FUDGY-NUT BUNDT CAKE: Retro Ad with Recipe for National Nut Day!

Today is National Nut Day and what could be better than this delicious Fudgy-Nut Bundt Cake: A Retro Ad & Recipe from Betty Crocker c. 1974.  

"Very clever, this new Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge Supreme Cake Mix. You can make it in layers, or bake it up in the round as our new Fudgy-Nut Bundt cake. Dedicated to you who like any cake, as long as it’s chocolate, this is deep, dark, fudgy heaven. Pass it around."

CHOCOLATE CARAMEL APPLES: National Apple Day!

Today is National Apple Day, and since it's so close to Halloween, I was thinking about Caramel Apples. Not just any caramel apple, though, but Chocolate Caramel Apples. You can buy Chocolate Caramel Apples from many different purveyors, but it's really easy to make your own. 

And, there are so many ways to dress up your Chocolate Caramel Apples  -- drizzle techniques or rolling in nuts or chopped candy bars or sea salt, sprinkles, mini-marshmallows, candy corn. Have a look at this Retro advertisement from Kraft for inspiration. For your chocolate, you can use milk, dark, or white chocolate or a mixture of all three. Experiment! Chocolate Caramel Apples are great to serve for Halloween!

Be sure and choose a firm round tart apple to go with your sweet toppings.

CHOCOLATE CARAMEL APPLES

Ingredients:
4 ripe firm apples
4 wooden skewers
14 ounces soft caramel candy
2 tbsp water
10 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
2 tbsp shortening
2 cups chopped candy bars, nuts, coconut, sea salt, M&Ms, or ??

Preparation:
1. Line baking sheet with waxed paper and and spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Wash and dry the apples carefully or dip in boiling water for under a minute to remove any wax. Cool. Remove stems, and stick the skewers firmly in stem ends.
3. Place unwrapped caramels and the water in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 1 minute, then stir, then microwave for additional minute until completely melted and smooth (and liquidy)
4. Hold apple by skewer and dip in caramel, tilting bowl at an angle and rotating  apple to cover  completely with smooth, even layer. Set on wax paper. Repeat with remaining apples.
5. Refrigerate caramel-covered apples for 30 minutes to set.
6. Heat chocolate and shortening in  microwave-safe bowl and microwave until melted and smooth.
7. Dip caramel-covered apple in chocolate. Spoon  chocolate over top to cover apple completely.
8. While chocolate is still wet, dip bottom half in chopped candy bars, nuts, sprinkles, mini-marshmallows, or seasalt (or whatever!) and roll until bottom half is covered. Place back on baking sheet and repeat with remaining apples.
9. Chill apples in refrigerator until completely set-45 minutes.

PEEPS Pumpkin Patch Brownies

I love PEEPS! I know not everyone does, but even if you don't, PEEPS make great Halloween decorations for your cakes, cupcakes, pies, and pudding cups! Here's a recipe for PEEPS Pumpkin Patch Brownies. And, yes, of course, you can use your own Brownies and Frosting! 

INGREDIENTS 

PAM® Original No-Stick Cooking Spray 

2 Packages (18.3 oz each) Duncan Hines® Chewy Fudge Brownie Mix 

1-1/3 cups vegetable oil 

4 Eggs 

6 Tablespoons water 

8 Chocolate sandwich cookies 

1 Container (16 oz each) Duncan Hines®Creamy Chocolate Frosting 

3 Cups pretzel sticks 

2 PEEPS® Brand Marshmallow Ghosts 

6 PEEPS® Brand Marshmallow Pumpkins 

Fresh mint sprigs 

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven 325°F. 

Spray 9×13-inch pan with cooking spray. 

Stir both brownie mixes, oil, eggs, and water together in a large bowl until well blended, about 50 strokes. 

Pour into pan. 

Bake 42 to 47 minutes, until toothpick inserted 1-inch from edge of pan comes out clean.

Cool in pan on wire rack 15 minutes. 

Remove from pan and cool completely. 

Place chocolate sandwich cookies in a resealable bag, seal, and crush into fine crumbs. 

Place cooled brownies on serving tray. 

Frost top and sides with frosting. 

Place pretzel sticks around the edge of brownies to make fence. 

Top brownie with cookie crumbs to look like dirt. 

Place toothpicks in PEEPS® Marshmallow Pumpkins and Ghosts and stick them into the top of the brownies. 

Use mint sprigs to create vines between the pumpkins. Slice and serve

Gravestone Recipes: Recipes Etched on Tombstones

 

This article with interview appears in The Mercury News! Scroll down for complete article link.

Archivist and TikTok creator Rosie Grant traveled the U.S. collecting the details and stories behind over 40 gravestone recipes. Interview to follow. 

Who’d have guessed that the place to find a killer spritz cookie recipe would be inside a cemetery?
But that’s just where Naomi Odessa Miller-Dawson’s cookie recipe lives, etched in stone at her final resting place at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.

When archivist Rosie Grant, who was was completing an internship at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., learned about this recipe on a gravestone back in 2021, she decided to bake the cookies and share a video of the experience on her TikTok account, @ghostlyarchives. Comments poured in, and she learned that there were gravestone recipes scattered across the U.S.

So began her quest to cook the recipes and learn the stories of the people behind them — a project that eventually yielded an entire 40-recipe cookbook. Grant’s book is more than a cookbook copying over these recipes etched in stone, however. It also explores the intersections of food, legacy and memory, while providing background information and missing details to enable anyone to cook these recipes at home.

Read more here. 

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/10/13/cooking-with-the-dead-to-die-for-tries-out-recipes-etched-on-tombstones/?share=iwaeuttdoor0odtchauw