[1] A Pumpkin Bundt Cake, studded with chocolate chips and walnuts (photos #1 and #3 © North Carolina Sweet Potato Commision).

[2] Make sure to buy pumpkin puree, and not pumpkin pie filling. The latter has sugar and spices mixed in (photo © Jessica Gavin | Culinary Scientist).

[3] Looking for something lighter? Try this Sweet Potato Chocolate Chip Bread.

[4] Philadelphia Whipped Cream Cheese Spread is a good complement to sweet breads, including zucchini bread and carrot bread. Heavier spreads (not whipped) that go well with this recipe are Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Spread and Honey Nut Cream Cheese Spread (photo © Kraft Foods).

Whether you want to bake something special for your work colleagues, bring something to your Thanksgiving hosts, or make a treat for your family that can wait in the freezer.

Both the Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Cake (photo #1) and the Sweet Potato Chocolate Chip Bread (photo #3, recipe below) can be dressed up with whipped cream or served at brunch.
 
 
RECIPE #1: PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP BUNDT CAKE

This bundt (or tube cake, if you prefer) The pumpkin and pumpkin-friendly spices (cloves, cinnamon, allspice) meld surprisingly well with the bits of chocolate.

It’s rich enough to serve unfrosted, but you can add some whipped cream or ice cream for dessert.

Prep time is 10-15 minutes, and bake time is 1 hour and 10 minutes.

NOTE: If you have pumpkin pie spice blend, you can use 1-1/2 teaspoons instead of the separate measures of allspice, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger.

Thanks to our friends at King Arthur Flour—your source for the best ingredients—for this recipe.
 
Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 10″ Bundt or tube pan.

2. BEAT the eggs in a large bowl until foamy. Stir in the pumpkin, oil, and bran cereal; combine well. In another bowl…

3. SIFT together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, sugar, and spices. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix gently, until just combined. Stir in the nuts and chocolate chips.

4. SPOON the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 70 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

5. REMOVE the cake from the oven and cool them in the pan for 10 minutes. Then remove from the pan and cool completely on a rack before slicing. (Don’t slice until you’re ready to serve.)

6. STORE, loosely covered, at room temperature for 5 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.
 
 
RECIPE #2: SWEET POTATO CHOCOLATE CHIP BREAD

This Sweet Potato Chocolate Chip Bread is a healthier option for your sweet tooth. It was created as a better-for-you option by Created by Bucket List Tummy, for the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission.

That being said, we enjoyed it with some Philadelphia Whipped Cream Cheese Spread.

Made with whole wheat flour and oat flour, the loaf is soft and fluffy. It’s less sweet than cake but is studded with chocolate chips.

Prep time is 10-15 minutes, and bake time is 40 minutes.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 350°F and grease a 9″ x5″ inch loaf pan.

2. ADD the egg, mashed sweet potatoes, coconut oil, Greek yogurt, and maple syrup to a bowl. Whisk until combined. In another bowl…

3. ADD the whole wheat flour, oat flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Mix the dry into the wet ingredients, folding the chocolate chips in last. The batter should be thick.

4. ADD the batter to the loaf pan and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

5. LET cool for 5-10 minutes before slicing. If you won’t be eating it immediately, wait to slice until serving time.
 
 

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Our favorite cake is probably the Mille Crêpe Cake from Lady M Confections, a cake boutique with six locations in Manhattan and more around the country.

We say probably, because if you put us in front of a cake buffet, the first thing we’d eat would be the Mille Crêpe Cake.

The name translates to “thousand crêpes cake,” although there are only 20 layers.

Other pâtisseries and recipes call it Gâteau de Crêpes, for “cake of crêpes.” Some recipes use 30 crêpes or more.

We call it Crêpe Cake for short.

This classic French cake requires no oven: It is composed of layers of paper-thin crêpes made on the stove top.

(American “cake cousins” include the 12-layer, oven-baked Smith Island Cake and Thousand Layer Cake (also called Twelve Layer Cake).)

Lady M’s Crêpe Cake is ethereal, light and lush, all at the same time. It’s like eating the food of the angels—a heavenly experience (not to disparage Angel Cake/Angel Food Cake, which is delightful without achieving heavenly heights).

Lady M’s Crêpe Cake became so popular, that it is made in every flavor one could wish:

 
Although we have had six of the flavors flavors—and would gladly accept a gift of all of them—we keep returning to the original Signature as our favorite. It’s Crêpe Cake in its purest form.

Lady M’s repertoire is not limited to Crêpe Cakes. There are layer cakes, mousse cakes and Gâteaux Nuage, or “cloud cakes,” light and dreamy cheesecakes.

And, great news: They’re all sold online!

[1] Lady M’s Green Tea Mille Crêpe Cake (all photos © Lady M).

[2] Lady M’s Signature Mille Crêpe Cake. It’s the plainest-looking, but it’s our favorite flavor. The top is gently caramelized until golden.

[3] Lady M’s Chocolate Mille Crêpe Cake, topped with chocolate curls.

Lady M Mille Crêpe Cakes are available in 6″ ($55) and 9″ ($95) sizes. Order the big one: It may be more expensive, but you’ll be very happy if there are leftovers.

Head to LadyM.com.

[1] Pie and ice cream: Think outside the box for your à la mode (photo © Good Eggs).

[2] Apple pie with honey ice cream (photo © Golden Blossom Honey).

[3] Talenti Vanilla Cinnamon gelato, great for apple pie. Talenti also makes Vanilla Caramel ice cream gelato, Brown Butter Caramel gelato, and Caramel Apple Pie gelato (photo © Talenti Gelato).

[4] A holiday favorite: Rum Raisin ice cream (photo © Häagen-Dazs).

Thanks to Brian Klonoski of Good Eggs for this inspiration for à la mode on Thanksgiving pies.

Here’s our own tip: Turn vanilla ice cream into boozy vanilla. Soften the pint and stir in 2 tablespoons of bourbon or rum. Return it to the freezer until you’re ready to serve it.

(Of course, you’ll need to test out a few pints first—bourbon versus rum, 2 tablespoons vs. 1/4 cup [4 tablespoons] etc., etc. wink, wink.)

> The history of pie à la mode is below.
 
 
PUMPKIN PIE & SWEET POTATO PIE

Pumpkin pie is traditionally topped with whipped cream instead of ice cream because the pie filling is so rich and custardy.

But how about trying ice cream this year?

 
 
APPLE PIE

Warm up the apple pie, and pair the spiced apple filling with:

 
 
PECAN PIE

 
THE HISTORY OF PIE À LA MODE

Pie à la mode, French for pie “in the current fashion,” is a slice of pie with a scoop of ice cream on top or at the side.

The dessert did not originate in France but in the U.S.

The term à la mode has been used in English since the mid-1600s as an adjective to mean fashionable. In food circles, it gave its name to Beef à la Mode,” braised beef with vegetables and wine, served in a rich sauce [source].

But pie à la mode?
 
Although the dish originated in the relatively-recent timeframe of the 1890s, there is no one clear written record.

 
At The Cambridge Hotel

At some point in the 1890s, a guest in the dining room of the Cambridge Hotel, Professor Charles Watson Townsend, ordered a slice of apple pie with a scoop of ice cream.

Apparently, pie served with ice cream was a new concept!

Mrs. Berry Hall, a diner seated next to Townsend, asked what it was called. He said it didn’t have a name, and she promptly dubbed it Pie à la Mode. Townsend liked the name so much he asked for it each day by that name [source].

Townsend subsequently ordered it by that name every day of his stay.

He ordered it by that name at a later visit to the Delmonico Restaurant in New York City. They hadn’t heard of it, of course.

The professor then chastised him. He was quoted as saying, “Do you mean to tell me that so famous an eating place as Delmonico’s has never heard of Pie a la Mode, when the Hotel Cambridge, up in the village of Cambridge, NY serves it every day? Call the manager at once, I demand as good service here as I get in Cambridge.”

Delmonico’s, not wanting to be outshone by any other restaurant, immediately put it on the menu.

The newspapers immediately picked up the story of the dessert, and in short order, it was on menus across the nation [source].

The Cambridge Hotel placed an information folder in each guest room, that included a page entitled “The History of the Pie à la Mode.” Here it is.

Townsend died in 1936 at the age of 87, and his New York Times obituary (which we were unable to access) notes that he “inadvertently originated pie à la mode.” He would have been in his 40’s when he “invented” it.

Apple Pie Trivia

“As American as apple pie” is an oft-heard expression. While Americans love their apple pie, the dish itself isn’t American. Apple pie was long-made in Britain, and variations were made across Europe, wherever apples were grown.

The French had a long investigation of apple growing, and the Norman Conquest of 1066 brought their skills—and many new apple types—to Britain.

There were no apple trees in America before British immigrants brought seeds or rootstock and planted orchards. The first apple orchard on the North American continent was planted in Boston by Reverend William Blaxton in 1625.

Feel free to change the saying to, “As American as apple pie à la mode.”

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