~ Chocolate Raspberry Muffins!
Muffin fail.
Such pretty muffins ~ such horrible taste!
Don't those muffins look delicious?!  The recipe sounded yummy to me.  Unfortunately I was making them very late at night to take to church in the morning, so I was under time pressure.  I did follow the recipe exactly (which was in a cookbook!), but if I had more time I might have realized that something was wrong.  It was the salt.

The recipe called for 2 teaspoons of salt, but it only made 12 muffins.  And it called for a stick of salted butter too!  Now, I did hesitate as I was adding the salt, thinking it seemed like a bit much, but surely the cookbook couldn't be wrong (and it's not like they said something crazy like tablespoons!) - they must know something I don't!  LOL!  I knew there was a problem as I was putting them into the oven and then tasted the leftover batter from the bowl.  WOW - super salty!  But...maybe...possibly...the flavor cooks out?  Or combines with the chocolate and raspberry so you don't notice it?  Noooooo...it did not.

Sadly, I kept sampling the muffins thinking that they couldn't be THAT bad because they looked so good!  But they were bad every taste I took - LOL!  Hubs tasted them and was disgusted.  Son took one little teensy taste and couldn't stand it.  There was nothing I could do with them other than throw them away  - AFTER taking pics for a blog post, of course!  :)

So, what do you think?  12 muffins with chocolate chips, some raspberry jam filling, a stick of butter and the other usual ingredients - how much salt would you add?  If I can figure it out, I may try again, but I really don't want a chance of having to throw out another dozen pretty muffins - it makes me cringe.

Have you had any failures lately?  It's OK to share - you're in good company.  :)

Have a lovely day friends!


  1. When I was first married we had my best friend and two of her friends over...my first non-family guests. I made a fresh blueberry pie. My mom had copied down the recipe, and I thought that maybe there was too much salt, but I did the same you did (only she said 1/4 cup, I think, instead of 1/4 teaspoon). I wanted to call and ask her, but as I was a newlywed I had already called her a bunch that day with cooking questions. Unfortunately I didn't taste it and waited expectantly while my guests did. Oh, the looks on their faces! It was terrible. I was so embarrassed!

  2. I made a almond orange cake over the weekend. Recipe called for 2 oranges. Ok, great...but what SIZE oranges!?!?!? Well, the only size they had at the store were the size of my head, which I knew would be too big, but I thought i'd eye it. Problem came when I followed recipe, boiled them whole, put them in the food processor and added some (apparetnly too much) to the batter. Yeah... well.... the center of the cake never cooked because there was too much moisture/pulsated cooked oranges. All that almond flour...wasted. I threw away the center and kept the outter ring of the cake that cooked perfectly and kept it for me (it's slowly disappearing from the freezer). It was delicious, but a costly error. That's ok, I made a fancy cake for everyone else that turned out amazing. :)

  3. You should check out the book Bakewise. Awesome for explaining how things work together. I'm slowly working through it and have learned so much! I'll check it today and see what she says.

  4. Nope no fails for me. LOL! Well not this week at least. Ha! Ha!
    You know if I were using salted butter I would probably only use a half teaspoon. Just make sure that that was the only thing wrong with them though. If you think other than the salt they would have tasted good then go for it again and let us know how it goes.

    Big throwing good chocolate away in a bad muffin is worth crying about size hugs to you!

    Love ya my friend.

  5. But they looked so pretty! I'd have the same trouble throwing them away! As it is, I usually end up eating all the things my guys don't like. The fact that I need to hit Curves three times a week tells you what a bad cook I am! Lol!

  6. Wow! Those do look yummy... so sad to waste such chocolatey goodness... :( I'm guessing it should have been maybe 1/2 tsp of salt?? But with the salted butter, you could probably just leave it out. I think I would HAVE to make them again, just to do them justice! ;) Lol

  7. Looks like I am in good company with the fails! Thanks for sharing them! And thanks for the salt advice - I need to look at other recipes to compare too.



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