Kris

I make a pumpkin cream soup every year and it's a big hit. It's quite yummy but not too rich since you use light cream instead of heavy cream. I tried making a pumpkin apple soup one year and my family protested. So it's back to the pumpkin cream soup.

In years past I've made food gifts for people such as homemade quick breads, cheesecakes, coffeecakes, nut candies and homemade egg nog. I think the cakes went over better than the eggnog did.

My favorite bottled water is Dasani. My least favorite by far is Evian. It has a horribly flat taste that makes me want to gag. I drink at least eight, 8 ounce glasses of water per day. At work, I drink Deer Park from the water cooler and that suffices. At home, I mainly drink tap water filtered through my Brita pitcher. I live in NYC and our tap water is pretty darn good. My parents (who recently moved to Delaware) are experiencing "water" shock. The water in Delaware is just awful...it tastes like chemicals coming out of the tap and even smells funny. As a consquence, they drink nothing but bottled water now. Here's a funny story: My aunt (born and raised in NYC, but moved to Delaware as an adult) went on a bus ride with a group of her Delawarian friends to Canada. The bus made a stop in NYC at a restaurant where the group dined. The waiter filled their water glasses and after drinking, a number of people in the group commented on how tasty the water was. They asked the waiter what kind of water they were drinking. He replied, "tap water."

I'm going to my parent's house on Thanksgiving and my mom usually purchases a Mrs. Smith's natural juice apple pie (yuck). I don't eat it. But she and my sister both love that pie. I have tried experimenting with different pies and desserts over the years, including: peach cobbler pecan pie coconut custard pie pumpkin cheesecake sweet potato cheesecake carrot cake I haven't decided what to try this year. Maybe I'll experiment with something new.

My husband and I will probably be headed to my parent's house for Thanksgiving. But I always like to have my own meal at home for us to nosh on over the next day or two. Rotisserie turkey breast Bread dressing Candied sweet potatoes Mac & cheese Collard greens Cranberry sauce Cornbread I keep things rather simple since it's just me and hubby. I'll probably bring a baked glazed ham and pumpkin soup for my parent's dinner though.

I remember when I was in Junior High School (in the early 80's) and there was a Turkish girl in my class who passed out. Turns out she was observing Ramadan, which happened to be in the Spring that year. She was fasting and got dizzy and weak. At that time, I didn't know much about Muslims and Ramadan, but looking back I suspect that she was not rising before sunrise to eat the morning meal.

How true this is. On August 14, 2005, my beloved grandmother died in her sleep at home with my parents who were caring for her in her final days. I did nothing but stuff my face full of food during the bereavement period. My weight loss of 24 pounds was totally set back during this period (and even now, since I'm finding it difficult to get back on track). My sincere condolences to you and your family. Just thank God for your wonderful memories of your Dad and the food that he lovingly provided as well as the meals you were able to share.

Ditto. Cold and hard butter works better for me. And once I add the sugar syrup to the meringue, I beat it for quite a while in my KitchenAid...approximately 15 minutes. I also cook my sugar syrup to 248 degrees F. I use the wire whip from start to finish.

I too buy my butter at a wholesale club (BJ's). Right now it's averaging about $1.80 a pound. It's the store brand, but it works well for me. I also buy my flour in bulk - but I only buy Gold Medal all purpose. I don't skimp on the no-name brands since I don't know what the protein content (gluten) is in those off-brands. I also buy 25 bag of Domino's sugar from the wholesale club.

I admit that convenience foods have their place in most American kitchens. However this woman's show should be cancelled immediately. Her 'recipes' using some truly awful products (e.g. Kraft mac & cheese powder, canned veggies and canned icing) are just the pits. My husband (who isn't much of a cook) thinks that her show has a place in this society - for people who are time pressed and who don't have much culinary skill. I think it has a place too...in the garbage can.

Forgot to follow up on this...I tasted the KA cake when it was still warm out of the oven. Once cooled/cold, the taste of the cake was excellent but I found the texture slightly powdery & dry. Not chalkdust dry, but drier than what I'm used to.

I also want to add that since my parents are recently arrived in DE, they didn't receive any food from neighbors. So after my grandmother's viewing, we had food catered from a local BBQ joint. All of the relatives who came in from all over the country seemed to enjoy it though.

It is against the law in New York City for food to be sold, distributed or otherwise consumed in a funeral home. I have never heard of people eating in a funeral home though. What typically happens is that friends and neighbors will bring food & desserts to the home of the deceased. Also, if the deceased was a member of a church, the church members will typically prepare a repast which will be held after the funeral service. This is often served in the church basement/hall. In recent times, I have observed more families going to a restaurant for a catered funeral repast. My grandmother died a week and a half ago. She was origianally from NY but relocated to the state of Delaware. She was living with my parents when she died and so a few family friends brought cake and desserts to their house. But the funeral repast was prepared by her religious congregation and held in a community center.

Yes. I was there 3 weeks ago. Food is pretty good.

This is a very interesting observation that you make, because although I haven't traveled all over the world, I think American supermarket do have an allure to foreigners who come here. I live in a neighborhood that is increasingly populated by Russian (& former Soviet bloc) immigrants as well as a large percentage of Chinese immigrants. I've observed whole families - from the grandparents, to the parents to the kids shopping together, marveling at the variety and quantity of items on the supermarket shelves. My mother and I have seen it many times over the years and it never fails to elicit a chuckle from us, since it's something that we as native born Americans take for granted.

Thanks for posting!

The batter to my scratch cake butter cake! YUM

I abhor typical fruitcake with the whole pieces of fruits like candied cherries (red & green), citron and other fruits. I find them dry and typically lacking in any flavor. Last December, my boss made a southern style fruit cake and she didn't even add any whiskey to it. It was just awful. However I am a big fan of the Jamaican/West Indian style fruitcake which many of you have mentioned here. I have a large plastic bucket filled to the brim with pounds and pounds of ground up prunes, raisins, glacee cherries, dried mixed peel and currants, along with brown sugar, rum and port wine just waiting for late November to arrive (which is when I'll start baking). Last year black cakes were my biggest selling cakes during the holiday season. I actually ran out of them before I had time to make more for Christmas. The fruit needs time to macerate (I've been soaking some of the fruit since last December and I added more to it yesterday) and the baked cakes need a few weeks to "mellow" after the rum & wine is poured into them. To answer a couple of questions posted earlier in the thread: 1. Burnt sugar is used give black cake its color. It's also known as "browning" and is merely caramel color. It produces a darker colored cake than homemade burnt sugar (which is made by literally caramelizing white sugar in a saucepan with a little water over the stove). I prefer the commercial preparations since the homemade one imparts a burned taste to the cake that I don't like. Plus I like the darker color of a black cake made with commercial browning. Here are some sources to order commercial "burnt sugar" and/or "browning" for those who don't have access to West Indian markets: http://www.sams247.com, http://www.buygracefoods.com/site/p...Browning_bottle 2. Overproof rum is stronger than regular rum. For last years batch of black cakes, I macerated my fruits in port wine & J. Wray and Nephew overproof Jamaican rum. That rum is enough to knock your socks off! I also used this rum to liberally "bathe" the finished cakes. They were a bit too strong for my taste. *whew* It took several weeks before they mellowed to a taste that I could actually enjoy. J. Wray and Nephew is expensive to find here in NYC (it's about $26 for a liter). But my sister brought me back several bottles from her trip to Jamaica last year, which cut my costs considerably. I'm going to Jamaica in October and will bring back a few bottles myself. But my use of it will be very limited this time around! This year I'm macerating my fruits in regular rum. LOL 3. Many of the Caribbean islands (mainly those that have a British history) have a version of black cake. I read somewhere that it is derived from the English plum pudding but it was modified over time. That seems plausible to me. Of course each island thinks its version is the best. I've had versions from Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, St. Vincent - regardless of the island, I think black cake is delicious when it's made by a competent baker, regardless of ethnicity.

...I love Ina Garten's coconut cupcake recipe. I use it as my default coconut cake recipe. It's the only recipe of hers I'm aware of using. BUT the reason I mention it is because that butter cake recipe gives me results not too far away from what you said happened to you Techno Foodie. Her coconut cake recipe does sink in the center for me. It takes forever in the oven to finish baking. The outter 2" or so sets up well before the center of the cake does (it bakes less evenly them most cakes). I've never really thought too hard about it, but I sort of think it's slightly out of balance. But the fact that it tastes great........I've never bothered with fixing it. (Granted, it's a recipe for a cupcake and I'm baking it as a full sized cake. You usually can change pans with-out adjusting the leaveners...........but in this case I need to or her recipe is a hair off.) So, I'm wondering if it isn't a combo of two factors. Following her recipe too closely and not getting enough structure in your gluten development..........and her butter cake recipes may be a little "off" or very deliberately wet scarificing some texture for flavor. I'm curious if anyone else has similar results with butter cake recipes from Ina Garten? ← I haven't tried any of Ina Garten's cakes but I do have two tips for you to try and help that problem of the cake baking unevenly: 1. Lower the temp of your oven. I bake all of my butter cakes at 300 degrees Farenheit. I know it sounds very low and the cakes do take a few minutes longer to bake. But they rise much more evenly and without humps or domes (or dips) in the middle. 2. Use Bake Even strips. They're aluminum coated fabric strips about 1 1/2" wide. You dip them in cold water until they're fully soaked. Then you wrap them around the edges of your cake pan and pin them in place. This helps slow down the baking of the outer edge of the cake and gives the middle a chance to catch up. I use them faithfully when I bake cakes 10" or larger. But if you're having this problem with an 8" size cake, it will work well too.

Ditto. Every time I think of bean pie, I think of a clean cut looking guy in a black suit with a bowtie. I used to see them being sold a lot by Black Muslims in Harlem but not so much anymore (not that I'm up in Harlem a lot these days though). I think bean pie is delicious and I have a recipe for a delicious bean pie made with navy beans (I used fresh ones soaked and cooked, but you could use canned), evaporated milk, cinnamon, sugar, eggs, etc. I'll post it later when I get home from work. I think what's even more fabulous than bean pie is the butternut squash pie that the Black Muslims also sell/sold. YUMMY! Both the bean pie & butternut squash pies were sold in little 5" or 6" pie tins, which is the perfect serving size for one or two people.

Thanks for the info. I weigh my cake ingredients so I wouldn't even bother with the spoon or dipped and swept methods of lour measuring. But how high does this cake rise? I see it only calls for 1 3/4 cups flour and it has both baking powder and baking soda. When I make 2 layer cakes, I like them to be at least 4" tall (after filling and frosting them).

I've never tried the Hershey can chocolate cake recipe, but I'm intrigued at the fact that it came in first place in your test.

P.S. Would you mind sharing the recipe for passionfruit mousse? That sounds like an interesting cake filling I'd like to try.

I'm glad to hear that mango pulp is still around...is it the Goya brand? They're also good in homemade smoothies and mango lassi (an Indian yogurt drink). :)

Laziness