Hi All! Not sure if anyone is still out there connected to this thread, but thought I would try. =) My family loves the good old Strawberry Rhubarb freezer jam that uses jello, I love it, too. My problem is, I try to make enough of it to last us all year (they love it that much!), but I dont' want to use that much freezer space. I have tried a couple of recipes this year, water bath recipes, that have not set up. One I was afraid may not have had the right ingredients to be a jar jam, since it didn't set up, so after a few hours, I threw it in the fridge to use as syrup. Low and behold it set. =) So, I found another and tried it. It didn't set either. (What is the longest it should take to set up?) 12 c rhubarb 3 Tbs pectin (powdered) 3 c sugar lime juice cubes (2 or 3?) dash red food color Put sugar on diced rhubarb and let it sit overnight to suck water out. Cooked and reduced it for about 15 miutes with lime juice, and added pectin near end. My recipe is homemade so your mileage may vary. Rhubarb is high acid, though, so it should be safe enough. >>> I like the look of the above recipe very much (it is from further up in this thread), it has very little sugar, doesn't require much in the way of other fruit (I'm trying to be as frugal as possible) and is said to set up. My question is this. Can I use one of my recipes that has not set up, just add commercial pectin to it? (I do like the flavor, just want it to set.) If so, how do I figure out how much pectin to add? I'm new to the jam canning process, and don't have much for local resouces, so I appreciate all the help I can get. Thanks! Gabi

I have not made this, but it got rave reviews at the Taste of Home recipe boards. It is in my "to try" file. Snickerdoodle Cake Preheat oven to 350*F, and generously grease two 9-inch round cake pans with solid vegetable shortening, then dust with flour. Shake out the excess flour. Set the pans aside. 1 package (18.25 oz) plain white cake mix 1 cup whole milk (I used skim and it turned out fine!) 8 TB (1 stick) butter, melted (use REAL butter!) 3 large eggs (whites and yolks, donÂt separate!) 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract 2 tsp. ground cinnamon Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting (recipe below) Place cake mix, milk, melted butter, eggs, vanilla, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for one minute. Stop machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if needed. The batter should look well combined. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, smoothing it out with the rubber spatula. Place the pans in the oven side by side. Bake the cakes until they are golden brown and spring back when lightly pressed with your finger, 27-29 minutes. Remove from oven and place pans on wire racks to cool for ten minutes. Run a dinner knife around the edge of each layer and invert them again onto another rack so that the cakes are right side up. Allow them to cool completely, 30 minutes more. Meanwhile, prepare the Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting. Place one cake layer, right side up, on a serving platter. Spread the top with frosting. Place the second layer, right side up, on top of the first layer and frost the top and sides of the cake with clean, smooth strokes. Place this cake, uncovered, in the refrigerator until the frosting sets, 20 minutes. Cover the cake with waxed paper and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Or freeze it, wrapped in aluminum foil, for up to 6 months. Thaw the cake overnight in the refrigerator before serving. Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting ÂMakes 3.5 cups, enough to frost a 2 or 3 layer cake 8 TB (1 stick) butter, at room temperature (use REAL butter!) 3 3/4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted (I never sift anything and it turns out fineÂ) 3-4 TB milk 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract 1 tsp. cinnamon Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed until fluffy, 30 seconds. Stop the machine and add the confectioners sugar, 3 TB milk, vanilla and cinnamon. Blend with the mixer on low speed until the sugar is incorporated, 1 minute. Increase the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, 1 minute more. Blend in up to 1 TB milk if the frosting seems too stiff. Use to frost the top and sides of the cake of your choice.

Ah, well, Annie, we didn't have cake mixes or a mixer or an oven. Just scratch ingredients, a mixing bowl sized cheap aluminum pot, a table fork, and a way to bake on a gas ring that was similar to the Omnia oven. It's a ring pan with a wide flue up the middle and a vented solid top which reflects the heat down. It worked. It made cake. It made good cake. With AP flour. :) But we didn't usually frost it or anything like that, and usually didn't decorate it at all. It was just cake. In the beginning, I did give it time and thought, but I went in already knowing how to bake a cake. A friend showed me the light on how to improvise successfully. Practice showed me the difference between two and three eggs, depending on how many we had. The only fail was the one time I forgot the baking powder (it came in little packets and was very hard to measure, which is how I learned that the exact amount doesn't mean that much as long as it's there). Even that was salvageable as a kind of dense pastry bottom with fruit. I have good cake recipes. I have one that is a perfect bundt cake with a perfect crumb. I bake them. People like them. But they like the improvisational ones too. :) People just like cake!

I use the quick cooking which I run through the food processor to try and get it ground up a bit. It's hard to grind to a powder completely. And yes, there is some tiny amount of beading in the pie, but I haven't noticed it "clumping." It seems minor to me, but I guess you can get tapioca powder but I haven't seen any where I shop. I'm kind of lazy, so when I make pies, I am more of the "throw it together" school so don't finesse it much. That's why I'm trying to figure out how to make Linda's pie without the meringue topping.