As one year quickly gave way to another, I made a black forest cake. Meant to be incredibly retro, a little kitsch and served to a crowd, the new recipe suggested that it would support the weight of luscious whipped cream, a kirsch soak and, the pièce de resistance, amarena cherries (the sole nod to modern day taste).
Pulled from the oven, the crumb, the look and the fluffiness were all wonderfully promising. As it cooled on a baking rack, I did something unusual, I tasted a small piece. The lack of sugar was instantly apparent. No, I thought, it’s a cake, there is no way that I forgot the star ingredient. A slight glance toward the counter made it all too apparent – a singular cup of crystal granules stood proud but untouched. With guests on their way and no grocery run possible, I had to make the best of the situation. An amarena cherry syrup was brushed onto the first layer. Then, a milk chocolate ganache, easy enough to make with pantry staples, was slathered on top. Whipped cream received the addition of white chocolate buttons for added sweetness and gelatine for stability. A few chocolate swirls were shaved for good measure. By the time it was all said and done, no one knew the difference and disaster was most definitely averted.
That crazy, hectic season when the kitchen is full of activity portends mishaps – something will inevitably break, crack, burn or fizzle. It happened to a homemade mayonnaise that I was assured, was foolproof. The all-in-one immersion blender method usually takes only a few minutes. Clearly, by ninety seconds the mixture had split – with a mass of fat on one side and clumped pieces of egg to the other. A sight to behold. Whether it was that same stubbornness as with the black forest, or, not wanting to waste, I can’t recall, but a furious search for ‘bringing back a mayonnaise’ ensued. Scant information. Eventually, logic and experience prevailed. With another egg and oil mixture summoned (and whisked by hand), the broken, gloopy failure was carefully poured, one drop at a time, into the new mix. The result was thick, creamy and velvety. Again, disaster averted, and, waste diverted.
It made me think of those cooking shows where amateurs and sometimes even professionals are given a set amount of time to create a dish. When disaster strikes the response from the judges is more often than not, “throw it out and start again.” Real cooking, when you are paying for every ingredient, doesn’t go like that. I don’t pretend that those shows are real or in any way equivalent to home cooking, but the fact that there is no gesture toward rectifying a mistake, no one in the cast who thinks that an error may be corrected, is sad. Albeit, I was not under a time crunch, but bringing a mayonnaise back from the brink, or a sugar-less cake to life, did not take time, but a new way of thinking. And respect for ingredients, work, and energy.
At least somewhere in the ether, the idea of (a competition with) minimal waste, is percolating. Recently, a highly acclaimed chocolatier spoke about the waste generated in chocolate competitions and how the sizes of showpieces have been made smaller as a result.
It’s not just about waste. It’s also about respect. Respect for the ingredients, respect for the people who made them. If you’ve ever visited a cacao plantation, you’ll have seen the enormous amount of work that goes into producing the beans. In hot, humid, sticky conditions, the pods are cut from trees, the pulp removed, and the beans fermented and dried. It is back-breaking work over several months (and years before that) that deserves more than being tossed in the garbage when things go wrong or thrown out after a few hours of eyes gazing at it for a competition. From seed it takes five years for cacao to produce fruit, even with grafting it can still be between 3 to 5 years before the pods are ready for harvest. All that time, energy and hard work should have value.
Burnt tasting, eggy custard is not nice. Neither is toast turned to carbon, dry meat or sodden pasta. But very few things are beyond repair. If you take cream too far, you end up with butter and buttermilk. Both may be used in other recipes (compound butter, a marinade for fried chicken). There’s a sense of improvisation that every home cook needs in order to salvage a disaster.
One of the hardest things to do in the kitchen, or in life, is to identify the problem, and then set about trying to find a solution. It takes a lot of energy, resourcefulness and patience. Sometimes, it is true, you just have to start anew. And sometimes, oftentimes, I hope, you try and repair. Either way, you may just end up with something delicious.
This original article first appeared in the SUMMER 2026 issue of City Style and Living Magazine.
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