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Not all mistakes are bad. Following a recipe incorrectly could lead to disaster, but it might also result in something more delicious than you were planning on making.
Here are five times that food-related mistakes became happy accidents and created iconic treats.
Cornflakes were invented when a granola recipe went wrong
In 1898, brothers W.K. Kellogg and John Harvey Kellogg flaked wheat berry by accident as they were trying to make granola. W.K. Kellogg decided to try flaking corn, and Corn Flakes were born.
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ICEEs, also known as Slurpees, came about thanks to a broken soda fountain
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Omar Knedlik, the owner of a Dairy Queen in Coffeyville, Kansas, improvised when his soda fountain broke in the heat of summer in the '50s by putting bottles of soda in his deep freeze. The soda came out slushy and partially frozen, and Knedlik found that customers preferred it that way. They became available in convenience stores in 1960.
Chocolate chip cookies weren't supposed to have chocolate chips
Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, wanted to make a batch of chocolate butter drop do cookies, but she was out of baker's chocolate. She substituted a chopped Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate bar and figured it would melt into the dough. But the chocolate stayed in gooey, melty chunks. The original Toll House recipe is still printed on Nestlé chocolate chip bags.
An 11-year-old boy accidentally invented popsicles in 1905
Frank Epperson of San Francicso left a mixture of water and sugary powder out overnight, according to NPR. He'd also left the wooden stirring stick inside. When it froze, he licked it off the stick and liked it so much that he began selling it around his neighborhood.
An animal feed manufacturer accidentally invented corn puffs while cleaning a feed grinder
The Flakall Corporation in Beloit, Wisconsin, produced animal feed by flaking corn in a grinding machine so that the animals wouldn't chew on any sharp kernels. Workers put moistened corn in the machine to clean it, and the heat puffed it up like popcorn without kernels.
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Edward Wilson, an employee at Flakall, added seasoning to these puffs and called them Korn Kurls, according to Tedium. Flakall filed a patent for the technique in 1939.
