First, Harry & David’s cake:

Made in the company’s bakery, three layers of fluffy vanilla cake are separated by strawberry and blueberry fillings and covered in rich cream cheese frosting.

The fun continues with the decoration: What look like blueberries atop the cake are actually Harry & David’s chocolate-covered dried blueberries.

We can’t imagine who wouldn’t want to receive one of these as a gift.

It‘s easy to bake your own red, white and blue layer cake.

Ingredients

All you need are:

 
Preparation

1. PREPARE batter and bake cake in 3 layers, according to package or recipe directions. Check directions to see if you need to prepare extra batter for the third layer. Cool.

2. MAKE frosting. Assemble cake, frost and garnish.
 
You can add red, white and blue candles and sing “Happy Birthday” to America.

The bounty of summer produce encourages us to eat more fruits and vegetables. It seems like the healthy thing to do, and it is.

But it’s also time to consider the issue of pesticide residues, and when you should buy organic versus conventional produce.

Rinsing the produce does not remove all of the chemical residue. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) creates an annual Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides to reduce your exposure to chemical pesticides. For fruits and vegetables that have the most pesticide residues—the list below on the left side, known as the “Dirty Dozen”—it is the most important to buy organic versions.

But the organization also underscores that:

Why is some produce “dirty” and others “clean?”

Crops differ in their hardiness—whether they’re more or less susceptible to intense heat, cold, rainfall, drought, fungus or other disease, etc.

In the case of bugs, some crops are more readily attacked and destroyed by the hungry little critters. So chemical pesticides are used to kill the bugs, fungus, etc. before they kill the crop.

Though the Environmental Protection Agency has been restricting the uses of the most toxic pesticides, they are still detected on some foods. For example, green beans were on last year’s Dirty Dozen Plus list because they were often contaminated with two highly toxic organophosphates. Those pesticides are being withdrawn from agriculture. But leafy greens still show residues of organophosphates and other risky pesticides. That’s why they are on the Dirty Dozen Plus list for 2013.

Learn more at EWG.org.

 
Infographic courtesy EWG.org.

June 26th is National Chocolate Pudding Day. If you don’t already make chocolate pudding from scratch, it’s the day to discover this intense, creamy chocolate delight.

Sure, instant pudding is tasty. But imagine how much better it is made from scratch, with quality chocolate.

Here‘s the recipe our Nana lovingly made for us, every week. We’d try to get there twice a week, we loved it so much. (It wasn’t just the pudding; we loved Nana, too.)

We got to scrape the pot and eat the hot pudding remnants from a spatula: It is equally delicious hot/warm or chilled.

Remember: The better the chocolate. the better the pudding. Look for 100% cacao (i.e., unsweetened) chocolate in stores that sell gourmet chocolate.

You can substitute higher-cacao sweetened chocolate (75% or higher) and cut out a teaspoon or two of the sugar in the recipe.

Ingredients For 4 Servings

 
Preoaration

1. SCALD 2 cups milk with chocolate in the top of a double boiler or a glass bowl set over a saucepan of lightly simmering water (the water should not touch the bottom of the top pan or glass bowl). Beat until smooth.

2. COMBINE cornstarch, sugar and salt. Stir in cold milk. Add to scalded milk and cook 15 minutes in double boiler. Stir constantly until mixture thickens; then stir occasionally.

3. COOL slightly and add vanilla. Fold in optional heavy cream.

4. SERVE warm or chilled.

DAIRY-FREE CHOCOLATE PUDDING

If you’re vegan or lactose intolerant, you can still enjoy a delicious chocolate pudding—dairy free! This budino, the Italian word for pudding, was created by Debi Mazar and Gabriele Corcos, stars of Cooking Channel’s show, Extra Virgin. They used House Foods’ premium soft (silken) tofu.

TOFU CHOCOLATE BUDINO

Ingredients For 4 Servings

1. COMBINE sugar, water and cocoa in a medium sized saucepan. Bring to a boil, and stir until sugar is dissolved. Simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off heat and cool slightly. Stir in vanilla.

2. MELT chocolate in a double boiler or a glass bowl set over a saucepan of lightly simmering water.

3. ADD both mixtures plus tofu into a blender or food processor; purée until completely smooth.

4. DIVIDE the chocolate mixture among ramekins and place in the refrigerator for 2 hours or up to overnight.
CHOCOLATE PUDDING HISTORY

Conquistadors brought “chocolatl” (the Aztec spelling, pronounced cho-co-LAH-tay) from Mexico to Spain in 1528. Originally a bitter drink mixed with cornmeal and spices, it was up to Spanish chefs to find different ways to make chocolate more palatable. For starters, they sweetened it.

About this heavily taxed import, one official of the time commented, “None but the rich and noble could afford to drink chocolatl as it was literally drinking money. Cocoa passed currency as money among all nations; thus a rabbit in Nicaragua sold for 10 cocoa nibs, and 100 of these seeds could buy a tolerably good slave.”

Over time, this costly ingredient was used to flavor custards and other puddings. Solid chocolate was not “invented” until 1847, in England (here’s the history of chocolate timeline).

“Pudding” means different things in different countries. There are two basic types:

We don’t often head to McDonald’s to have a burger: Our neighborhood is dotted with gourmet burger emporia that command our attention.

But one of Mickey D’s new Quarter Pounders will have us stopping in more frequently.

Updating the Quarter Pounder menu—the QP was introduced more than 40 years ago—are three new varieties with different toppings:

 
THE WINNER

While each will have its fans, to us the Bacon Habañero Ranch Quarter Pounder Burger is tops. We’re more than happy that “hot and spicy” is now a menu option at the world‘s second largest restaurant chain*.

The spicy hot habanero ranch sauce is so enjoyable that we’ll be making a simple version at home: Mix mayonnaise, ranch dressing or Russian dressing sriracha† or other hot sauce.

The new burgers are available at participating locations for a recommended price of $3.99. We’re lovin’ it.
 
*Subway is the world’s largest restaurant chain.

†Sriracha is a hot chili sauce from Thailand. It is made from sun-ripened chile peppers, vinegar, garlic, sugar and salt. It can be found in the Asian aisle of some supermarkets, in Asian grocery stores and online.

Now you can roll out of bed in the morning and…have a bar of chocolate?

Awake Chocolate, created by three friends in Toronto, contains the same caffeine kick as a 20-ounce cup of coffee or a 250ml energy drink.

Alas, compared to calorie-free or low-cal cup of coffee (that is, unless you start piling on the sugar), it has the same calories as a bar of chocolate. Let us hastily add that the company doesn’t propose a chocolate bar for breakfast. Rather, it’s intended as a mid-afternoon pick-me-up.

Depending on where you buy your coffee, it might be a cost-effective alternative: $2.49 per 44g bar.

The bar launched last summer in Canada, and is now entering the U.S. with two flavors: Milk Chocolate and Milk Chocolate Caramel—a thin layer of caramel in the center.

In milk chocolate and milk chocolate caramel. Photo courtesy Awake Chocolate.

FUNCTIONAL FOOD

Awake belongs to a category called functional food: products that contain an ingredient or ingredients that provide nutrition or other benefit(s) beyond what is provided by the traditional varieties of said food. Examples include orange juice with calcium, probiotic yogurt and vitamin-enhanced water.

Of course, when you’re in need of a jolt of caffeine, you might not care about the source.

Learn more on the company website, AwakeChocolate.com.