What is one food you just can't cook?

[Danmel]

For me, it's pancakes 🥞. I'm a pretty solid home cook and make a very wide variety of food. Pancakes elude me.
How about you?

[True Dough]

1. What is it about pancakes that confounds you so?

Is it the flipping? Do you pre-heat the pan enough and let them cook sufficiently before attempting to flip?

[MiHale]

2. Deep fried Snickers bar...

3 years on and I still find caramel spots on the ceiling…please no further details…

[PJMcK]

3. Baking

Baking is fundamentally chemistry. Specific amounts of ingredients, specific temperatures a timings. I just don't get into it because I'm impatient.

I can cook pretty well and I love to try new recipes but baking eludes me.

I truly admire good bakers.

[markie]

28. it is art...

and chemistry!

[davsand]

4. I can't roast a turkey that I want to eat once it's done.

I've tried different methods and every time I end up with dry meat. I can, however, do a turkey breast in the instant pot and it stays juicy. Turkey is my personal Waterloo.



Laura

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Scrambled eggs

The pan's not flat, it's too hot. I wind up scraping them off the bottom.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

6. Popovers! 🤬

[BigMin28]

7. Fried chicken

I can bake anything, but I can't fry chicken properly to save my life.

[quaint]

8. Rice

Daily I eat it too dry and hard, too soft and mushy, never just right. Otherwise, I can cook!

[NBachers]

11. I got a Zojirushi fuzzy logic Japanese rice cooker and never looked back. It's expensive but well worth it.

The ultimate set it and forget it. Perfect brown rice every time. I can either cook it right after I get home from work, or I can set it and let the timer come on to be ready at a pre-chosen time when I get home. Plus, the nutty aroma of cooking brown rice is delectable.

I gave one to my brother as a gift and he has commented several times since that how much he loves his too

[House of Roberts]

12. Zojirushi fuzzy logic Japanese rice cooker

I dare you to say that real fast five times!

[quaint]

22. Looks very nice but...sigh.

[hlthe2b]

26. Me too. It has a GABA setting too, which sprouts the brown rice and adds to the "healthy benefits"

I love it and have had it for years. Zojirushi makes some great products. My insulated hot water boiler that keeps water at whatever temp you set continuously is likewise loved. Pour-over coffee or tea/hot chocolate, etc at your fingertips.

[NBachers]

38. If I plan enough ahead of time, I always use the GABA setting. It's like Primo Rice Plus XX

[Phoenix61]

29. I had a friend from Paris many years ago and she

told me to cook it like the French… like pasta. Works great and it doesn’t clump together.

[Iggo]

43. Remove the film. Place in microwave. Press 1.

And voila!

[surrealAmerican]

9. I don't deep fry ...

... so any food that requires deep frying.

[IzzaNuDay]

21. same here

I tried cooking fried chicken, wasn’t good at it. Later tried beignets. Not a chance. Salmon croquettes, falafel, they suffer under my hand.

[mwmisses4289]

10. Beans.

I have tried every method that I know of, and still can't get them to cook right. So I just do canned beans, easier and more likely to get a meal on the table, lol. 🫘🫘🫘

[NBachers]

13. Eggs over easy. For years, I've been on a campaign to buy every expensive pan in hopes it would work for eggs over easy.

I won't buy Teflon, so that's out. I always end up with a gloppy mess failure. it's disheartening.

I've recently got an Emnura pan and a hand-sprayer that sprays olive oil in a fan-shaped pattern. I actually cooked perfect eggs over easy a couple of days ago. This looks encouraging.

[QED]

14. Gravy

Not a big fan anyway.

[Marthe48]

15. Homemade pudding

The kind you mix up and cook in a pan on the stove. I can make custard, either boiled or baked, but my attempts at homemade pudding have failed.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

16. Any food that needs to be prepared in some way.

[Skittles]

39. thank you

it always kills me when I read a recipe that has, like, a dozen ingredients and five paragraphs of prep

makes processed foods seem OK on my book

[Boomerproud]

17. Almost everything.

[Diamond_Dog]

18. I can make "Bread for Dummies" (the rustic no-knead kind with 3 ingredients)

But the real soft white bread or dinner rolls, mine always turn out dry and hard. I can bake just about everything else. Not sure about pancakes because we don’t eat them.

[2naSalit]

19. Liver and onions...

Because I think it's one of the most disgusting things you could put in your mouth. I wouldn't touch it with gloves on.

I know how to cook it, I just refuse to even consider it an edible substance.

[Ziggysmom]

24. Oh my goodness, I was just going to post liver, too! The odor when cooking makes me nauseous.

Many decades ago in parochial grade school, they had a hot lunch program. They tried to disguise the liver with some gravy and such, but I immediately knew the gag inducing smell. I THOUGHT I could pull a fast one and cut it into small pieces and put it into my milk carton. Just my luck the school principal, a little 5 foot tall nun came around checking that we had all finished our milk. I was forced to take a drink of my milk & liver concoction. After a few sips I threw up on my lunch tray, and was sent home. Sister thought I had a flu bug.

[2naSalit]

32. My mom...

Forced me to eat it ONCE. I hated the smell too and it tastes like blood. That time my mom made me eat it, I took one bite and directly after swallowing it, I threw up all over the table. She knew better after that. And my brother and younger sisters weren't forced to eat it either after my 'event'.



I tried to tech my mom that all her kids were NOT ALIKE and that I was never going to be 'normal' but she just never got that point. She saw it as a detriment and an embarrassment until she was lost in her delirium and forgot why she hated me. Her last few years were less challenging and we actually had a few good visits before she passed.

But anytime I smell liver, I make sure I can avoid it whether its in a restaurant or someone's home, ruins my appetite.

[Bettie]

34. That was what I was going to post

worst food ever. My DH knows that if he's going to eat liver, he'd best kiss me beforehand, because he has a 12 hour wait period after.

Same for pickled herring. Just no.

[rsdsharp]

20. Gravy. I can cook damn near anything, but gravy eludes me.

If we’re having gravy, it either comes in a jar, or somebody else makes it.

[crud]

23. I saw a cartoon

of a bunch of misshapen pancakes sitting in chairs in a circle. The caption read: "first pancake support group"

[hlthe2b]

25. Can't or Wouldn't... Can't? Anything with so many unclear instructions I give up early on (e.g., most complex recipes

as are most of Julia Child's).

Won't? Tons, but start with liver. (uggh, no way). Lamb? Stinks up the house for weeks. Once was enough.

Many many others in the "won't" category but I'd have to be paid to take the time it would take for most complex French or other such recipes, although I'd be happy to eat them.

[spooky3]

27. Pie with homemade crust

I’m terrible at it.

[Botany]

30. Joy of Cooking recipe for pancakes

Last edited Sat Dec 27, 2025, 06:21 PM - Edit history (1)

Use bacon or sausage grease if you are O.K. with dead animal fat

Make sure the griddle or skillet is hot. Water on it should immediately turn to little balls if
you are at the right temperature.

Cook until the top of the pancake has solid little holes in it then flip the flapjack. No more
than 60 seconds.

Use real maple syrup & butter. Blueberries in the batter are the shiz bomb.

[Phoenix61]

31. Homemade tapioca pudding. I've wasted gallons of milk trying

and finally gave up. The beads either never get soft or it doesn’t set up.

[Fichefinder]

33. Pizza dough, for some reason

[Kali]

35. I am a decent cook but I can fuck up rice pretty regularly

usually too mushy/watery but basically still edible. nice long individual grains like you get with middle eastern food is the challenge I have NEVER met. usually have my son do the rice, he is much better but also can mess it up. he just got a rice cooker for xmas. LOL (and not from me!)

[Vinca]

36. I can't seem to get steak right. It's either over or under. Of course, that was the past. Can't afford it now.

[Polly Hennessey]

37. Enchiladas. They disintegrate. I end up having a Mexican casserole.

In our house enchiladas come from restaurants. 😊

[chowmama]

40. I have yet to make a successful kosher dill pickle

It's nothing but mush within a few weeks. I used the Lincoln Del recipe too.

Other pickles, fine. Kosher dill - I don't know what's wrong.

[ProfessorGAC]

41. Haven't Found "Can't", But....

...there are several "won'ts".
I'm never going to make meatloaf. I'm never roasting a whole chicken. And so on.
But, I've never made anything that didn't work out for technical reasons.

[Morbius]

42. There have been a few failures for me, but I can't remember them specifically.

I've asked my wife and daughter and they can't remember either. I do remember once trying to make homemade drop biscuits, but they weren't as good as Pillsbury, so why bother. I did try stovetop green bean casserole because my oven doesn't work; that was an experiment than failed.

If it isn't something my family will like, I won't even try to make it. I hated my mother's liver; I've never tried to make it.

My pancakes are the bomb.