Over two thousand years ago, the great Roman philosopher Seneca said "To err is human", and with this phrase in particular immortalized his name. Now we don’t know exactly on what occasion the legendary thinker put it this way, so we can only guess. Here is one of these guesses - given that in Seneca's notes a lot of attention is paid to delicious food, it is quite possible that the philosopher was simply upset by some unsuccessful dish, his own or someone else's cooking.
Yes, we all make mistakes, including when we cook something. Cooking is like art - an extra drop of sauce or oil, and now a new ingenious recipe is ready. However, it is much more likely that because of this very extra drop, something really disgusting will come to light, which will forever ruin your culinary reputation, even in your own eyes.
It is believed that the key to a successful stand-up is funny jokes about yourself, because people like irony. This is probably the main reason for the popularity of the Reddit community under the self-explanatory name "Cooking Fails", where there are already more than five hundred people sharing images of their self-created cooking disasters, accompanying them with some witty comments.
So Bored Panda has put together a selection of the funniest, most unexpected and absolutely incredible food fails for your own enjoyment, so please feel free to scroll this list to the very end, mark the submissions you like best - and the next time after failing at the stove, rather than being angry with yourself, just remember this post, and it will definitely help you perceive everything through the prism of humor. Bon appétit (but not exactly)!
More info: Reddit
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Just Learned The Hard Way That Curcuma + Hot Water + Rice Noodles = Satan's Pasta. I Shrieked
I Dropped The Cheesecake While Unmolding It
A Friend Writes: "Apparently I Bought A Brining Bag Instead Of A Baking Bag"
Expectation vs. Reality
I Baked A Cake
I Tried To Make A Churro, But I Made Chookies
Pickled Avocado. Good Lord It's Bad
Nop, nop, nop, Im from Madeira island, and we do a lot of stuff with avocado, like cut it in half sprincle a bit of sugar and eat it like a grape fruit ( realle really good ) or cut it in thin slices and eat it with bread ( also great ), but that.....
My Mom Cooked Some Eggs In The Oven At 400f For 30 Minutes, And The Top Was Almost Plastic In Texture, With A Dry, Hard Centre
Cooking A Egg With Worcestershire Sauce. Ended Up Making Dog Turds
This looks exactly like my old cat's throw up. I miss you, Blackie Sue, but I don't miss cleaning up after you tried to eat my plants.
Macaroon Gone Wild
I Tried
I make sushi, sometimes I put too much in, then it might fall apart. Tastes the same, just need a fork instead of chopsticks!
did they use the right type of rice I wonder. first time I made sushi, I didn't even realise you had to use the specific sushi rice/sticky rice. xD (though that does look like sushi rice though)
I applaud your effort. Mine would look the same if I tried to make it myself.
gotta wipe the knife off with a wet rag before each cut otherwise you'll squish your sushi like this.
That was my thought as well. Also, needs to rinse it between slices so it doesn't get sticky and tear the roll like this.
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Too bad you're not in my hood. I could show you how it's done. Saran wrap? Where'd you get that idea?
I remember when I first learned how to make my own sushi, a few of the sites I went to recommended using saran wrap over the rolling board to keep it clean and help shape it (I don't remember if there was any more reasoning that that)... but I never found it particularly helpful and ended up using a different guide.
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You did better than most multiple tries with my life partner before succeeding
I applaud you for trying! First two look solid, so my guess is a) knife too dull, b) you need to rinse /wipe down the knife between slices so it doesn't tear the roll like this, or/and c) don't pack the center with too much stuff; when it's rolled it should be even from one end to the other and tightly rolled (then slice w sharp knife, cleaning between slices). You'll be a pro in no time - keep at it!! 👍
Someone Bakes These Cupcakes For Our Pta Halloween Party.... Something Just “Semen”ed A Little Off
I Somehow Managed To Fail At Cooking Pop-Tarts!
Carrot Cake - It Doesn’t Just Look Bad , It Also Tastes Bad
You're supposed to finely shred the carrots, not cut them like French fries.
I Tried To Make A Mug Cake. Something Somewhere Went Horribly Wrong And It Exploded In My Microwave
When Your Coworker Put Too Much Hot Sauce In The Mixer Lol
The One On The Right Is My Friends Christmas Cake. The Left One Is My Absolute Failure Of A Cake
Forgot The Toast In The Panini Press :(
Tried Making A Mug Cake
My “Alfredo Sauce”
My 12yo Made French Toast For The First Time This Morning
My Mother In Law Served This For Lunch. Luckily I Was At The Park With My Son And Warned Not To Return
Guess What This Was...🥲
We Tried Making Cookie But This Happened... Tastes Pretty Good Though
Pesto? More Like Pestoh No! Tried Making Homemade Pesto And It Turned Out More Like Avocado
Só Im not a cheff by any means, but last time i checked pesto is preety much a liquid, that guacamole.....
I Tried Making A BBQ Pizza Because I Was Really Hungry. Tastes So Bad I Literally Regurgitated The First Bite
My Grandma Tried Making Bread Using A Slow Cooker Epic Fail
OMG, I can almost feel the knife losing it's tip .... don't eat it you'll lose teeth.
Yummy Glass
I Tried Making Cookies-
I could forgive someone for accidentally leaving out pretty much any ingredient EXCEPT for the flour. How did you manage that?
Y'all Know That Bread Machine?? Well, I'm Not Sure Why, I Didn't Work This Time
Note: this post originally had 40 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
My worst was a fruit cake. The recipe said to stir in a whisked egg while the mixture was warm. Unfortunately, mine was a bit too warm. The egg scrambled and the whole thing turned to toffee. Toffee with scrambled egg was not a good combination.
Hah reminds me of when I used to make angel food cake all the time. Was going to add blueberries but figured I wanted to add some heavy cream to the blueberries. Yeah.......
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I think my absolute worst was when I was below 10 years old (possibly a couple years younger than that) & wanting to be helpful, I decided to try & make coffee for my older sister. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise that I had used GRAVY granules instead of coffee granules; so I added milk, hot water & sugar, stirred it up & gave it to my poor sister, who probably thought “Oh, how nice! My little sis just made me a nice cup of coffee!”. Then she took a big swig … & 💩 hit the fan; almost immediately, she retched violently & ran for the bathroom like a true Olympian! LOL. Deep down, I felt so bad about making my sister physically ill, but as I was just a child, her reaction had me in a fit of giggles (even now, I only have to remind her about the time I made her a “beef gravy coffee with milk & sugar” & she’d retch so hard)! 😂
PS - I’m not the only one in my family who has confused the gravy/coffee granules, as my mum did the same thing a few years back. She was trying to make gravy to go with white rice & kept complaining that she couldn’t get it to thicken up, no matter what she did. She ended up serving the rice & “watery gravy”. Maybe it was payback for what happened to my older sister, because I felt sick for the first mouthful, so I had to tell my mum that she had used coffee in the rice (& she immediately realised that she had confused coffee granules for gravy ones, just like I did in reverse), much to her embarrassment. In the end, she ordered delivery takeaway to make up for it, so it worked out okay in the end; & I got some refreshing Coca-Cola to wash away the taste of coffee. Totally worth it! 😄
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My first and worst cooking fail was pizza with American crust... but I forgot the yeast! My best friend back then, may the deities bless him, ate two peaces and pretended it was good just to make me happy. But it was absolutely disgusting
Reminds me of my first time making whoopie pies. Instead of forgetting something I accidentally tripled the baking soda and powder.
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Ive gotten very drunk on several occasions and totally ruined good meals in some real stupid ways
Once me and my sister tried to bake mini lava cakes for my moms b-day. She woke up from her nap and basically said “those are too liquid!” She forced up to cook them more even though they are supposed to be liquid in the inside. Let’s just say they weren’t “lava” cakes anymore…😂
I made some great steaks and decided to sear them in a glass pan (only rated to 400 F). I opened the door and when cool air hit the pan, it exploded. Prefect steaks covered in glass. I have never used glass in an oven again.
I think my own worst was a flan. I tried to make it with a friend, because we were curious (we were big Battle Angel Alita / Gunnm fans, and a weirdo scientist character Desty Nova is OBSESSED with it). It turned out truly awful. Gelatinous, sweet eggs. This was before the days when video tutorials were common.
mine so far and i'm only 13 in scrambling eggs in sticky date pudding (i am a major klutz and forgetful so i didn't take my butter out of the microwave
once i was at my friend's house and she melted the butter instead of softening it
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Made prawns with lemon and halved the mixture, forgot to do the same with the lemon ... 26 years later my husband still asks if I'm going to try again if he sees me buying prawns. Funny man !!
Reading the Bio of the Panda that curated these- "Oleg also worked as a university teacher, sports writer and a BDSM* specialist for several IT companies. " Why the Hell do IT companies need a BDSM "specialist"?? What the Hell is IT getting up into???
My worst cooking fail wasn't even my fault. Some bozo at the bulk store mixed up the bins and put icing sugar into the corn starch bin. Icing sugar does not make good gravy.
My worst cooking fail was using expired vegetable shortening in my from scratch French Silk pie. The filling was to DIE for (first time using my electric hand mixer, so smooth), but that crust man...that crust was so bad lol
My worst was a fruit cake. The recipe said to stir in a whisked egg while the mixture was warm. Unfortunately, mine was a bit too warm. The egg scrambled and the whole thing turned to toffee. Toffee with scrambled egg was not a good combination.
Hah reminds me of when I used to make angel food cake all the time. Was going to add blueberries but figured I wanted to add some heavy cream to the blueberries. Yeah.......
Load More Replies... I think my absolute worst was when I was below 10 years old (possibly a couple years younger than that) & wanting to be helpful, I decided to try & make coffee for my older sister. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise that I had used GRAVY granules instead of coffee granules; so I added milk, hot water & sugar, stirred it up & gave it to my poor sister, who probably thought “Oh, how nice! My little sis just made me a nice cup of coffee!”. Then she took a big swig … & 💩 hit the fan; almost immediately, she retched violently & ran for the bathroom like a true Olympian! LOL. Deep down, I felt so bad about making my sister physically ill, but as I was just a child, her reaction had me in a fit of giggles (even now, I only have to remind her about the time I made her a “beef gravy coffee with milk & sugar” & she’d retch so hard)! 😂
PS - I’m not the only one in my family who has confused the gravy/coffee granules, as my mum did the same thing a few years back. She was trying to make gravy to go with white rice & kept complaining that she couldn’t get it to thicken up, no matter what she did. She ended up serving the rice & “watery gravy”. Maybe it was payback for what happened to my older sister, because I felt sick for the first mouthful, so I had to tell my mum that she had used coffee in the rice (& she immediately realised that she had confused coffee granules for gravy ones, just like I did in reverse), much to her embarrassment. In the end, she ordered delivery takeaway to make up for it, so it worked out okay in the end; & I got some refreshing Coca-Cola to wash away the taste of coffee. Totally worth it! 😄
Load More Replies... My first and worst cooking fail was pizza with American crust... but I forgot the yeast! My best friend back then, may the deities bless him, ate two peaces and pretended it was good just to make me happy. But it was absolutely disgusting
Reminds me of my first time making whoopie pies. Instead of forgetting something I accidentally tripled the baking soda and powder.
Load More Replies... Ive gotten very drunk on several occasions and totally ruined good meals in some real stupid ways
Once me and my sister tried to bake mini lava cakes for my moms b-day. She woke up from her nap and basically said “those are too liquid!” She forced up to cook them more even though they are supposed to be liquid in the inside. Let’s just say they weren’t “lava” cakes anymore…😂
I made some great steaks and decided to sear them in a glass pan (only rated to 400 F). I opened the door and when cool air hit the pan, it exploded. Prefect steaks covered in glass. I have never used glass in an oven again.
I think my own worst was a flan. I tried to make it with a friend, because we were curious (we were big Battle Angel Alita / Gunnm fans, and a weirdo scientist character Desty Nova is OBSESSED with it). It turned out truly awful. Gelatinous, sweet eggs. This was before the days when video tutorials were common.
mine so far and i'm only 13 in scrambling eggs in sticky date pudding (i am a major klutz and forgetful so i didn't take my butter out of the microwave
once i was at my friend's house and she melted the butter instead of softening it
Load More Replies... Made prawns with lemon and halved the mixture, forgot to do the same with the lemon ... 26 years later my husband still asks if I'm going to try again if he sees me buying prawns. Funny man !!
Reading the Bio of the Panda that curated these- "Oleg also worked as a university teacher, sports writer and a BDSM* specialist for several IT companies. " Why the Hell do IT companies need a BDSM "specialist"?? What the Hell is IT getting up into???
My worst cooking fail wasn't even my fault. Some bozo at the bulk store mixed up the bins and put icing sugar into the corn starch bin. Icing sugar does not make good gravy.
My worst cooking fail was using expired vegetable shortening in my from scratch French Silk pie. The filling was to DIE for (first time using my electric hand mixer, so smooth), but that crust man...that crust was so bad lol
