A good carrot cake is a hard thing to beat. Granted, there are some less-than-tasty ones out there (too oily/wet, too sweet, to dense), but when it hits the right combination of sweetness and moistness - combined with cream cheese frosting - it’s great. Carrots are veggies that are high in sugar and don’t have a strong flavor of their own, so they work well in cakes and breads. Some other vegetables fit this profile, too, like pumpkin/squash and zucchini. Cake Spy wanted to see exactly what other veggies would work out when incorporated into cakes and did a veggie cake taste test to see.

Broccoli, snap peas, radishes, parsnips and brussel sprouts were all tested. Carrots were included as a baseline. Broccoli turned out to be a bit bitter and “healthy” tasting - not great for a cake. Brussel sprouts, with their similar flavor profile, fared even worse. Sweet snap peas, on the other hand, were tasty and added a pleasant texture to the cake. Radishes turned out surprisingly well, as their naturally spiciness added complexity to the cake. Parsnips had virtually no flavor of their own and the cake tasted virtually identical to carrot cake.

Overall? Carrot cake reigns supreme and it doesn’t look like you can pluck any old veggie out of the produce aisle and substitute it into a cake. But since some of the veggies worked out to be pretty good, it might be worth a bit of experimentation with fresh produce this summer to see if you can fine tune a recipe and use up some veggies from the garden.

I’m incredibly lucky to live in California, a state that not only produces fantastic produce, but does so year-round. As a result, you might think that I don’t pay too much attention to what is in season and what isn’t simply because so much is available. But I do. Despite the availability of decent strawberries in December, for instance, nothing beats fresh fruits and veggies that are picked at the peak of their natural season and because I want my baked goods to turn out as tasty as possible, I keep track. Fruits feature much more commonly in the breads and other things I make, so I’ve put together a little reference guide for what fruits are in season this spring. Keep an eye out - you don’t want to miss the peak of the season for any of these.

Now: Apricots, Cherries, Citrus (Grapefruits, Kumquats, Lemons, Navel Oranges, Tangelos/Tangerines), Passion Fruit, Pineapple, Raspberries, Rhubarb, Strawberries

Some now, more later in the season: Asian Pears, Honeydew Melons, Mango, Nectarines, Plums, Watermelon

Spring Fruit Recipe Ideas:

• Strawberry Whole Wheat Pancakes
• Bailey’s Raspberries
• Rhubarb and Ginger Loaf Cake
• Balsamic Strawberries
• Sour Cream Lemon Shortbread Bars
• Black Cherry Sour Cream Muffins

There are so many varieties of apples available in stores and at farmers markets these days, that it can be challenging to choose apples for baking. In the past, a baker might have reached for sweet-tart Granny Smith apples without a second thought, but there are many different kinds of apples that will work just as well, if not better, in baking pies, crisp and other apple desserts.

Texture and taste are the two most important qualities to consider in a baking apple, and the apple that you like best for everyday snacking might not hold up when put into a pie. Apples need to retain their shape and not turn into applesauce during baking. The best apples will be able to offer a little bit of resistance (keep a little hint of crunch) even after a long time in the oven. Baking apples should also not be too sweet, since most pie recipes call for a fair amount of sugar. The sugar serves as flavoring and helps thicken the juices of the apples as they cook, and cutting it down to compensate for super-sweet apples can sometimes change the outcome of the final pie.

Granny Smiths are always a decent choice for pie, as they are easy to find, will hold up during baking and can take a lot of extra flavor from sugar and spices. Jonathan, Jonagold and Pippin apples are other excellent sweet-tart choices. Gravenstein, Braeburn, Fuji and Pink Lady Apples are all crisp and sturdy, as well. Red Delicious and Golden Delicious, despite their promising names, are not good choices for baking, and neither are Gala and Cortland, since they tend to become mealy in pie fillings.

If the recommend apples aren’t available in your area, or if others not mentioned here are (this is the case in many apple-growing areas), try experimenting a little with different types of apples. One way to do this is to blend together several different kinds for a pie filling, giving your pie a mixture of textures and flavors - and covering up any apples that bake up less-than-perfectly.

I personally like to use a mix most of the time no matter what and, at the moment, my favorite is a blend of Granny Smith, Braeburn and/or Pink Lady. If you have a favorite blend, or if I missed your favorite type of baking apple (because there are so many to choose from), leave a note in the comments below!

The EatSmart column from the most recent USA Weekend listed 10 foods that every cook needs to have in their kitchen. There are a lot of things that could potential fill up a culinary must-have list, so to narrow things down a bit, this particular list was composed with an eye towards eating smart - as you might have guessed from the column name - includes some canned/pre-prepared foods in an effort to combine convenience and health:

• Fat free half n’ half
• No-salt-added canned tomatoes
• No-salt-added canned beans
• Canned salmon
• Dried cranberries
• Balsamic vinegar
• Walnuts
• Oatmeal
• Canned hot peppers
• Frozen spinach

I actually have all of these things in my kitchen, but I’m not sure that I would necessarily say that they were my most important staples. Rice and/or quinoa would probably make my list and I’d much rather have fresh veggies than canned salmon. That said, it’s certainly not a bad idea to keep these in mind when shopping because a lot can be done with them when you’re cooking.

Bananas are not exactly an exciting fruit, although seeing cartoon characters slip on banana peels can be quite funny. That said, there is one fun trick out there that involves a banana and can be used to impress your friends, family and coworkers. It involves slicing a banana into pieces while it is still completely encased in its peel. Preslicing just takes some careful work with a needle and thread, but after you practice on a few fruit, it shouldn’t take too long to made each one. And it’s worth it to see the look one someone’s face when he or she peels the banana and discovers that it is already in pieces.

The complete instruction sheet (with illustrations) is below:

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I know that some people think that the extinction of bananas is a myth. While not every variety of banana is at risk, the most known and available type of banana in the US, the Cavendish, is heading towards extinction. There are hundreds of varieties of bananas, which many Americans would be suprised to learn as 90% of the time bananas in the market are yellow and uniform in size.

The plants - not trees - that yield bananas are actually giant herbs, the largest herbs in the world. The bananas themselves are actually berries. Bananas ripen best off of the plant they grow on and are picked and shipped every day of the year. Bananas are the most popular fresh fruit in the United States. In fact, the average American eats nearly 30 pounds of bananas every year, roughly 100 bananas! Currently, bananas are the world’s fourth most profitable food crop, behind rice wheat and potatoes. Almost 88 million tons (80 million metric tonnes) are harvested each year, with India being the largest producer. Bananas have 1.2 grams of protein, are high in vitamins b6, C and potassium and contain lots of fiber, among their other nutrients. It is possible to live on a diet of just milk and bananas. Good to know.

Now, I love bananas. I love them plain and I love to cook with them. I’ll miss the cavendish if and when it goes, but I will enjoy having more banana options at the market. To thoroughly enjoy the lovely, yellow bananas currently in my kitchen, I made some banana muffins and topped them with a banana crumb topping. I put such a thick crumb layer on the muffins, it only covered 8 of the 12 in the batch. I did not mind that the rest were plain, but I would advise you to use a more judicious distribution of the crumb topping. Shortening makes a slightly softer crumb in the topping, but you can substitute an equal amount of butter.

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