• If you're going to buy a dwarf Key lime tree for your dad, be careful.
• A Very Dallas Thanksgiving.
• A quick guide to some biodynamic wines.
• Explore the foods of Cleveland, Louisville, Memphis, and St. Louis.
• A guide to Thanksgiving in your 20s, 30s, and 40s.
• America's best new whiskeys.
• This month's recipes: Sweet & Spicy Chicken Curry, Cashews with Crispy Sage and Garlic, Potato Chips with Chevre, Pepper Jelly, and Bacon, Smoked Mozarella Spread with Flatbread Crackers, Toasted Pumpkin Seeds, Pumpkin and Yellow Split Pea Soup, Savory Cranberry-Walnut Biscuits, Dr. Pepper-Glazed Ham with Prunes, Roasted Turkey with Italian Sausage Stuffing, Apple Cake with Toffee Crust, and Slow Cooker Sour Cream Cheesecake.

• What is Country Captain?
• A new store in Somerville sells only cupcakes! (And here's more about cupcakes from the Globe's Dishing blog.)
• An interview with cookbook editor Judith Jones.
• A look at Adam Roberts' (The Amateur Gourmet) virtual book tour.
• The secrets to a great bundt cake.
• Mapping the genome of the pinot noir grape.
• This week's recipes: Evan's Lama Curry, Martha's Paprikash, Greek Salad, Tomato Soup, and Spiced and Glazed Apple Cake.

A big photo is the perfect way to share the big flavors of this amazing looking Caramel Apple Cake from Peabody at Culinary Concoctions. The recipe is an adaptation of one of Paula Deen's favorites, Grandgirl's Fresh Apple Cake. The cake itself is moist and tender. The original uses a lot of pecans and some shredded coconut along with the apples, but this version uses chopped walnuts and raisins to better complement the topping.

Peabody baked the cake in individual-sized cake pans, rather than one large pan, and put together what might just be the most sweetly decadent topping we've seen in a while. It has gooey caramel, caramelized apples and a drizzle of white chocolate, for contrast. As you might expect, this is one sweet dessert, but we suspect that you'll have a hard time putting the fork down once you've picked it up and taken the first bite.

The full post can be read here: http://www.culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com/2006/09/05/the-caramel-apple-does-not-fall-far-from-the-tree/

While reducing the fat in baking gets easier with time, especially after you practice with a few recipes and accept the possibility of failing every once in a while, you have to wonder how far you can push the limits. While there are fat free cakes, like angel food, the texture in those is decidedly different from that of a traditional cake, which you expect to be moist and tender, not airy. After much testing, cookbook author Sarah Philips, came up with a whole book of all-natural, low fat recipes (The Healthy Oven Baking Book). This cake is a variation on one of the recipes from that book - and it has almost no fat.

• The Globe has a guide to the best vegetarian restaurants in Boston.
• Some dinner ideas if you're having a graduation party, all involving penne pasta. Not really sure what makes these recipes "graduation" meals, but they gotta tie it into the month somehow.
• The wonderful world of homemade cheeses.
• We've all heard of King crabs and snow crabs, but what are Jonah crabs? Sounds like a really personal problem.
• Taste Kitchen: who makes the best 2% organic milk?
• This week's recipes: Legacy Apple Cake, Asparagus Soup, and a quick wine sauce for roast chicken.

1. Cooking With Ginger has a great rant on what to eat, or rather, when what we are supposed to eat one day is countered by some other revelation the next.
2. Anne of Baking For Britain may not be one of the most frequent posters, but by heck laddie her writing is well worth waiting for. I love the mix of historical facts and adapted recipes. The latest compares homemade Sedgemoor Easter Cakes and a pack purchased from M&S.
3. Eating Leeds has AT LAST become a proper Englishman in actually liking custard - and seems to be a master at making it too.
4. The English Patis has posted one of those 'I must make this' recipes, a Spiced Apple Cake.
5. Fiordizucca Goes English is keeping it local with a Nettle Tart. Do nettles grow anywhere outside Europe, it's something we should all know?
6. Sqeezeweasle writing as Gastronomy Domaine got a mention in Olive magazine, but didnt boast about it like I did!
7. A new blog to me - Rustic - details how to recreate Hunkar Begendi and Tas Kabab which is basically lamb and aubergine from her Turkish homeland's Ottoman past.
8. Finally Johanna has been out partying and plying welcome party-people with Tomato & Pesto mini-Galettes.

There are few things that are better than an easy-to-make cake, and if it has any type of streusel or crumble topping, it's nearly impossible. These easy cakes are great for breakfast and for snacking because they don't require any sort of frosting, as dessert cakes do. Of course, you could still serve one as a casual dessert, if you'd like. Maki's Apple Crumble Cake on her blog, i was just really very hungry, is one of these excellent, all purpose cakes. Not only does it look divinely moist and delicious, it is simple to make. Wet ingredients plus dry ingredients, topped with apples and a cinnamon crumble topping. A mere 40 minutes later, and you'll be trying not to burn your fingers on the pan as you cut your first slice.

Now that I think about it, sliced apples and crumble topping will improve just about any cake. I'm short-listing the idea for my next Sunday brunch.