Well, today my goal was to make and compare 6 very different approaches to chewy caramels. During batch #3 I had to run out of the room and I asked my teenagers to keep an eye on the pot (it was a Maillard caramel and needed to boil off a bunch of water still) and let me know if it started to darken. I came downstairs to oblivious teens doing other things and black smoke billowing from my pot. So instead of making more caramel, I spent 65 minutes (after soaking with both boiling water and a mix of hot vinegar and baking soda) with steel wool and Bar Keeper’s Friend removing the blackened mess from my pot.
Does that count?
