As much as baking requires skill, it also requires humility. Even the best pastry chefs make mistakes—and many of the best home cooks know that these mistakes often yield some of the most interesting innovations. Take Depression-era food, for example—when traditional ingredients were hard to come by inexpensively, home bakers embraced “mistakes” and played around with ratios and ingredients to feed a crowd, with pleasure. From a fancy French hotel in the 1880s where the now-classic Tarte Tatin was born to the kitchen in St. Louis that brought us Gooey Butter Cake, here are some of the best dessert recipes that came from mistakes.
Tarte Tatin
Allrecipes / Sonia Bozzo
Believe it or not, this classic French pastry dessert came from an “oops” moment. The tale goes that pastry chefs at a French hotel called “Hôtel Tatin” accidentally cooked apples and sugar a bit too much, creating a caramelized sugary-tart mixture. The result was surprisingly yummy, so they salvaged the dish by placing puff pastry atop it—then flipping it over after baking.
Sad Cake
Melissa Goff
This cake lives by its name honestly, because it actually falls and sinks slightly during baking. It may be flat or “sad” looking, but it is moist, chewy, and sweet.
Crêpes Suzette
Allrecipes / Abbey Littlejohn
This 19th-century dessert came to be when the crepes’ surrounding liqueur caught fire—unintentionally flambéing the whole dish. Today, Crêpes Suzette is a decadent French dessert that’s easy to make from scratch. It pairs perfectly with ice cream.
Gooey Butter Cake
Dotdash Meredith Food Studios
Much like Sad Cake, St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake is the result of mismeasured cake proportions—what was supposed to be a classic coffee cake instead came out chewy, gooey, and buttery.
Forgotten Cookies II
Aimee B
Supposedly these cookies came to be because someone forgot them in the oven—turned off, of course! Today, these tasty meringue cookies are supposed to be forgotten—mix, dollop, and then “forget” them in a preheated, then turned-off oven for 5 to 6 hours.
Cold Oven Pound Cake
Lisa
Legend has it the cold-oven pound cake was the result of a baker realizing they forgot to preheat the oven. No harm, no foul, though—moist, buttery, and delicious, the result was tasty enough to be baked that way again and again. (Make sure you set aside the time though—this recipe necessarily cooks a bit longer.)
Crazy Cake
Depression-era cooks got creative with different ingredients to help cakes rise that traditionally wouldn’t be used. The acid inherent in vinegar, together with cocoa, reacts to help the cake rise and retain a fluffy, moist crumb.
Wacky Cake
lutzflcat
Wacky cake came to be when scrupulous cooks, through much trial and error, developed a cake that could be made without more typical ingredients like milk, butter, or eggs.
Pudding Poke Cake
Dotdash Meredith Food Studios
The origins of poke cake can be attributed in part to the Jell-O heyday of the 1970s and 1980s, but it’s also a style of dessert that came about as a way to moisten too-dry cakes; the baked cake is poked with a toothpick, then covered with chocolate pudding that seeps into the holes, making it moister than it would have been otherwise.
Jello Poke Cake
ALLRECIPES / ANA CADENA
Poke cakes are made with all types of pudding mix! Creamy, refreshing, and fun, this classic poke cake is a Southern recipe passed down by a grandmother. Like all poke cakes, it’s a great way to save an overbaked cake, and you can’t go wrong with toppings—from Cool Whip to berries and sprinkles.
Strawberry Angel Food Dessert
Dotdash Meredith Food Studios
Ever try to make Angel Food Cake and found yourself with a mess of broken crumbles? Fear not: that’s where this recipe comes in. Cubed and crumbled angel food cake is layered like a trifle with strawberries, strawberry glaze, and a creamy whipped topping.
Dining and Cooking