14 Home Cooks Who Took “Turning Up the Heat” a Little Too Seriously

We all love a good home-cooked meal, but sometimes, things in the kitchen get a little out of hand. From flaming pans to explosive baking experiments, these home cooks cranked up the heat—literally—and ended up with disasters that are equal parts shocking and hilarious. Whether it’s a burnt-to-a-crisp dinner or a smoke-alarm-worthy mistake, these kitchen fails will make you feel a lot better about your own cooking skills.

Get ready for some fiery mishaps and laugh-out-loud moments!

1.

• “My first married TGiving... we had my in-laws over for dinner. I made turkey, mashed potatoes, etc. I don’t remember now, but the ’gravy’ was probably just water thickened with cornstarch. It was a VERY pale off-white color.
  I didn’t have any Kitchen Bouquet that my mom used all the time, but I did have food coloring. I knew from painting that red and green made brown, so I added red and green food coloring. Yes, we did have green gravy for TGiving that year.” © JipceeLee / Reddit

2.

• “Found a bread recipe that took 3 days from start to finish. Lots and lots of steps. The author promised bread like straight out of the ovens in heaven. On the third day, I was finally ready to bake the bread.
  The very last step was to spray the bread with water. I grabbed the spray bottle and sprayed away. Strange. The bread was all full of foam. Looked at my hand. ’Kitchen spray.’
  All the dough straight in the trash. Never tried the recipe again.” © CrankLeaf / Reddit

3.

• My wife is a terrible cook. I don’t have the heart to tell her the truth. Last week, she placed a dish on the table with an excited grin. “This is a family recipe,” she said.
  It was jellied ham. I took a bite — and immediately spit it out. To my shock, my wife burst out laughing. “I found this in my grandma’s old cookbook. It sounded so awful, I just had to try making it!”
  She smirked and added, “I wanted to see if you’d finally admit my cooking is terrible.” I don’t know if I should be relieved or scared for next time.

4. “The night my husband made burgers for the first time. He set off the fire alarm 4 times.”

5.

• I’m a single dad, and before leaving for a work trip, I asked my mom to babysit my kids. “No fast food,” I reminded her before I left. She nodded.
  But when I got back, I found my kids enthusiastically biting into burgers, fries, and milkshakes. I shot my mom a look, and she just grinned, “It’s not fast food, it’s homemade!” I walked over and inspected the meal—homemade buns, grilled beef patties, even air-fried sweet potato fries.
  She had followed my rule in the most sneaky way possible. My kids cheered, totally on her side. I couldn’t even be mad.

6.

• “My uncle was grilling burgers and hot dogs and sprayed the grill with some ‘cooking oil/PAM’ and also sprayed the tops of the burgers and dogs.... Well, we go to eat, and they taste funny, turns out the spray was grill cleaner. So far, we are all still alive.” © hurtfulproduct / Reddit

7.

• “My grandmother was such a terrible cook that once when she was cooking corned beef, I walked into her kitchen and promptly threw up due to the smell. My dad once said that he thought she was a good cook until he went into the army. He wasn’t trying to be funny, it was just an honest observation.” © cursethedarkness / Reddit

8. “Went to my in-laws for dinner and this is the chicken they served.”

9.

• “I saw this Pinterest hack where if you turn a toaster sideways, then put cheese on top of one of the pieces of bread, and toast both pieces of bread in the sideways toaster, the cheese will melt, and you can make a grilled cheese sandwich.
  The cheese was melting, but then the toaster timer went off, and the bread popped out of the toaster face down on the ground. I had to clean up the cheese from the ground and had no grilled cheese sandwich.” © amao9098 / Reddit

10.

• “Making homemade Mac and cheese with my best friend. She was cooking the noodles, and I was cooking the sauce. The recipe called for a certain amount of teaspoons or tablespoons of flour.... well.... somehow, in someway, I read it as cups.
  So I put in I think at least 3 cups of flours in a sauce pan, and I was thinking, ‘This is so much, that’s not stirring right, this is going to be so much sauce’ long story short, read recipes carefully.” © Smoore01 / Reddit

11. “Came home to a very smoky house. Knocked on my brother’s door asking if he was cooking something and I heard him pause for a second before saying, ’Oh, no!’”

12.

• “My grandmother’s roast chicken recipe calls for a lemongrass in its stuffing. For a special dinner, I volunteered to make her roast chicken.
  Turns out, I can’t tell the difference between lemongrass and ordinary grass. (I didn’t think to smell it to confirm if it was indeed lemongrass.) My grass-stuffed chicken wasn’t a hit.” © Unknown Author / Reddit

13.

• “I once made roast potatoes after a haircut. After 45 minutes of roasting, I noticed they all had a seasoning of freshly cut hair. When I was bending down to put them back in the oven after turning and checking, stray hairs were falling off my head onto them.” © Boswellox91 / Reddit

14.

• One day, I asked my mom for a recipe to impress my boyfriend. When he took the first bite, his face twisted in a grimace. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said, “But what did you put in this?” I was mortified.
  I called my mom to figure out what went wrong, and she started laughing, “Did you use the spice jar with the faded label?” she asked. I admitted I had, and she said, “That’s not nutmeg—it’s cinnamon.” We ended up ordering pizza.

Remember, folks—cooking is an art, not a firework show! So keep the flames in the pan, not on the ceiling, and may your next kitchen adventure be hot in all the right ways! And if you’ve ever found yourself in a crispy situation, don’t worry—we’ve got a few tips to help fix your cooking mishaps!