The perfect cake for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Halloween. Photo courtesy The Sugar Mommas.

The Sugar Mommas, Kimberly and Jennifer, live in California, an entire country away from us. So if we want a piece of their Thanksgiving Pumpkin Spice Cake, we’ll have to make it ourselves. Fortunately, it’s not difficult to make a cake batter, and the pumpkin cream cheese icing is worth the extra step.

Switch out chocolate pumpkin and turkey decorations for chocolate pine cones and a reindeer, and you’ve got Christmas Pumpkin Spice Cake.

PUMPKIN SPICE CAKE RECIPE

Ingredients

Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 325°F. Butter and flour two 9-inch round cake pans and set aside.

2. WHISK the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and spices together in a medium bowl. Set aside.

3. MIX the sugars and oil in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Use medium speed until combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, blending on low speed until each is incorporated. Add the vanilla and the pumpkin purée. Mix until combined and no lumps are present.

4. ADD half of the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until fully incorporated. Add the second half of the dry ingredients, mixing on low speed until incorporated. Use a spatula to fold in the 1/2 cup of nuts; mix until just combined.

5. POUR the batter into the prepared pans and spread it evenly. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool completely.

6. ICE the first cooled cake layer on a serving platter, rounded side down (upside down). Use a knife or angled spatula to spread icing over the top and sides, being generous on top as it will be the filling layer. (A rotating cake stand is a godsend for icing cakes: well worth the modest cost and storage space.) Place the next layer right side up on top of the first and complete the frosting of the top and sides.

7. GARNISH as minimally or lavishly as you like. Minimalist: nothing. Typical: crushed amaretti cookies or ginger snaps. Lavish: chocolate medallions (the Sugar Mommas made chocolate pine cones in a mold) with a chocolate turkey, pumpkin, Christmas tree or reindeer at the center.

Ingredients

 
 
Preparation

We prefer organic pumpkin purée: It tastes better. Photo courtesy Farmer’s Market.

2. TURN the mixer to low speed and add the confectioners’ sugar a little bit at a time, until fully incorporated. Beat until light and fluffy.

3. STIR in the vanilla. This recipe may be doubled if, like us, you indulge in eating the frosting while decorating the cake.

4. DECORATE the cake by sprinkling on top of the cake. If you enjoy the crunch, go crazy and add in 1 tablespoon of raw sugar for a pretty visual that tastes unique and delicious.

Watch this video on how to ice a cake.

FOOD 101: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ICING AND FROSTING

It’s a sugar technicality! Icing is made with confectioners’ sugar, frosting with granulated sugar. The consistencies are different, hence different words to identify them. Most people use the terms interchangeably; but now that you know, you can correct them!
  

Omission beer is gluten-free and delicious. Photo courtesy Omission Beer.

Gluten is found in many common cereal grains including barley and wheat—typical beer ingredients.

On a mission to make a great-tasting beer without the gluten, the Omission team used traditional beer ingredients to handcraft the brew. They also developed a proprietary process that removes all the gluten.

Unlike some earlier gluten-free beers, it contains all of the standard beer ingredients: barley, hops, water and yeast. And the aroma and taste will should please just about everyone.

 
At a recent NIBBLE editorial tasting, it was all thumbs-up for Omission Beer.

A six-pack or two would make a great gift for a gluten-averse pal.

Here’s the store locator. Learn more about Omission beer on the company website.
Brush up on your beer vocabulary in our Beer Glossary.

Find more of our favorite beers in our Beer Section.

Chefs and customers alike loved the Meyer lemon for its mild, sweet, juicy flesh. With growing popularity, it entered commercial production and national availability.

In its native China, the Meyer lemon is commonly grown in garden pots as an ornamental tree (you can buy one for your home here).

It was brought to the United States in 1908 by Frank Nicholas Meyer, an employee of the United States Department of Agriculture who was exploring China for “new” fruits and vegetables.

The Meyer lemon (botanical name Citrus × meyeri) is a hybrid, believed to be a cross between a true lemon and either a mandarin or common orange, both native to China. As a result, Meyer lemons are slightly sweeter and much less acidic than the common “supermarket lemons,” Eureka and Lisbon (see all the types of lemons in our Lemon Glossary).

Meyer lemons are smaller than regular lemons and rounder, with a thin peel, which tends to golden hues rather than bright yellow. They’re more expensive than regular lemons, but also tend to provide much more juice.

*The Eureka (botanical name Citrus × limon) is the predominant lemon grown in most countries, with the exception of Italy, Spain and some other Mediterranean nations. Because the tree is thornless and a year-round bearer, it came to rival the then-predominant Lisbon variety (which looks similar, but the Eureka has a far more prominent nipple end).
HOW TO USE MEYER LEMONS

 
You can send Meyer lemons as a gift from Melissas.com.
MEYER LEMON RECIPES
Meyer lemons delivr full lemon flavor without the tartness, eneabling you to cut back on excess sugar often used to temper lemon acidity. They’re terrific in desserts and other baked goods, and add their magic to savory dishes as well.

Try these recipes from Melissas.com.

Red walnuts: new and exciting. Photo
courtesy PizzellesBakery.com.

Now, you can add red walnuts to the list.

The Sanguinetti family, farmers in California’s San Joaquin County, are growing a new and delicious variety of walnut: the red walnut. It has been named the Robert Livermore walnut in honor of a computer entrepreneur (1926-1997) and walnut grower who was interested in unusual varieties.

First cross-bred in 1991 at U.C. Davis, the walnuts were selected for commercial growing by the breeding team in 1998. The new variety was patented in 2001.

The walnuts are not genetically modified but were created using natural methods of grafting, in this case, grafting Persian red-skinned walnuts onto larger and creamier English walnuts.

The red walnut tree looks like any other walnut tree and the shell looks like any other walnut except for the bright burgundy red skin (skin) on the nut meat (kernel). The one key difference: It takes 8 to 10 years to produce a marketable crop instead of 1 to 3 years for conventional walnut trees—or 4 to 5 years if planted from seed. They continue to produce nuts for some 30 years.

Varieties of “blood walnuts” have been found growning wild in Europe since the 18th century or earlier. But these varieties tend to bear fewer nuts and blotchy nuts; hence the cross-breeding to achieve the Robert Livermore.

The delicious and healthful walnuts* are beautiful as snacks, on salads, in and on baked good and many other dishes. A bonus for those who don’t like the sharp tannins in some walnut varieties: Red walnuts are milder, with less “bite.”

Red walnuts are late-producing, so are available at the end of fall until the end of the year. Because they are so rare, supplies are limited.

*See the health benefits of walnuts.

Walnuts have long been cultivated, with evidence dating back to about 7000 B.C.E. The species is native to the mountain ranges of Central Asia: western China, parts of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and southern Kirghizia to Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, northern India and Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and portions of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and eastern Turkey.

The Romans called walnuts Juglans regia, “Jupiter’s royal acorn,” which in modern taxonomy became the genus and species of the tree.

In ancient Persia, walnuts were reserved for royalty. Thus, the walnut was often known as the Persian walnut. English merchant marines traded walnuts in ports around the world, and the nuts became known as English walnuts. (Walnuts were not grown commercially in England.)

Walnuts were cultivated in California by the Franciscan fathers in the late 1700s, and were known as “mission” walnuts. By the 1870s modern walnut production had become a commercial enterprise.

Brie with red walnuts, candied kumquats and honey. Photo courtesy CookStyleShootEat.com.

Today, California walnuts account for 99% of U.S. walnut production and 75% of the world’s walnuts. The annual harvest takes place in October.

GET YOUR RED WALNUTS

STORES: There are only a limited quantity of red walnuts from California. This year, they are being sold at retail in California, New York City/Metro (including Fresh Direct) and Texas.

ONLINE: Order red walnuts online from ShaskyFarms.com.

TREES: If walnut trees grow in your area, you can plant trees and harvest your own—in about eight years.

Beautiful beets, in a variety of colors, are in
season now. Photo courtesy Capitole Grille |
Nashville

If you see asparagus, apricots, cherries and other spring-summer foods in the market, they’re not from here. Off-season fruits and vegetables are grown in countries below the equator where the seasons are reversed.

They’re then shipped many thousands of miles to your market, giving you produce that has been sitting for weeks in shipment, and has required lots of fuel to get it to you.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental action group, wants you to eat what’s in season. They’ve created an app to show you what’s in season in your area. You can use it on the NRDC website or download it from the iTunes Store.

Is the app perfect? Well, it’s a good start, although it told us that tomatoes were in season in November in New York. Perhaps they meant dried tomatoes.

Yet, we like the app for its ability to highlight foods we should be considering. It will expand your repertoire by encouraging you to try different recipes; you’ll discover new favorites. And you’ll save mone by purchasing what’s in season.

There are other ways to find seasonal produce, of course: simply search in your browser for “fall produce,” “fall vegetables and fruits” or “seasonal produce” and your state.

 
Find our favorite vegetables and recipes in our Gourmet Vegetables section. The fruits are here.