Kitchen Disaster fixes

Everyone has had a disaster in the kitchen at one time or another. Even the most experienced cook can be distracted and add too much salt, forget to set the timer, or omit a crucial ingredient. This advice will help you fix disasters and prevent them from happening in the first place.

• SOUP OR STEW TOO SALTY
  Make sure you never measure seasonings right over the pot or bowl. It's just too easy for your hand to slip, the cat to run under your legs, or someone to startle you. If it's already happened, we used to think that adding a raw cut up potato added to the soup would absorb much of the additional salt, but recent research has disproven this. Really the only way to diminish the salt is to add more of the other ingredients to the soup; in other words, add more of every ingredient except the salt. This is also the only way to fix recipes when you've added too much hot sauce, Tabasco, cayenne pepper, or chilies.
• HARD COOKED EGGS WON'T PEEL
  If the shell sticks to your hard cooked eggs, try putting the eggs in a bowl of very cold water. Then gently tap the eggs against the side of the bowl under the water. Water will seep in through the cracks and loosen the shell from the egg. The peel should come off more easily in a few minutes.
• BROKEN CAKES OR COOKIES
  When the cake breaks when you remove it from the pan or cookies are crumbling, turn your disaster into a trifle or parfait. Just layer the pieces with sweetened whipped cream and some fresh fruit in a glass bowl or individual glasses and chill until serving time.
• SOGGY VEGETABLES
  If your vegetables have been overcooked and are limp and olive green, just whizz them in the blender or food processor with a little bit of cream or butter. Pureed veggies are very trendy right now and no one will be the wiser. You can also add more cream and turn the veggies into a cream soup.
• CRACKED CHEESECAKE
  If your cheesecake cracks on top, top it with a fruit topping, chocolate sauce, sour cream or whipped cream. So that doesn't happen next time, put a pan full of water on the rack below your cheesecake while it's baking in the oven. Also run a knife around the crust to loosen it from the pan when you remove it from the oven. Sometimes cheesecakes will just crack and there's nothing you can do about it!
• SAUCE BURNED ON BOTTOM
  Remove the pan from the heat immediately! Don't stir. Place the bottom of the pan into a sink full of cold water to stop the cooking. Don't stir the sauce! Pour the top 3/4 of it into a new pan, leaving the burned part behind. Taste the sauce. It might still be okay, but if you detect any burned flavor, you'll have to throw it away and start over.
• LUMPY GRAVY
  Pour the gravy through a sieve into another saucepan. Don't press the gravy through - just let it drip through the sieve.
• CANDY WON'T SET
  When you're making cooked candy and it just won't set, add a few tablespoons of cream, return it to the heat, bring it to a boil and cook to the correct temperature as specified in the recipe. Cooked candies are simply concentrated sugar solutions. Removing more liquid by boiling is the only way to fix this problem.
• RUNNY FROSTING
  When faced with runny frosting, your first thought is to add tons more confectioner's sugar. But if the frosting is really runny, you probably don't have enough sugar to fix it. Divide the frosting in half and add confectioner's sugar to half of it. You'll have a better chance of thickening it this way.
• SEPARATING EGGS
  If you are separating eggs and a bit of yolk gets into the white, take a piece of egg shell to scoop out the yolk. This works much better than using a spoon or your fingers. When you are separating large numbers of eggs, crack each one over a small bowl, separate the yolk from the white, then pour the white into a larger bowl with the others. This will prevent contaminating the whole bowl with one broken yolk.
• CAKE STICKS TO PAN
  Make sure to grease the cake pan using shortening or butter that is UNSALTED. Salted shortening will make the cake stick. Try returning the cake to the oven for 3-4 minutes until the pan is hot. Then place the hot pan on top of a wet kitchen towel for about a minute. Or you can spin the cake pan on a stove burner for a few seconds to heat the bottom.
• GENERAL ADVICE
  • Read the recipe before you begin cooking.
  • Make sure you have all the ingredients on hand.
  • Get in the habit of setting a timer five minutes less than the recipe suggests. And carry the timer with you if you leave the kitchen!
  • Never measure any ingredient over the mixing bowl or saucepan.
  • Test your oven accuracy using an oven thermometer.