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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DH 'baking' AIBU

166 replies

Ref0rmedB0t · 16/09/2019 07:38

Eurgh I may be U. DH had to go out last night, he told me if I bathed DD5, he would make a marshmallow/rice crispy tray bake with her at her request to take some baking to school. Great! He made the tray bake, didn't follow any recipe but said it tasted good. DD excited. I've just gone to check it and noticed he's lined the tray with bloody cling film instead of going out and buying tin foil. That means one sticky mess as I've tried to remove it with the cling film not really judging. Now got to go and buy sweets instead to give DD something to hand out.

AIBU to say only a fool would like a tray with cling film?!

Must add, I'm a little cross right now but there won't be a huge row, by the time he's home from work it will be a jokey 'if you had a brain you would be dangerous' type teasing.

OP posts:
LiveInAHidingPlace · 16/09/2019 08:19

I don't think there's anything wrong with using cling film for stuff going in the fridge, is there? I've always used it without any issue.

I'm the first to get mad when men act like helpless babies or fuck things up deliberately but tbh I have some sympathy with your husband here. My dad does nothing around the house which is 80% his laziness but also 20% because anything he does, my mother will say he's done it wrong and re-do it. So why should he even bother doing anything.

Sometimes you just have to let people learn. My husband has no concept of food having to be served hot (partly a cultural thing, he's east Asian so he's used to having lots of small dishes that are shared and brought out at different times - absolutely nothing wrong in his eyes in cooking something and putting it on the table, then starting to cook something else). The first few times he cooked for me, it was all different temperatures, eg lukewarm sausages, freezing broccoli, boiling hot gravy, and all placed on separate plates but without a main plate. That might work for Asian food, but when you want a plate of sausage and mash, it's just not going to work.

After a few years of marriage, he can now successfully serve an entire plate of hot food, but that takes time to learn. It's not something that is inbuilt.

Same with your husband. Maybe his parents never baked with him - my mum did all the time with me, but never with my brother.

Myimaginarycathasfleas · 16/09/2019 08:19

YABBU. Greaseproof baking paper all the way here. You can get the fancy foil backed variety if you've a mind to, but the Poundland stuff works fine.

GrimalkinsCrone · 16/09/2019 08:21

How many children’s do you have? I ask because my three are adults now, with a long and exciting history of cooking, laundry and artistic mishaps on their learning journey.
So get a grip, learn to stop wanting to micromanage and putting others off from trying stuff. Otherwise you will join the endless wailing, self-pitying parade of MNetters complaining that their partners and children do nothing and everything is down to them all the time.
I went down the route of failures just needing more practise. So, more cooking/cleaning/laundry etc.

Owlsintowels · 16/09/2019 08:23

Gah! The standards required of men on MN are SO LOW!

Apparently being an active parent for the duration of a tray bake and 'trying' are all it requires!

OP has not said she's going to LTB, or ignore him for a week. She's said she's mildly annoyed he got it wrong.
Imagine if women tried at 10 mins of parenting but got it wrong repeatedly? Nothing would ever happen.

OP totally fair enough to be miffed his minor fuck up means you have to do all the work to get things correct in time for school, same result as if he had sat on his arse watching cricket all day

To everyone saying you need to calm down, a) get some standards and b) learn how to read, OP is very clearly only mildly annoyed and used it as an excuse to have a little chat on MN. Use your judgement, don't take posts so far out of context

Monday morning rant over

Original poster
Ref0rmedB0t · 16/09/2019 08:24

Yes, I stand corrected, you CAN use cling film for a tray bake. Id probably avoid it if its a super sticky micture though. So yes maybe the recipe more than the method.

OP posts:
BertrandRussell · 16/09/2019 08:24

“I get it! It is one of those annoying little things our DH sometimes do”
Yes, poor little things. It must be their willies getting in the way that makes them incapable of reading a recipe or of doing domestic tasks properly.........

Yabbers · 16/09/2019 08:27

cling film is mostly just ripping and won't come away.

Tin foil wouldn’t have been any better. It doesn’t stop sticky stuff being sticky.

LiveInAHidingPlace · 16/09/2019 08:27

"Apparently being an active parent for the duration of a tray bake and 'trying' are all it requires!"

What, do you never fuck up?

Because I fuck up in the kitchen all the time.

If this is a pattern of behaviour, yes, that is shit and he's rubbish. If not, SHRUG.

I have pretty high standards, I'd say (regularly get called an overthinker or scary or whatever) but one fuck up just seems like a non issue to me really.

BertrandRussell · 16/09/2019 08:30

I fuck up all the time. But if I want to make something I haven’t made before I use a recipe.

JellyBabiesSaveLives · 16/09/2019 08:30

Sometimes you just have to let people learn

Absolutely. I think the problem here is that he isn’t learning, he’s left it to the OP to sort out. He needed to start cooking earlier so it set in time for him to get it out of the fridge, cut up and put in a tin to take to school. All he’s done is make work for someone else - that’s the part that would annoy me.

BertrandRussell · 16/09/2019 08:32

“Sometimes you just have to let people learn“

This is an adult human being capable of holding down a job and driving a car making something a competent 8 year old could do unsupervised......

DramaFarmer · 16/09/2019 08:33

xsmix “take a task off your hands and was actively doing some of the parenting. Yes, he made a minor cock up, but at least he had a go!”

Er, who said it was her task?? He ‘had a go ‘ at active parenting? Am I a time traveller or did someone really say this in the C21st?

Happypelican · 16/09/2019 08:35

😂 OP this post got silly just trying to be light hearted and so many people have got all worked up over it.

PaulHollywoodsSexGut · 16/09/2019 08:43

Don’t sugar the pill there @lottiegarbanzo

RightYesButNo · 16/09/2019 08:43

Cannot believe all these people having a go at you, OP. Your husband didn’t bother to look at a recipe, cut corners, and instead of helping, has left you a mess to deal with. There’s a huge difference between, “I followed the recipe and it just didn’t turn out right,” which I doubt would have pissed you or anyone off, and just being kind of an asshat and thinking he knows best, and as a result, making your life harder. Why the fuck are so many people excusing this kind of behavior? If you say you’re going to help with something and make no attempt to do it correctly, it’s not that much help (in fact, I think it’s a real dick move), and OP’s not some uber-bitch for pointing that out.

diddl · 16/09/2019 08:44

"The standards required of men on MN are SO LOW!"

I know!

Aw the poor little mansy wansy tried his best!

But now it has left work for someone else!

ContessaLovesTheSunshine · 16/09/2019 08:54

Ah, it was a fridge cake.... in that case I feel a bit bad for him as I could have made this error!

Silicon baking trays/sheets are amazing for this purpose, I find.

northerngirl2012 · 16/09/2019 08:54

Is this so bad? He lined the baking tray, put it in the freezer & it should come out. Mountain out of molehills I think...

OoohRhubarbLetsGo · 16/09/2019 08:57

I’d be really annoyed at the fact that he’s done half a job, and the half he has done is done badly because he couldn’t be bothered to clean a baking tray or check a recipe. That’s now left extra work for the OP on a morning when everyone is trying to get out to school, work etc. And it was an additional task that he chose to do, not a Sunday night essential.

It might well be rescuable, but he should have done the rescuing. The OP’s agreed task was to do bathtime- did she leave the child covered in mud and with hair full of shampoo, ready for husband to sort out in the morning before school, because OP did a half-arsed job?

Jamhandprints · 16/09/2019 08:58

Is it a baked recipe or just set in the fridge? If it's for the fridge then going film is fine. That's what I always use. Tin foil gets broken up and stuck to the cakes.
What's the problem?
Obviously if it was baked in the oven then I understand the issue.

Falafel19 · 16/09/2019 09:01

It's not a tray bake, there is no baking? Confused

MRex · 16/09/2019 09:01

Put it in the freezer for 10 minutes, then take the clingfilm off.

User12879923378 · 16/09/2019 09:02

I'd have used baking parchment. It neither clings nor tears like foil. It truly, truly lines. No more, no less. tears up slightly at beauty of baking parchment

But lots of people do use cling film and I suspect the blast in the freezer will sort it. It's not using a recipe that would get my goat but it's not just men who go off-piste in that regard.

newhousestress · 16/09/2019 09:02

The lack of a recipe would annoy me. Waste of ingredients. It doesn't sound that nice. Melted marshmallows and rice crispies? No butter or chocolate?

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