• Today is Canada Day, and in tribute, Dinner with Julie baked some Maple Cupcakes. Maple cupcakes are a fitting treat for the holiday because maple syrup is so closely associated with Canada and Canadian foods. The cupcakes have quite a bit of maple syrup in the cake itself, and are topped off with a decadent maple syrup frosting. If you want to take the maple flavor even further, try to track down some maple sugar to replace the regular sugar called for in the recipe.
• Both cheesecakes and apple pie are staples of American dessert menus, but there is absolutely no reason that the two couldn’t be combined into one rich, creamy, fruit-filled dessert, like the Brown Sugar Apple Cheesecake at Eat Me Delicious. This cheesecake has a gingersnap crust, made with all the usual apple pie spices, and is filled with a layer of light-sauteed apples. Although cream cheese isn’t typically found in apple pies, all the flavors of regular apple pie can be found in this cheesecake, making it novel and familiar at the same time.
• Tomatoes are in season and very plentiful. When you have good, fresh tomatoes, you probably want to enjoy them as close to their natural state as possible. Ezra Pound Cake’s Fresh Tomato Tart with a Basil-Garlic Crust is a good way to do that, and a nice change from making just another salad. The tart is filled with a simple mixture of mozzarella, tomatoes and olive oil. The filling sits in a savory crust flavored with fresh basil and garlic.
• The Apple Popovers from The Way It Crumbles are a twist on apple pie that I haven’t seen before! For this recipe, apples are diced up and caramelized on the stovetop with sugar and butter. The apple mixture is then ladled into the center muffin cups already filled with popover batter. When the popovers bake, they form a light “crust” around the apple mixture and leave you with a treat that could be served for dessert, breakfast or just eaten as a snack. Don’t forget the ice cream if you’re looking to make them a little more like regular apple pie!
• When I think of whoopie pies, I tend to think of chocolate cookies with a cream filling. Sweet Charity Pie’s Lemon Whoopie Pies may not be perfectly traditional in that respect, but they certainly sound like a refreshing change of pace. The cookies are soft, almost cake-like, and are packed with lemon zest. The cream cheese filling also has more lemon juice and zest in it to give the cookies a bright flavor. These keep well and travel easily, so they’re a great choice for summer barbecues and parties.

Red, white and blue paper plates and napkins do their part in adding to the festiveness of a 4th of July celebration, but it’s always nice to be a little patriotic with the food, too. Barbecue, whether you’re making ribs, burgers or hot dogs, is a good place to start. You can infuse a little more color into the meal when you come around to dessert.

Red and white are easy colors to infuse into dessert, with fresh berries, ice cream and whipped cream. blue is a little tougher. Gelatin is almost a staple for blue desserts, since it is one of the few foods that is easy to find in a true blue color. Jigglers are fun to make - especially if you have kids - but otherwise just go with a color close to “true blue” or keep your food coloring handy. Here are some bright red, white and blue dessert ideas to finish off your 4th of July feast as you wait for the fireworks to start.

• Red, White and Blue Velvet Cake is a multi-layer cake with tiers of blue and red velvet cakes. The cake may be an unusual color, but it is very festive, moist and fluffy. White frosting brings everything together.
• Strawberry Buttermilk Shortcakes have red and white covered, with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Add in some blueberries to make it fit the Independence Day theme
• Fresh Strawberry Pie is another dessert that makes use of fresh berries to bring a brilliant red color to the table. This dessert is easy to make and  tastes just as good as it looks.
• Little Blueberry Upside Down Cakes have blue covered, with a layer of juicy berries on top. These are like cupcakes, with berries instead of the frosting. They’re great for serving a crowd since each is a single-serving and can eaten by hand.
• Other great options include Fresh Strawberry Frozen Yogurt, Fresh Blueberry Tart, Strawberry Mascarpone Cream Puffs, and Berry-Topped Pavlova, all of which take further advantage of in-season summer fruits.

If you need to serve a really big crowd, a Cupcake Flag (pictured above) is a great option. You can make it as big as you need to, whether you’re going to serve 36 cupcakes or 136. To infuse some extra color into your cupcakes, try making rainbow cupcakes with just red, white and blue layers, then using those cakes as the base for the flag.

Arrowroot, or arrowroot starch, is a powdery product made from the arrowroot plant, a starchy tropical root. The plant is dried and ground up to make the powder, which is primarily used as a thickener in the kitchen, much like cornstarch. Much like cornstarch, it is an excellent thickening agent. It has about twice the thickening power of regular flour. Unlike cornstarch, however, arrowroot is completely flavorless and will not impart a starchy taste into puddings or other dishes that it is used to thicken.

Another reason that arrowroot is called for in recipes is that it is extremely digestible, moreso than regular wheat flour. It can be used in cookies and crackers as a substitute for part of the flour, and you can find “arrowroot biscuits” in stores that are often said to sooth the stomach. It is also a very popular ingredient in gluten-free baking. Still, it’s primary use is as a thickener. To use it, it must be mixed with some cold water before being added to a hot liquid to prevent clumping. Arrowroot can be found at some specialty grocers and can also be ordered online.

• Lemonade and limeade are refreshing drinks, not just because they’re served cold, but because of the zestiness of the citrus fruits. This zestiness carries over into other dishes, so it’s no surprise that Culinary in the Country dubbed these Coconut-Lime Bars with Hazelnut Shortbread Crust as being refreshing. The bright lime flavor really stands out against the sweet coconut and nutty crunch of a shortbread crust packed with toasted hazelnuts.
• Hazelnuts also popped up in Visions of Sugar Plum’s Cinnamon Hazelnut Brownies. These rich brownies have Nutella - that delicious chocolate hazelnut spread - mixed into the batter to infuse it with hazelnut flavor (as well as enhancing the chocolate of the brownies). They are also topped off with chocolate chips and hazelnut pieces. The hazelnuts toast up nicely in the oven and add some great texture to these bars, as well as bringing even more attention to the Nutella in the batter.
• I’ve always liked jelly roll-type cakes because they aren’t fussy and have a fun look to them - not to mention that they taste delicious and are very versatile. The Rolled Nut Cake with Raspberries from Anne’s Food is a perfect example. The cake base is a simple sponge cake that includes ground hazelnuts and it is filled with fresh whipped cream and raspberries. The whole thing takes very little time to put together and it has a light flavor and texture that is perfect for summer, especially if you get some top notch berries in there.
• Cogito Ergo Creo made a delicious looking Vanilla Cream Pie with Gingersnap Crust that doesn’t use any cream. The recipe is based on a Chocolate Moo-less Pie recipe that uses tofu as the base and gets its flavor and richness from melted chocolate chips. The vanilla pie calls for melted white chocolate chips, so unlike the chocolate version, it’s not vegan, but it is creamy, decadent and very easy to put together. It’s also a little bit sturdier than your typical vanilla cream pie, so you shouldn’t have any problems serving it on a hot summer night, either.
• When you have a lot of fresh, ripe strawberries, you don’t need to do too much with them to really show them off. Closet Cooking’s Strawberry Tart is made with puff pastry and plenty of berries. It’s simple, and really puts the jewel-like berries into the spotlight. The tart is garnished with a generous sprinkle of chopped pistachios, which add crunch and a nice splash of green to the ruby red base beneath them. This tart is probably best the day it is made, but if you like strawberries, I suspect that getting through the whole thing won’t be much of a problem!

If you’re not familiar with Threadless,  you might want to head on over and check out their site. The t-shirt company started small and became a runaway hit by using user-submitted designs for their clothing. The community is huge and new designs are usually voted in by them. They’re a creative crowd. The designs range from pieces that look like classical works of art (or better) to those that are just a little silly or fun.

This week, Threadless launched their Threadcakes contest. The contest is to turn t-shirt art into edible art, and invites users to come up with cake designs that match those of their favorite Threadless tees. It’s probably a bit harder than it sounds since some of the shirt designs are so unusual, but it’s a fun challenge to take on. There are lots of prizes and categories for both 2D and 3D cakes. I’m one of the judges this year, along with Jen from Cake Wrecks, Louise from Cake Journal, Jennifer from Bake or Break and Mary Alice from Charm City Cakes/Ace of Cakes.

The contest runs until August 3rd, 2009, with no limits to the number of entries you can submit. There will even be some “surprise” weekly prizes given out, too! Check out some of the previous entries pictured below, then browse through the Threadless tees to find some inspiration for your own cake!

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Nestle’s oh-so-convenient tubes of refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough are being recalled by the company due to several reported cases of E. coli illnesses that may have originated by eating raw cookie dough. So far, 65 people in 29 states have come up positive, according to the FDA. The E. coli strain has not been definitively linked to the cookie dough, but as there is reported to be a strong correlation between the raw dough and the illnesses, Nestle launched a voluntary recall this morning of all refrigerated cookie dough products. None of their other products are included in the recall.

It is worth noting that the directions on the cookie dough package strongly discourage eating the dough raw, as tempting as it may be, in all situations.

Sounds like a good reason to bake some chocolate chip cookies from scratch!

• Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Strawberry Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Giant Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies