I tend to use recipes only as rough guidelines, and to change a recipe slightly each time I make it. My husband does not appreciate the creative cooking process. Spoil sport.

I've only had a few real disasters, though.

Burnt cheese soup. It took three months of soaking and scrubbing to get the black off the bottom of the pot.

Baking-soda and salt cookie cake. I mixed up two batches of choc. chip cookie dough and made two large cookies for my birthday, in high school. In one, I added too much baking soda or something, and my grandma tried to "fix" it by adding loads of salt. It was famously disgusting.

Canned air on the edible car. Last month we (Society of Physics Students) hosted an edible car race. I worked for two days to develop my masterpiece of biscotti body, spaghetti bundle axles, and caramel wheels. Race day was HOT and I worried that it would melt before our run, so I used canned air (like for your computer) to chill the wheels right before. It helped, but when time came to eat it tasted horrible! All sugary goodness tasted horrible! I forgot that canned air has added bitterants, to discourage huffing. I was nauseas for several hours.