This was really good to read. I haven't had many interesting recipe failures, but one year I was making a Buche de Noël on Christmas, and when I inverted the hot jelly roll pan onto the powdered sugar-laden towel, I somehow inverted it onto my arm, instead. The pan was lined with wax paper, which made it worse, I think. I spent the evening with my arm in a bucket of water while the family wandered around looking for Christmas dinner to bring home. And it took a year for the scar to fade.

• Reply