Lessons Learned from a Dessert Disaster

Author: Tara // Category:
I've been baking since I can remember. Many children start in the kitchen early, not seriously, but putting sprinkles on top of the cookies that their mom or dad baked. My earliest baking experience was helping bake cookies. Every year, as Christmas rolled around, it was time to bake 3 dozen batches of cookies, and I couldn't have been more thrilled. I would put on my little blue and white plaid apron that my Grandma made me in order to match my Mom's. Then the baking would begin. She would hand me the cookies and I would dip the ends in melted chocolate and then roll them in sprinkles or walnuts, and then gently place them on the wax paper.

At this point, the title of this post probably seems a little misleading. You're probably wondering how dipping cookies into chocolate and sprinkles ended in disaster. Well, the trouble did not start with cookie baking, but stemmed from my love of baking. My Dessert Disaster happened when I decided to bring a little culture to a small town in Pennsylvania. As a large fan of the Mexican culture, I decided to make Fried Plantains. I've never attempted to make this cultured dish, but my baking experience was telling me that as long as I followed the recipe, nothing could go horribly wrong. Well, that wasn't the case and in turn I had a huge cleanup of brown sugar and cinnamon.

Ok, that being said, lets take a look at where I went wrong. First I added the butter to the pan as the recipe said. No problems there, despite a little burning of butter; however, I quickly remedied the situation and turned down the burner heat. Next, I delicately cut the plantain skin in 3 pieces, narrowly avoiding cutting my finger. I peeled the plantain and dropped it into the pan. I cooked the plantains until golden on one side and then flipped them and sprinkled the brown sugar and cinnamon on them. Then to my surprise, the sugar actually started to caramelize, like it was supposed to. I cooked them until I thought they were done and then placed them on a plate, ready to eat! It was at that first bite that I knew something had gone horribly wrong. I put the "dessert" in my mouth and found to my dismay that it tasted like a raw potato with cinnamon and brown sugar on top. I then served it to my roommate who spit it out in the garbage.

This dessert experience couldn't have been more of a failure. After feeling bad for having wasted food and the taste buds of my roommate, I found the silver lining. This was an important learning experience and from this point on, whenever making fried plantains, I will always keep the burner heat low, and keep the plantains in the pan until they are finally done. That being said, you now know what mistakes to avoid, yet I don't want to leave you hanging so here is a video for fried plantains in case you are feeling daring today. Have a wonderful day and remember to keep baking!

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