Erin Mann is baking a new cake every week for a year from the "All Cakes Considered" cookbook and shares her adventures here on AnnArbor.com. Read past columns here.

I have many fond memories of growing up in Pennsylvania. I loved playing in our backyard as a little girl. From the brook where my father showed my sister and I how to look under the rocks for crawfish, to the woods where we’d swing on wild grapevines and walk along trails lined with patches of mayapples and ferns, to picking juicy raspberries from the bushes on the hill; it was one playground I never grew tired of.

This week’s Black Walnut Cake brought back my childhood memories of our very tall black walnut tree that stretched up to the heavens. I remember the walnut’s yellow-green husks with their distinctive scent that resembled limes and how they stained my hands when I touched them. I also remember being knocked on the noggin’ a time or two by a falling walnut!

Where do I find black walnuts now that I know longer have access to them in my backyard? I called local grocery stores. No luck. Then a friend told me she’d seen black walnuts being sold at the farmer’s market. With the help of Real Time Farms, Rex and I confirmed that there was a vendor who had black walnuts for sale at last week's market.

I usually bake my cakes early in the week (Sunday or Monday), but decided to postpone baking until after the Wednesday farmer’s market in hopes I could find black walnuts there.

Unfortunately, my search for black walnuts at the farmer's market on Wednesday was a bust. There wasn’t a black walnut to be found.

I'd given my search for black walnuts an honest effort, and now it was time for my backup plan.  I’d made a banana walnut torte for Jenni’s mother’s birthday a couple weeks ago and had a bag of leftover (English) walnuts I'd previously roasted and chopped.

The Black Walnut Cake recipe follows standard mixing procedure. The recipe calls for a 12-cup Bundt pan. I was using a 10-cup Bundt pan so I made sure not to overfill it and leave a little batter in the bowl.

"All Cakes Considered" cites AllRecipes.com as the original source of the recipe. Instead of the frosting, Melissa Gray's version substitutes a maple butter glaze.

As the cake cooled I made the glaze by blending together 2 tablespoons each of melted butter and milk, 1 teaspoon of maple flavoring and 1 1/4 cups of powdered sugar. I drizzled the glaze over the cake and served it warm.  The cake smelled and tasted like a stack of pancakes.  Mmm!  

Erin Mann is ruining diets one cake at a time and welcomes your baking wisdom. Email this baking bachelorette at SheGotTheBeat@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter.