Coronavirus

Virus lockdowns have people baking for the first time. The results are horrifying

Force several million people to stay home for a month and some will eventually get around to wondering what an oven is for, other than frozen pizza.

It’s a question millions of Americans have started asking during the coronavirus lockdowns, and some are actually trying to bake for the first time.

The unsettling results are being shared on social media as something best summed up as “Quarantine Cooking fails.”

This includes a lot of photos of burned cookies, imploded cakes and monstrous breads that expanded like an alien in the oven. Some of it can’t even be identified, leading to the use of terms like “cookie pie” and “lava monster” on social media.

A few rookies have even shared humorous videos of their work in progress, such as “Quarantine Cooking with Eileen” posted April 13 on YouTube. In the video, Eileen Sugameli admits cooking in quarantine “hasn’t exactly been going smoothly.”

“I really wanted tacos, so I had this bright idea that I was going to make them,” Sugameli says, holding a ball of dough. “I’ve made a dough, but I think I’ve done something wrong because it’s making really weird noises.”

Yes, her dough was making “noises.”

Here are examples of other quarantine cooking fails, as shared on social media.

This story was originally published April 14, 2020 at 1:21 PM with the headline "Virus lockdowns have people baking for the first time. The results are horrifying."

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Mark Price
The Charlotte Observer
Mark Price is a state reporter for The Charlotte Observer and McClatchy News outlets in North Carolina. He joined the network of newspapers in 1991 at The Charlotte Observer, covering beats including schools, crime, immigration, LGBTQ issues, homelessness and nonprofits. He graduated from the University of Memphis with majors in journalism and art history, and a minor in geology. 
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