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Anybody with a sweet tooth, please raise your hand. Now keep scrolling because you’ve got to check out these ultra realistic fish cakes this baker in Texas makes. These delicious works of art are created by Sugarbelle Sweets in Corpus Christi, Texas, by owner Dusty Sinclair. She’s a self-taught baker who specializes in custom cakes and cookies for weddings and other events. “I started Sugarbelle Sweets in 2014, but I’ve been baking most of my life,” Sinclair told me in an interview. She also said she’s an avid hunter/angler, along with the rest of her family. “When I’m not baking,...

The Covid-19 pandemic has tightened our social circles and narrowed the scope of our lives in ways no one imagined just a year ago. But the lockdown also brought an unexpected solace: Everyone, it seems, turned to baking sourdough bread. Social media has been overflowing with photos of frothy sourdough starters — many of them named, like a family pet — and the fresh-baked loaves that result. And though peak sourdough may have passed, many a fridge still contains that jar of starter. Most home sourdough bakers know that their starter contains a vibrant herd of microbes, which leaven and...

I am tired of buying store-bought products that do more harm than good. I am curious if fellow FReepers were using baking soda and Epson Salt on a regular basis and if so what is your favorite tip. Perhaps you have another 'Secret' product that you use.

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We will now begin the official countdown till Christmas. So if you haven’t finished your decorating,wrapping: and bakingtime to get to it. In case you have to do it twice.The tree faintedThe dog ate themSo as the world continues to go insane, remember: you needn’t participate. Jump off the wagon for awhile, I promise it will be a soft landing.And believe me, the lunacy will proceed without you.So comment on the world at large if you wish or just kick back and make some holiday appetizers. Either way, there’s still going to be only 9 days till Christmas, and time...

Today is Raj’s birthday, and that means only one thing around here: there will be cake. At one time that meant Mom’s Mystery Cake, which was about as simple as a homemade dessert could get and delicious when served with copious amounts of whipped cream. There are many more complicated variations of “fruit cocktail cake” out there but if yours looks more like a traditional cake with identifiable chunks of fruit in it you’re not doing it right. It should be more of an amalgamated pudding like creature. Mom’s Mystery CakeIngredients     1 (16 ounce) can fruit cocktail in heavy...

Happy Weekend, Everyone! A little birdie in a kilt whispered to me that we should have a cooking for Valentine's Day theme this weekend, and that is a perfect idea. I love chocolate so let's get some tried and true old favorite recipes out, as well as some new challenges if you want. But don't stop at dessert! Lots of our true loves have savory desires on Valentine's Day. Steaks, beef stew, potatoes Anna or Baked with sour cream... what is going to delight your honey, family, or even just yourself this week? Me, I'm thinking of chocolate this week....

“For the past 10 years, bread has been under attack.” Professor Zhou Weibiao, a food scientist at the National University of Singapore, isn’t wrong. According to current nutritional thinking, white bread is digested too fast, spikes blood sugar levels and is linked to obesity. In short, it’s the enemy of healthy eaters. Weibiao’s answer to this problem? He’s invented a purple bread. Rich in cancer-fighting antioxidants, digested 20 percent slower than regular white bread and made entirely of natural compounds, it could be the first superfood of the baked goods world. The great bake off A long-time staple food, bread’s...

Rioting has been reported at a concert at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. According to multiple reports, the Hot 97 Summer Jam concert grew rowdy Sunday night, prompting State Police to use tear gas outside the gates, the Asbury Park Press reported. A state police armored vehicle tear gassed the crowd because concert goers, angry the gates were closed, threw bottles, the Asbury Park Press said. State Police officers were wearing riot gear and had their batons out, according to NBC New York. NBC New York reported tasers may have been used.

The owner of a bakery in Lakewood said he will no longer sell wedding cakes after the Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled he did discriminate against a gay couple when he refused to sell them a cake. "We would close down the bakery before we would complicate our beliefs," Phillips said after the hearing, according to CBS Denver. Phillips also admitted he had refused service to other same-sex couples. The commission also ordered the baker to submit quarterly reports about the customers he refuses to serve and retrain employees to serve everyone.

White House executive pastry chef Bill Yosses is resigning after First Lady Michelle Obama fundamentally changed his job duties to focus on healthier food. Yosses is leaving the White House in June to work on a new project focusing on “food literacy” and The New York Times says Michelle is “partly to blame.” The openly gay chef was hired by Laura Bush in 2007 to make his trademark cookie plates and sugar sculptures. Mrs. Obama took over in 2009 and ordered Yosses to make healthier plates in smaller portions. Yosses began replacing butter with fruit puree and sugar with honey...

Are edible insects the food of the future? One Salt Lake City-based company thinks so. Chapul Inc. has cooked up an energy bar with an eye-popping ingredient -- crickets. Chapul Bars come in three flavors -- peanut butter, chocolate and Thai -- and sell for $2.99 to $3.59 each. They're made from natural ingredients such as dates, agave nectar, coconut, ginger, lime and dark chocolate. And all contain cricket flour. "Most people don't know that crickets are a rich source of edible protein," said Patrick Crowley, 33, an environmentalist and Chapul's founder. And compared to cows and pigs, crickets are...

For some time I’ve been trying to justify owning a robot without coming across as “that weirdo with the robot.” Now, I think I finally found my cover: A robot that bakes cookies! Mario Bollini and Daniela Rus of the Distributed Robotics Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have taken a PR2 robot, which is made by the robotics company Willow Garage, and programmed it to mix dough from scratch, make a giant cookie and then bake it in an oven. There are some caveats though (besides the giant cookie part). The PR2 robot costs about $400,000. In June,...

Happy New Year! Weekly cooking thread to start the new year. What was your favorite recipe in 2010? Please share and make it a fellow FReepers favorite recipe for 2011. What are you making this week? Have a favorite left-over recipe idea for all those roasts and big dinner leftovers? Trying something new, need a new tried and true recipe? Let's get cooking.

Merry 'Week Before' Christmas. For the 2nd installment of the cooking thread I thought it would be great to have a hodgepodge of recipes for the upcoming 'Crunch Time' and Christmas week. Have a delicious recipe for a quick meal during this hectic week? How about your most requested 'Party Food' that everyone says you must bring to the party? Have a favorite cookie, etc. recipe that you are cranking our batch after batch for family and friends? And everything else in between! Here's the place to share your creations and get some food inspiration.

There's been a bunch of great recipe threads lately and a few FReepers thought it would be great to have a weekly cooking thread....so here it is! For this charter thread it would be great to dish out one of your favorite recipes for fellow FReepers to enjoy. Do you have a great recipe planned for the upcoming week or looking for one? Hopefully this thread will get the cooking juices flowing. Planing on making this a weekly thread with post starts on Sat/Sun

I have grown tired of cooking (and eating) the same meals over & over again. Mostly we eat steak, beef ribs, fried chicken, fried pork chops, tacos, and enchiladas. With the occasional corned beef, spaghetti and (packaged) Chinese food thrown in. I have several cookbooks upstairs that I was considering perusing, then I thought about the fine folks on FR. Please add your favorite recipe(s) to this thread so I can start experimenting. The only thing that I will not cook is liver & onions (YUK). I would love to have a tried & true recipe of pot roast and...

I apologize for posting this question in News/Activism - but this is the most widely read category in Free Republic and I want some opinions. I have a recipe for oatmeal brown bread. It's really good. It's a very hearty tasting wheat bread that uses oatmeal as well. In the recipe, it calls for using lard. Is it possible for me to use Crisco as a substitute - or might that affect the taste of the bread? Thanks for your advice!

Although the recent WND report of al-Qaida terrorists allegedly baking a young boy and serving him as a meal to his relatives was too horrific for some to believe, a major Christian ministry is citing another example – and also claims such a practice has its roots in the historical stories of Islam. The issue has come into focus following a report from Michael Yon, a Special Forces soldier now in Iraq to report on the successes there. He told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt he was inspired by a "news cycle that seems to pander toward the terrorists."...

The baker who beat McDonald's From Richard Owen in Rome AFTER a five-year battle, the fast-food giant McDonald’s has retreated from a southern Italian town, defeated by the sheer wholesomeness of a local baker’s bread. The closure of McDonald’s in Altamura, Apulia, was hailed yesterday as a victory for European cuisine against globalised fast food. Luigi Digesù, the baker, said that he had not set out to force McDonald’s to close down in any “bellicose spirit”. He had merely offered the 65,000 residents tasty filled panini — bread rolls — which they overwhelmingly preferred to hamburgers and chicken nuggets. “It...