To ask about the worst ingredient substitution you've had the misfortune to taste?

[BackInBits]

I've come across a few.

My brother made a roast lamb and had no red currant jelly. Strawberry jam it was.

I've an aunt who put sour cream in the trifle. Not quite as bad as Rachel and the beef, but it did not work well.

I've an ex who was making chickpea patties that called for cumin, turmeric and coriander. In case you were wondering, oregano does not make up for a lack of cumin.

Ran out of rum when making espresso martinis (we didn't have either vodka or Kahlua in the first place so we're already substituting in rum and Baileys) so used gin. Gin, Baileys and espresso does not make a nice cocktail, unsurprisingly.

I ran out of butter making biscuits. Google suggested lard would be fine. It wasn't.

Ex once made bread - not knowing the difference between tsp and tbsp - with a tablespoon of salt

Oh, and some stupid 'healthy' chocolate pudding/mousse made with avocado and cocoa powder. It unsurprisingly tasted like avocado with cocoa in, which is not chocolate mousse.

My sister ran out of butter for her jacket potato.

So she fried an egg and mashed it in, then added vinegar

I can almost see the logic in her desperation (egg and chips, chips and vinegar) but nope, it was vile apparently

Pizza base made with mooshed cauliflower

Oh, I've tried that one. Ricing a cauliflower is an absolute bastard and the recipe lied - LIED - when it said it would taste just like a standard pizza. It most certainly did not.

‘Making scones aged 17. Recipe called for cream of tartare. I couldnt find any so used tartare sauce instead’

So logical…and yet so wrong!

Babies formula milk in a cup of tea, courtesy of a friend, who didn't tell me. Absolutely minging!

Nigella’s Mac and cheese. When I was pregnant with my eldest and had hyperemesis. About week 25 and it had improved somewhat. I’d had success with this dish- made by DH- the week before. He made it again. The dish calls for a tin of evaporated milk. The second time DH had picked up the wrong tin of carnation and used the one with added sugar. Filth. I was sick about 70 times and have never eaten Mac and cheese since.

@Scrabblecrabapple

In Scotland any meal of the day is regularly substituted for ‘shite wie sugar on it’

Say this saying in Wales to. At least my mam did.

And my mam whos Irish and Nanna who's Welsh.

When I was a kid I made hokey pokey biscuits and added 4 times the amount of baking soda because of a teaspoon makes the syrup mixture froth like a volcano then 4 tablespoons would be better…
it was amazingly volcano like!

They were the most vile things ever.
Even our Labrador who literally ate anything even if it wasn’t a good item (except lettuce) wouldn’t touch them.
My step dad ate 4 because he was being nice and didn’t want to put me off baking.

Not long after moving out of my parents house, decided to make lasagne. Unfortunately I'd no lasagne sheets so thought, I'll use some pasta bows (uncooked) it'll be grand! It was not grand, it was horrible crunchy pasta in tomato/cheesy goo. 🤮

Tofu instead of scrambled eggs - revolting.

Vegan egg substitute.

I'm forcibly vegan now because of all my allergies but some of it is just awful.

When I was 3 I woke up on a Saturday and decided to make myself cinnamon toast (cinnamon, sugar and butter on hot toast, yum) while my mom slept in. I couldn't quite read yet but I knew that cinnamon started with a 'C' and was vaguely brown.
My mom woke up that day with me running into her room screaming 'Mummy, my mouth is burning!' and panicked that I had taken a drink of drain cleaner.'
I had made my cinnamon toast with cayenne pepper .

My Dad was making a carrot cake but always one for a bargain, went to Lidl and mistakenly picked up camembert instead of cream cheese. For some reason he didn't even twig when making the "cream cheese frosting" and perservered with the camembert, and served it (to quite a lot of people) He was fairly embarrassment-proof though.

@FoofOfTheWalkingDead

That reminds me of when DD was little, probably a similar age, and she had been "baking" (i sometimes let her put small amounts of milk, sugar and flour into a bowl to pretend cook - as well as doing actual baking with her) one day she offered me some chocolate chip mixture which she was about to try. Except the choc chips were peppercorns!!

Somebody who didn't have Cheddar for a cheese sauce so substituted something like a Lancashire with pineapple and ginger: it was served with white fish and broccoli with green beans.

I like alternative milks - usually soy or almond - on my cereal. I’ve even had success cooking with them. BUT they are absolutely vile in coffee!

My late MIL, never a big spender, made brandy sauce for the Christmas pudding........surely cream/brandy butter. She used a cheapo packet white sauce mix and laced it with a very modest amount of brandy. Yep. You've guessed it. It was savoury white sauce mix, full of salt. No Christmas pudding for us that year, then. Bird's custard would have been infinately better.

Red wine for white! It's a Jamie Oliver recipe where you cook carrots in a bag with white wine, cumin, thyme and butter. Delicious. Except I substituted red wine and, just no.

Baked beans in a chilli instead of kidney beans.

Sorry, I meant surely she could have splashed out and used cream/brandy butter. Not exactly living on the poverty line, either.

@AgeingDoc

My DH has just reminded me of the time he made "coffee" for the piano tuner. I should explain that nobody in our family drinks coffee, so we just have one small jar of instant in the cupboard for guests. I now keep it in a different cupboard to the chicken gravy granules which I am forced to agree, do come in a remarkably similar jar.

My friend once did this in reverse, she plated up with Coffee gravy all over a lovely roast dinner.

cumin accidentally substituted for ginger in ginger biscuits.

Sweet slightly curry tasting biscuits with a flavour difficult to put your finger on. not a fan favourite

I came home to a spaghetti bolognaise made by my husband. It was awful, even the children wouldn't eat it. I asked what he'd put in it.
It turns out there wasn't much beef mince left so he'd topped it up with tuna.....