Chrissy Teigen says she needs multiple ovens in her kitchen after she accidentally made a cake that tasted like baked beans

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Chrissy Teigen says she needs multiple ovens in her kitchen after she accidentally made a cake that tasted like baked beans
Chrissy Teigen said a cooking fail involving baked beans and a cake caused her to want multiple ovens in her home.Getty
  • Chrissy Teigen told Architectural Digest that she wanted "multiple ovens" in any home she lived in after a cooking mishap.
  • Teigen and husband, John Legend, are living in a rental home after putting their Beverly Hills, California, mansion on the market in August for $22 million.
  • They purchased a new home in September — also in Beverly Hills — for $17.5 million.
  • Teigen said the couple struggled to let go of their homes because of the "fantastical" memories in them.
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Even Chrissy Teigen makes a cooking misstep once in a while.

While speaking with Architectural Digest, Teigen and John Legend opened up about designing the $17.5 million Beverly Hills, California, mansion they purchased in September. The family's previous home, a seven-bedroom Beverly Hills property that is on the market, became well-known to eagle-eyed fans through Teigen's social-media posts.

Teigen, who launched the food website Cravings by Chrissy Teigen in 2019 and has released two cookbooks, unsurprisingly said the kitchen was her favorite room in the new home.

"The kitchen will be my favorite part of the house because it leads into that area with the tree - I don't know if I can talk about the new house, really! But the open area of the new house has a gorgeous tree and this beautiful seating area," the 35-year-old model said.

The "Lip Sync Battle" host also suggested, however, that the number of ovens - plural - was top of mind.

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"I wanted, obviously, multiple ovens," Teigen said.

She continued: "I am very weird about cooking dessert in the same oven that I cook other things in because of a disaster I had a long time ago making a cake in the same oven that I had made baked beans in.

"The cake kind of took on the flavor of the baked beans. So after that traumatizing situation, I decided I'd never cook dessert in the same oven."

2 professional chefs weigh in

Professional chefs told Insider the cake's spongy texture and fat content probably caused the flavor mash-up.

Chef Penny Stankiewicz, of Sugar Couture in New York City, told Insider that Teigen's cake most likely picked up the baked-bean flavor because of its fat.

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"The savory stuff, even if it mingles, is not such a big deal for the most part," Stankiewicz said. "If it's something very, very delicate, it will matter. Part of the factor is that fat is a flavor carrier.

"Fat, in particular, absorbs aromas. So, as that fat in the cake is melting and then resetting itself, it's essentially picking up the aromas that are already in the oven."

Adrienne Cheatham, a chef who founded the SundayBest pop-up series, added: "Things that have a spongier texture, like cake, tend to absorb flavors. Baked goods are more delicate, and they tend to really pick up the ambient flavors of what's around them."

Stankiewicz also noted that the size of Teigen's oven, which appeared to be a wall oven in the previous home, could be a factor too.

"Wall ovens in particular, because they fit into a wall, tend to be smaller. Even if they're the same width, they tend to be more shallow. And this can actually create some cooking issues," she said.

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"Generally speaking, wall ovens are smaller on the inside than range ovens are," she added. "When you have a smaller area, no place for all those aromas to go, and then if the things are in there baking at the same time, for sure it's going to take on the aromas," Stankiewicz added.

Fortunately, both chefs told Insider that there was a quick and easy fix.

"Number one, you have to plan," Cheatham said. "If you're going to bake a cake, you want that to be the first thing that goes in the oven and comes out. Then you can put something like chili or baked beans in."

Cheatham continued: "Just leave the door open for a few minutes, close it, and let the temperature come back up. But you want to really give it time to get that smell and the aromas of the previous dish out."

Cheatham also suggested people who owned air fryers or convection ovens could cook things at the same time in those appliances to multitask.

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Legend describes his family's decision to move

Chrissy Teigen says she needs multiple ovens in her kitchen after she accidentally made a cake that tasted like baked beans
John Legend said Chrissy Teigen and their children planned to move to a new Beverly Hills mansion for more living space.Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Legend said the family initially decided to move because they wanted more space during Teigen's pregnancy.

The couple announced in August that they were pregnant with their third child, but Teigen later announced in a Twitter post that she experienced a pregnancy loss in October.

"We thought we were going to have a new addition to our family earlier this year, and so we were thinking we wanted more bedrooms and more living space," Legend told Architectural Digest. "And we still expect to expand our family in the near future."

Teigen wrote about her physical recovery after the loss in an Instagram post in December.

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"This is me and my body, just yesterday. Even though I'm no longer pregnant, every glance in the mirror reminds me of what could have been," she said in the caption.

"It's frustrating," she continued. "But I'm proud of where this entire journey took my body and mind in other ways. I love being pregnant, so so much, and I'm sad I never will be again."

Legend and Teigen said it's hard to let go of their previous home

The memories, to Teigen, can make it difficult to move out of a home.

"The emotions of that are very intense," Teigen told Architectural Digest. "Thinking about all the things that house has experienced and all the transitions and what my life has been through. It is incredible."

She added that a home was "more than just a space" and that the couple's past homes held "many fantastical memories."

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"Honestly, I still go back to [one of our previous homes] and I hit that buzzer and talk to the person who lives there," Teigen said.

"Me and my mom maybe eight months ago went to that house and spoke to the owner and checked in on it. I assume I am going to do the same thing with this house," she said.

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