Hey everybody.
This may be OT, but the holidays always put me in mind of some of the wacky things that have come out of my family's kitchen. I thought we could all share our stories, have a laugh. They don't need to apply to baking or cake decorating. Just something to make us smile. If we need to bring competition into it, I will declare the person with the funniest story the "Dyfunctional Sugar Plum Fairy of 2005."

My stories are:

1) My mom makes a really neat "snowball" cake, white cake, whipped cream cheese frosting, covered in shredded coconut. A few years ago, she decided to use my great-grandma's fancy crystal cake stand to display it. When she went to cut it, with the whole family watching, the knife slid into the cake, the cake slid off of the stand, and made a big pile of snowball in the middle of the table.

2) My Grandma was very ill and in chemotherapy. She was too weak to cook Christmas dinner and wasn't adjusting the change very well. She was coming into the kitchen every few minutes to "advise" me, my sister and my mom.While we weren't looking, she decided the stuffing my mom just took out of the oven wasn't finished and turned a stove burner on underneath the casserole dish. After a few minutes, the stuffng started to smoke. Mom turned around, saw it, grabbed two hot pads and scooped up the casserole. In an amazing feat of "physic in real life," the cool air hit the hot glass and shattered it- leaving my mom holding two ends of the casserole dish and looking at the flaming, sizzling lump of stuffing burning THROUGH her linoleum. She looked at it, looked at us and screamed

The whole family rushes in, including my DH who was spending his first holiday with my family and chose that moment to walk through the front door. My grandma patted Mom on the head and said, "Don't worry honey, we'll pick the glass out. It will be just fine."

Grandma passed on a few years later, but we still talk about the "Day of the Burning Stuffing."

So those are my submissions. Any additions?

For once I had no disasters and everything went well....I was very pleased..... but a disaster now is hubby left today for 4 months to go to Africa...
oh well....

I remember one Christmas my mother was taking the turkey out of the oven with my dads help. One at each end.. it was so heavy that they started to tumble and it landed right smack into the trash can... ha.. after picking it out and cleaning it off a bit we sat down to eat.. my brother was knawing on corn on the cob and it slipped out of his hand and landed in the gravy boat!! we all busted up laughing... i think i was about 5 years old... but i'll never forget it.. it was the Christmas that my parents were so excited about "Santa" that they woke me and my brothers up at 3 am to open gifts...

The burning stuffing is just too funny! I'm like your mom. When I get super frustrated, I just scream like Charlie Brown. Arrrrrrrrgh!

Deviled eggs were one of my dishes to bring to Christmas dinner. I'm not known for my cooking. First, I used too much salt and then tried to cover up the salty taste with hot seasoning. Not great, but still edible. True disaster struck when I was rushing to pack all the food and gifts. I placed not one, but TWO sweet potato pies on top of the deviled eggs. I don't think my brother is going to let me live this down anytime soon.

Well, in the last minute I wanted to do none other than Petit Fours...

As we know, this miniature cakes take time and patience to do.... Well, I ran out of both... and they turned out horrible

I don't want to give up on them though.... They sure would have looked cute... Next time I will use and much firmer batter...

ok this was a first for me. Had a paid cake that was do christmas morning. got up early to decorate it, had to have it delivered by 9:00am they were going to family and was leaving by 9:15 no problem kids were not due back from the fathers until 10 so I get it all done was really proud of it DH took a bunch of pictures and we delivered the cake. kids come home start opening presents and I could not figure out why I had not run out of film yet checked the camera no film in it. I was so upset. I called the people up and explained what happen so they took pictures for me still waiting to get my copies. that and we had to make kids repose for all the pictures again. Leason to learn always make sure there is film in your camera. It also gives me an excuse to get a digital camera one of these days..

Hi everyone,

Just thought I would share my cake disaster last week. My grandson was baptized last Sunday and we had a large family gathering afterwords.
Of course, everyone expected me to do the cake which I was more than happy to do. (at the time)
My idea was a two layer full sheet cake, with a cross shape cake on the top. I decorated the cross with a dove in the center, and the rest with cornelli lace. I planned on making the lettering out of "old english font" white chocolate molds along with some doves and crosses molded out of chocolate. Then I planned on painting the molds with silver luster dust, because I thought that would look beautiful on a baby blue-colored cake.
Sound nice? Well, our ideas sometimes don't always go as planned.

First problem, I was sent the wrong cross mold in the mail.

2nd: The fancy lettering was so delicate, I couldn't get all the letters I needed out of the molds without breaking them. (tried for a letter K 8 times! and the letter N 11 times! 11 times!

3rd: some of the other letters I painted with the luster dust broke when I was brushing them.

4th: I didn't like the buttercream receipe I used, (even though it tasted good), because some of the cornelli lace that I put on the sides of the cake, would harden and chip off.

5th. When I went to put the cake in the box, the cake was too tall! It wouldn't fit! The lid smashed the gel drawing of the dove!

6th: When I finally got the cake to the reception hall, when it was lifted up and set back down on the table, the whole cake split right in half, even to the point that the strawberry filling was exposed!

Now I am a firm believer in "where there's a will, there's a way!

Solutions: I free handed the letters I needed to match with the letters that would come out of the molds. I just put melted chocolate in a pastry bag and piped the letters K and N that way.

I went to Wal-mart and bought an under the bed storage container to put the cake in!

I always keep my extra gels and frostings in pastry bags for touch ups
untill after the cake is in it's final resting place.

When the cake split, (I guess I should say slid) in two. I just took a deep breath and laid my arm against it and slid it back together. It slid because they were two half sheet cakes put together. Then I took my extra pasty bags of frostings and did touch ups.

It didn't look as nice as it did before I put it in the box, but only us cake decoraters would of really noticed the goofs.

I will be posting the picture of it in a few weeks, as soon as I use up the rest of the film in my camera. Picture was taken before it slid in two.

The best thing that comes out of cake disasters? You learn!

Keep on BAKIN!
mcginnis