Welcome to the 11th annual edition of April Fools in the Kitchen — where your King Arthur Flour test kitchen bakers demonstrate, once again, our selfless dedication to progress through failure — in all its glorious culinary guises.

Let’s jump right into yeast bread.

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

As someone did here. That towering balloon of rising dough was just itching to be slapped down. Who did it? DNA was inconclusive, but we think we might have some palm prints…

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

Yeast does have a way of having its way — always. Even when seemingly confined in a lidded pain de mie pan.

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

Sometimes it’s not the bread that acts out, it’s the filling — “out” being the key concept here.

Still, if anything is ever going to escape the gluten-y clutches of its intended home, let it be melted cheese. I think this loaf is laughing at me…

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

What goes up must come down…

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

And sometimes what goes up must stay up, and never mind what’s happening over there on the other side, right?

There’s going up — and then there’s staying down: WAY down.

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

This actually isn’t a failure at all: it’s my preferred method for disposing of the “discard” excess sourdough starter you end up with during the feeding process. This is several days’ worth of dried excess. My husband, Rick, thought it was the beginning of pizza; he was disabused of the notion when he snitched a taste.

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

And here’s a loaf that was destined for sourdough bread perfection — until it spent some time in an oven with an over-zealous top element. Talk about a burning question…

Q: What happens when you fill a Berry Blitz Torte with whipped cream and berries and walk away?

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

This happens. Dang, I KNEW I should have used pastry cream!

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

My fellow baker Susan Reid had one of those “walk away” moments with her cake as well. You just can’t trust these layer cakes — they’re real slippery characters!

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

Filled bundt cake, test #1: chocolate cheesecake filling. More like chocolate cheesecake spilling.

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

Filled bundt cake, test #2: vanilla cheesecake filling. MIGHT have been OK — had I remembered to put the baking powder in the cake. Talk about lowered expectations…

And then there was the time Aime and I got together to make a birthday cake for fellow digital team member Tracy, a pumpkin lover whose birthday falls on — you guessed it, Halloween.

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

Clearly, neither Aime nor I possess the Martha Stewart gene. While the cake started out looking OK (and I confess to extending the reach of that word here), it quickly developed some gaping cracks.

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

We cut a few slices, and one side toppled, glacier-like, onto the plate.

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

Still, did that stop anyone on the team from enjoying a pumpkin-face fudge birthday cake with peanut butter frosting?

Of course not! Nothing stands in the way of duty: sampling every cake to make sure it’s just as good as it can be. Taste-wise, at least.

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

Can you guess what this is? No, I couldn’t either, until my fellow blogger, MaryJane, clued me in: homemade maraschino cherries left in the oven overnight. Shirley Temple, anyone?

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

How about this — any guesses? Sorry, can’t confirm one way or the other; no one would ‘fess up to having anything to do with… whatever this is!

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

Does lower-protein flour + extra butter + forgetting the egg make EXTRA-tender pancakes? (They really did taste good, though.)

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

Speaking of breakfast plates, how about this selection of banana bread one-offs? The best place for this tower of treats is probably the mess hall!

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

Ah, banana bread; as our Recipe of the Year, you’ve been on my mind (and in my oven) a lot. Clearly, this version didn’t spend quite enough time in the oven. Still, it’s awfully goo(d)!

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

Pumpkin pie, deconstructed.

This is what happens when you need a gorgeous picture of a perfect slice of pumpkin pie, and you didn’t cool the pie quite enough, so that perfect slice just ain’t happening.

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

And apple pie, reconstructed.

I could tell you what I was trying to achieve here, but clearly I fell far short of my goal. Unless you’ve interested in apple pie that looks eerily reminiscent of a spatchcocked chicken.

April Fools in the Kitchen via @kingarthurflour

Finally, because there’s just nothing better than apple pie, enjoy a slice on us. Like many of our test kitchen experiments, this pie went slightly awry.

Still, beauty is only crust deep. And the true beauty of this pie is that it illustrates our King Arthur Flour test kitchen motto: We make mistakes so you don’t have to!

Happy April Fool’s baking, one and all! Don’t be shy; share your favorite baking disaster stories in comments, below.

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About PJ Hamel

PJ Hamel grew up in New England, graduated from Brown University, and was an award-winning Maine journalist (favorite topics: sports and food) before joining King Arthur Flour in 1990. Hired to write the newly launched Baker’s Catalogue, PJ became the small but growing company’s sixth employee.PJ wa...
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