Pillsbury recently sent us two new mixes: Orangesicle Premium Cake Mix and Key Lime Premium Cookie Mix, both with matching frostings.

The jury is in: We love the Orangesicle cake and frosting. The flavor profile presents both the vibrant orange and the vanilla counterpoint of a Creamsicle® (which is a trademarked brand of Unilever—here’s the history of the Creamsicle).

For a killer dessert, serve the cake with scoops of orange sorbet and vanilla ice cream. It’s double Creamsicle/Orangesicle heaven.

The Key Lime cookies were tasty, but not something we’d make again. While the orange and vanilla flavors were prominent in the cake, the cookies lacked the sprightly tartness we’d like from something called “key lime.”

The mixes are available at retailers nationwide. For sure, we’ll be serving Orangesicle again soon.

The mixes are certified kosher (dairy) by OU.

But traditions can be updated. If you like butter, consider adding flavor with a compound butter: chipotle butter, herb butter and numerous others (recipes).

What if you want to avoid the calories and cholesterol? You’ve got tasty options:

IF IT’S FRESH, TRY IT PLAIN

Immediately after harvesting, the sweet sugars that make corn so appealing begin to convert to starch. If the corn is several days old, there may not be much flavor left. So people pile on the condiments to add flavor.

If the corn is fresh and sweet, it needs absolutely no topping. Try it: You may discover that nothing beats the pure, farm-fresh sweetness of a plain ear of corn. You can even eat it raw—something we do while waiting for the rest of the ears to cook.

You can boil or microwave corn, but grilling enhances its sweetness. The heat caramelizes the sugar in the kernels. You can brush it with olive oil and then add the seasonings prior to grilling, or hold the seasonings altogether.

Many of us were taught by Mom to pull back the husk of the corn and look for….well, what are you actually looking for? There’s nothing to see but the size and color of the kernels (white, yellow, mixed), and that’s not going to impact your purchase decision. At worst, you’ll notice that a few kernels are missing at the very top of the ear. That’s not a defect: It’s how nature grew that particular ear.

Pulling back the husks is the worst thing you can do. Exposing the kernels to air makes them dry out, and worse, spurs the conversion of the sugar to starch. You shouldn’t husk corn until right before cooking it. So forget what Mom said—she was only passing along bad information.

Instead:

Check the husks and the exposed corn silk (the tassel) for freshness. The more straw-colored/lighter the silk that peeks out from the husk, the fresher the corn. The exposed silk is the first thing to dry out and show age, as it turns to brown and black.

That doesn’t mean an ear with black silk won’t be sweet—we’ve had plenty of delicious corn where the silk had turned black. It’s just an indicator: If you have a choice between ears with pale silk and those with dark silk, go for the pale. But if the tassel is missing, beware: It’s probably older corn, and the seller has peeled the outer husk leaves and removed the tassel to make it look better.

Then, look at the husks. Are they bright green, or do they look drier and blotchy? Pale silk and bright husks are the answer to which ears you should pick.

Now the big “however”: Chances are, all the corn you’re looking at in a store was harvested at the same time. The real choice lies at farmers markets or roadside stands, where you can compare the corn from different growers.

Several products arrive at THE NIBBLE offices each week, over the transom*.

Of these surprise deliveries, some contain a business card, some have a letter and some have nothing. Most of the products are just O.K.; some are quite good and we want to write about them.

And some of the latter become mysteries, because there’s no card, no website on the bottle, and our ability to track down more information is limited.

That’s the case with Mingo’s, a brand about which there is precious little online information. We were able to discern that:

 
That‘s it.

What we can tell you is that, we really like the products.

Like the mustard, the Pepper Butter has a touch of sweetness. As with apple butter, there is no butter in the product; “butter” refers to the smooth spreadability. Use it:

Eat your craft project: a dog made from hot
dogs. Photo courtesy Dietz and Watson.

Family and friends will howl with delight at this edible dog sculpture made of hot dogs or brats. We love edible craft projects!

The recipe is courtesy Dietz & Watson, purveyors of premium deli meats.

HOT DOG SCULPTURE RECIPE

Ingredients Per Dog

 
Preparation

1. SLICE off one end of the hot dog; cut the end piece in half to make the ears.

2. CUT off the other end in a chunk large enough for the head.

3. AFFIX all the appendages with toothpicks

4. OPTIONAL: Use a melon baller to hollow out a thick cucumber slice as a “dog bowl”; fill with mustard or ketchup and place in front of the dog as a dipping sauce.
 
MORE FUN WITH FOOD

Try a book like Funny Food: 365 Fun, Healthy, Silly, Creative Breakfasts, and Fun Stuff series:

 
We love the original “Play With Your Food” books by Joost Elffers and Saxton Freymann. Most are out of print, but you can find some of them on Amazon:

 
Have fun!

Before there were sorbet makers, there was granita, hand-scraped in ice cube trays as the mixture freezes (it‘s also known as shaved ice).

Granita is a semi-frozen dessert made from sugar, water and flavoring—typically fruit or coffee. A precursor of sorbet and Italian ice, it originated in Sicily, where the texture remains coarser and more crystalline (crunchier) than in other parts of Italy.

The preferred texture varies from region to region: chunkier in the western regions and smoother in the eastern regions.

The texture is the result of how little or much the mixture is agitated while freezing.

But no matter how smooth the granita, it is never as smooth as sorbet (sorbetto in Italian). A little “crunch” on ice makes it unique, and is why some people prefer granita to sorbet.

[1] Grape granita: crunchy, grapey ice crystals (both photos © Melissa’s Produce).

This recipe for grape granita was created by chef Chris Faulkner for Melissas.com.

Ingredients

 
For a more adult flavor profile, add a tablespoon of grappa or vodka.
 
_______________

*Muscato grapes are available in red or green. Red grapes add a pinkish color to the granita; green grapes produce a paler product. Muscato, Muscat and Moscato are the same grape.

1. COMBINE the wine, sugar and 1 cup water in a saucepan; bring the mixture to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Simmer the syrup for 5 minutes and let it cool.

2. PURÉE the grapes with the syrup in a blender or food processor and strain the purée through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing hard on the solids.

3. STIR in 1 cup cold water and the lemon juice; chill the mixture, covered, until cold. Stir the mixture and transfer it to 2 metal ice cube trays without dividers, or a shallow metal bowl.

4. FREEZE, stirring with a fork every 20 to 30 minutes and crushing the large frozen clumps. Do this for 2 to 3 hours, or until the granita is firm but not frozen solid.

5. SCRAPE the granita with a fork to lighten the texture and serve it in chilled bowls.
 
 
MORE GRANITA RECIPES

 
 
CHECK OUT THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF FROZEN DESSERTS IN OUR ICE CREAM GLOSSARY.