Pretty patterns abound with Aequare Fine
Chocolates. Photo by Emily Chang | THE NIBBLE.

• THE PRIZE: Aequare Chocolates will give one winner a 6-piece gift box of French bonbons and two bars of chocolate, in Lemongrass and Mandarin Orange flavors. The melt-in-your mouth chocolates are an enjoyable experience. Approximate retail value: $22.00
• To Enter This Gourmet Giveaway: Go to the box at the bottom of our Gourmet Chocolate Section and enter your email address for the prize drawing. This contest closes on Monday, May 24th at noon, Eastern Time. Good luck!
• To learn more about Aequare Chocolate, visit AequareChocolates.com.

These magical mixes will become favorites with anyone who is looking for a home-baked treat, but are a godsend for people with gluten allergies. That they’re certified organic is icing on the cake! Read our full review.

• THE PRIZE: One winner will have an opportunity to try the entire line of Doodles organic and gluten-free cookie mixes. Flavors include Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix, Double Chocolate Chip Habanero Mix, Nut Butter Cookie Mix and Sugar Cookie Mix. They’re all really terrific! Approximate retail value: $26.00.
• To Enter This Gourmet Giveaway: Go to the box at the bottom of our Gluten-Free Section and enter your email address for the prize drawing. This contest closes on Monday, May 24th at noon, Eastern Time. Good luck!
• To learn more about Doodles Cookies, visit DoodlesCookies.com.

Wash these yummy cookies down with a tall
glass of milk. Photo by Jerry Deutsch | THE NIBBLE.

Delicious nougat from PistaciaVera.com.

If you’re given a gift of nougat and you’re not inclined to devour the box, what to do with it?

• You can store it in the refrigerator for longer life.

• Serve pieces like petit fours, with coffee, tea or hot chocolate.

• Toast it like marshmallows and make nougat s’mores.

• Chip it and use it as a dessert garnish on ice cream, puddings and anything with whipped cream.

Find more of our favorite candies in our Gourmet Candy section.

But we can’t deny that red velvet cake has become a national craze—so much so that Schmerty’s Cookies of Santa Monica, California have created a red velvet cookie! The cookies are also certified kosher.

Where did the storm of red velvet cake begin?

Actually, in the film Steel Magnolias, featuring six stars of the silver screen: Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field, Daryl Hannah, Shirley MacLaine, Dolly Parton and Julia Roberts.

Follow the trail prior to then, and there are claims that the red velvet cake originated at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City in the 1920s—birthplace of classics such as Waldorf Salad, Veal Oscar, Thousand Island Dressing and the Manhattan cocktail.

Like red velvet cake? Try red velvet cookies.
Photo by Jerry Deutsch | THE NIBBLE.

The first published record for Devil’s Food Cake is a 1902 recipe from Mrs. Rorer’s New Cook Book. A recipe in Good Housekeeping Woman’s Home Cook Book, in 1909, more closely resembles modern recipes for Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake. A recipe for Philadelphia Red Cake, published in the Perry (Kansas) Home Cook Book in 1920, uses squares of chocolate, baking soda, buttermilk and egg whites—identical to recipes for Red Devil’s Food Cake.

Our mother made Red Devil’s Food Cake—a rich, chocolaty cake, not the bright red, vaguely flavored red velvet cakes of today. So where did today’s red velvet cake come from?

No one knows, exactly. In the 1960s, recipes for today’s red velvet-style cake were being published that added red food coloring as a prominent ingredient, along with buttermilk and cocoa powder. A southern favorite, it was launched to stardom in Steel Magnolias.

Turn a Waldorf Salad, made with apples and
walnuts, into a Sausage Waldorf with apple
chicken sausage. Photo courtesy
AlFrescoAllNatural.com.

But demand for healthier foods has created a robust business in chicken sausage. Just by switching to chicken over pork sausage, you can save 70% of the fat. You can also enjoy more specialty flavors, since chicken’s milder flavor allows seasonings such as apple, chipotle, spinach and feta and sundried tomato to be more expressive.

Just as with pork sausage, there dinner and breakfast varieties as well as “cocktail franks.” In addition to far less fat than pork sausage, most chicken sausage brands are free of nitrites, nitrates, preservatives and artificial ingredients. A 3-ounce link is about 130 calories, depending on brand and filling (cheese flavors will add a few calories). That’s not much more than chicken.

We recently tried two of the nine fully-cooked flavors from Al Fresco, the country’s largest producer of chicken sausage, and look forward to trying the rest.

• Find more information about Al Fresco Chicken Sausage.