I wouldn’t say that I’m a terrible cook.  I mean, I’m not going to win any awards or anything, especially not for my presentation, but what I concoct in the kitchen is usually, at the very least, edible.

USUALLY.

For Olli’s birthday, I thought we could celebrate with the family with a birthday brunch.  There was this overnight french toast recipe I’d been dying to try and I also thought I’d give some vegetarian strata a whirl.  We went to the grocery store Friday night, and I started preparing the dishes when we got home.

The french toast, however, required twelve eggs (TWELVE!) so I didn’t have enough leftover for the strata.  I decided to double a recipe for pancakes instead.

Now you know the menu, fast forward to Saturday morning.  I throw the french toast in the oven as per instructions and start making the pancakes.  The recipe, however, was on my computer and not written out on a piece of paper.  And I was doubling everything, remember, to feed a family of, like, 15.  Well, between the living room where my computer was and the kitchen- about ten steps away- I managed to QUADRUPLE the amount of flour in the pancake recipe instead of doubling it.  And by the time I’d realized it, I’d already added the wet ingredients and since the french toast required all those stinkin’ eggs, I didn’t have any leftover to quadruple the whole recipe.

Goodness gracious.  Suffice it to say the pancakes were more like griddle biscuits than pancakes.  No, griddle biscuits are not a real thing.  Yes, I just made them up.

And the French toast…  I don’t know where I went wrong.  But after over two hours in the oven (the recipe only calls for 1), the bread was still gross and soggy on the bottom and the top was burnt to a crisp.  A picture is worth a thousand words.

I don’t even know why I watermarked that photo.  Who’s going to steal a photo of burnt, nasty, tasteless overnight French toast?

I literally kept that disaster in tact for a whole day just so I could photograph it for this blog.  And then it all went in the bin.  The bio bin, so at least it’ll serve a useful purpose as compost in some lucky fool’s garden.

So food-wise it was not the most successful brunch.  But the lucky thing is that none of Olli’s family turned up to eat it.  Miscommunication and conflicting schedules kept all but Olli’s mom away.  And she was a gracious eater (“It’s not bad with strawberry jam on top!”).

We’ll give it another go some other time.  Not that particular French toast recipe, but perhaps something else.  Any suggestions?

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Tags: Finland, food photography, professional photographer, Vantaa