Bake some pumpkin cupcakes. Photo
courtesy Stefani Pollack.

How about snazzy pumpkin cupcakes with pumpkin cheesecake (pumpkin cream cheese) frosting?

Created by Cupcake Project blogger Stefani Pollack, the cake is made with healthier graham flour and bits of graham crackers, which yields a far more rich, dense and muffin-like texture.

Is graham flour so healthy that it offsets the cream cheese frosting? The jury is out; we’ll let you know when it returns.

• Get the recipe and whip up a batch of pumpkin cupcakes. Your friends and family will thank you.
• Take a trip down food history lane: Learn who invented graham flour and graham crackers, and why.
• Find more of our favorite cupcake recipes.

Traditional advice is to avoid sulfites, which are added to many wines as a preservative (to prevent bacterial growth). People with sulfite sensitivity comprise perhaps .2% of the population.

Given this tiny number, if you develop symptoms from drinking wine, it may not be due to sulfites.

Leonard Phillips, owner of Ambassador Wines & Spirits in New York City, was a biochemist before he joined the family wine business. Given the minute percentage of sulfite-sensitive people, he believes that many allergic reactions are due to the tannins in the wood barrels that the wine is aged in.

Tannins give wines a “backbone“—required for a well-structured wine. Too many tannins create a “puckery,” dry or astringent sensation when drinking red wines.

While tannin exists in the skin and stems of grapes, which are crushed to create the juice that is fermented into wine, the bigger culprit, says Phillips, is the oak tannin in wine barrels.

Avoid wines fermented and/or aged in
wood. Libbey wine glasses.

If you have “wine allergy” symptoms, here’s how to test if you’re sensitive:

1. Consult with your wine store clerk and purchase a wine that “never touches wood.” A large number of wines are fermented and aged in steel tanks instead of wood barrels.
2. If you can enjoy that wine symptom-free, then try a wine that is fermented in steel and aged in used oak barrels. These are barrels that are 2-3 years old. The majority of the tannins leach into the wine the first year they were used. Try to find a European wine or a domestic one that uses French oak. French oak is milder than American oak. Without getting into advanced chemistry, you may be able to better tolerate French oak tannins.
3. If you have no reaction to used oak barrels, try a wine aged in new French oak.
4. Survived again? The last test is to try a wine aged in American oak (or oak from another country.)

This test will help you eliminate wood tannins you may be allergic to. An allergist can help you rule out sulfur allergies.

These yummy personalized jumbo sugar
cookies from Harry & David make a perfect
small gift or party favor. Photo by
Katharine Pollak | The Nibble.

There’s a gift for everyone on our list of kosher Hanukkah gifts: cheese, chocolates, cookies, nuts, toffee and other delicious gifts.

Take a peek; then come back for a little Hanukkah history.

The holiday commemorates a battle that took place some 2,200 years ago. Judea, the land of the Jews (the southern part of what is now Israel), was under the rule of Greece.

A Greco-Syrian king forbade the Jewish people from observing their religion. They were prohibited from praying to their God, studying the Torah* and practicing their customs.

A small group of resistance fighters called the Maccabees waged war for three years to drive the very large Greco-Syrian army out of Judea. When they returned to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, they cleaned and rededicated their house of worship.

The Maccabees discovered that the enemy had defiled the oil which was used to light the temple’s menorah (lamp). Only enough purified oil remained to light the menorah for one day. It would take a week to make more purified oil. But a miracle occurred:

After the the menorah was lit, the flames burned for eight days—by which time new vats of purified oil were ready.

Thus, the Hanukkah Menorah holds eight candles plus a shamash† candle used to light the eight. And why Hanukkah lasts for eight days.

*Today the Torah comprises the five books of the Old Testament, which contain Judaism’s founding laws and ethical texts.

†The Hebrew word shamash means “the attendant.” The beadle (synagogue attendant) in a temple is also called a shamash.

Check out this sweet selection of our favorite chocolate turkeys, decorated creme mints, caramel and a smashing “bridge mix” or chocolate-covered nuts, fruits and seeds.

These beautiful, chocolate- and toffee-covered almonds, pistachios, sunflower seeds, dried cherries and apricots are a delectable gift or candy-bowl-filler for the home. They’re packaged in an attractive plastic box, in a variety of sizes. Serve them or give them as party favors.

We serve the colorful mix with coffee or tea at the end of dinner instead of a heavier dessert (and we confess, we’ve mixed them into our breakfast yogurt as well). The chocolate and toffee-covered pistachios are especially awesome.

Enjoy a handful of these chocolate-covered
treats. Photo by Melody Lan | THE NIBBLE.

Kosher salt. We use this salt server in
THE NIBBLE test kitchen to add pinches
of salt as we cook.

It’s the same with salt: Pay attention to the order in which you add salt. Here are tips from Chef Louis Eguaras:

• Meats: Salt meat 1 to 4 hours before cooking. For the first half hour, salt will extract the moisture from the meat. Then, the protein fibers loosen up and absorb the salty juices.
• General Cooking: Add salt in the middle of the cooking process, not just at the end. It gives you a better opportunity to taste and adjust the amount of salt.
• Stocks: Don’t salt stocks. Subsequent reductions will intensify the saltiness. It’s the same with sauces that will be reduced. Instead, taste the stock or sauce when you are preparing the dish.

• Deep-Frying: Don’t salt the food immediately before deep-frying it. Salt will alter the surface and make the food less crisp.
• Blanching: Add salt to the liquid before adding the food.
• Aluminum & Cast Iron Pots: Add salt after boiling begins but before adding food, to prevent pitting of the pot.

See the many different types of salt in our Salt Glossary.