Bake your pick: A stunning wreath, a smashing sleigh — or nutty, decadent, doable treats

My friends in Great Britain insist no holiday can be merry without mulled wine. But why should the Brits have all the fun?

Before moving to Massachusetts, I thought everyone ate baked beans and brown bread on Saturday night. And so, the first time I visited friends in Boston on a Saturday, I fully expected to be hit by the smell of beans baking and bread steaming when I stepped over the threshold. As it turned out, if I was counting on a traditional New England meal, I was hundreds of years too late.

We remember the chill we felt years ago when we were asked to bring something “sweet potatoey” in a casserole to a potluck Thanksgiving dinner. “Do whatever you like with it,” chirped our hostess, who grew up in the South, where sweet potatoes have been cultivated for centuries. Instead of feeling comforted by her open-ended invitation to step into the kitchen and let loose with four pounds of sweet potatoes and a casserole, we were practically catatonic. As Northerners who thought baking was the beginning and end of things you could do with sweet potatoes, the idea of putting them in a casserole was more than we could manage.

Trillium Children’s Farm Home will host a gingerbread house contest from Dec. 6 to 14. The contest is open to children, adults and professional gingerbread artists with prizes ranging from $15 to $100.

Our Thanksgiving holiday can trace its origin to a three-day celebration in 1621, probably in October, that the colonists shared with Wampanoag Indians. Native Americans celebrated harvests for centuries before the Europeans arrived. The feast the colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared was a more heartfelt celebration than today’s meal of mysterious origin, then football and shopping extravaganzas. Times were lean. Those not challenged by starvation faced diseases and unrelenting daily physical demands. The only thing historical records prove were on the menu were venison and wild fowl. Vegetables were limited. Potatoes and sweet potatoes weren’t available yet. There were no ingredients for pie crusts or bread, let alone ovens. Cranberries were used as tart flavoring, not sweetened with that rare commodity, sugar. Historians say guests may have also enjoyed local seafood, herbs, grapes, plums, Indian corn, barley, nuts, honey, eggs, squash and beans.

We’re so used to making crisps that when a new recipe lands in our inbox, the first thing we do is head for the kitchen — which is exactly what we did when the Cranberry Crumble showed up. Then we took another look and a couple of red flags caught our eye. Instead of the crisps we’re used to, with lots of fruit and crumbly brown sugar toppings, this one had a layer of vanilla buttermilk cake in the middle. What really made us hesitate was the directions for making the cake. There was no mention of stir, beat or whisk. Instead the whole shebang went into the processor, and the blade did all the work.

Eating homemade mayonnaise is the kind of luxurious pleasure — like eating chocolate in the bath — that shouldn’t require apology. Rich yet subtle in flavor, with a pillowy texture, homemade mayo is nothing like the pale, cloying stuff you get out of a jar.

Don’t knock the country cousins. Take chocolate pudding cake, for example, the down-home kin of molten chocolate cakes now on fancy restaurant menus throughout America and Europe.

Mother Nature cranked the outdoor thermostat down earlier than usual this fall. She seems to share our grumpiness over uncertain times. While it’s sad to see summer, and its glorious bounty, screech to a halt, there is just as rich of a bounty ahead. You just have to don your rain slicker and rubber boots to pick ’em. Believe it or not, frost is actually good for some foods.