#COOKING WITH CLORIS--VICTORIAN CURRANT CAKE

The Victorians gave us many of the traditions we now associate with Christmas. This Victorian-inspired sweet bread, featured in Bake, Love, Write: 105 Authors Share Dessert Recipes and Advice on Love and Writing, is a perfect complement to your holiday dinner, whether you’re serving ham, turkey, or a beef roast.

Victorian Currant Bread

(adapted by author Barbara Monajem from a recipe featured in Beeton’s Book of Household Management, published in 1861.) 

3 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup brown sugar

1 stick butter, softened

1-1/4 cups milk

1-1/2 cups currants

1/3 cup diced candied lemon peel (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix the flour, baking powder, soda and salt together.  In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk and mix well. Add the currants and lemon peel and stir until thoroughly mixed.

Fill a greased loaf pan about 2/3 full and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out more or less clean.

Old-fashioned cookbooks don’t give specific information about pan sizes. This recipe made too much batter for one loaf pan. The remaining batter can be poured into a muffin tin or mini-loaf pans, but reduce bake time to 20–25 minutes.

Bake, Love, Write: 105 Authors Share Dessert Recipes and Advice on Love and Writing

An Amazon bestselling cookbook

What do most authors have in common, no matter what genre they write? They love desserts. Sweets sustain them through pending deadlines and take the sting out of crushing rejection letters and nasty reviews. They also often celebrate their successes—selling a book, winning a writing award, making a bestseller list, or receiving a fabulous review—with decadent indulgences. And when authors chat with each other, they often talk about their writing and their lives. Recipes. Writing. Relationships. In this cookbook 105 authors not only share their favorite recipes for fabulous cakes, pies, cookies, candy, and more, they also share the best advice they’ve ever received on love and writing.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR BARBARA MONAJEM

Barbara Monajem started writing at eight years old. She has wandered from children’s fantasy to paranormal and historical romance, with mystery thrown in whenever she can make it fit. Learn more about Barbara and her books at her website. – AP

Why a Native American hero?

The reason goes back all the way to my childhood. I grew up on the west coast of Canada in a land of cedar trees and totem poles, and the First Nations art of that region has always had a powerful effect on me—it grips my solar plexus and won’t let go.

Much later, after moving to the American South, I spent a lot of time visiting prehistoric sites—mostly what are called Indian Mounds—in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Missouri. I relish the sense of the sacred one gets while visiting these mounds. I found them inspiring, and ages ago I started a mystery which began with a girl who had been drugged and left on the top of one of these mounds.

Later still, for several years running, my family spent several Christmas vacations in Arizona, visiting a friend who taught school on the Navajo Reservation. I had read several of Tony Hillerman’s fabulous mysteries about that area, which made visiting there doubly interesting. I read up on Navajo culture. We went on long walks and visited Anasazi ruins. We ate fry bread and Navajo tacos.

Put all this together, and somehow I ended up with a story about Constantine Dufray, a telepathic half-Navajo who was born out west but moved to New Orleans when he was eight years old, and grew up to become both a rock star—because New Orleans is the home of such great music—and a vigilante in the kinky little city of Bayou Gavotte. He came into being over the course of several versions of the story which began on the Indian mound. He was a secondary character (who almost took over) in the first two books of the Bayou Gavotte series. Eventually I knew more or less who he was, what had happened to shape him, and also what sort of woman could handle him. Finally, I got to write his story—Heart of Constantine.

Heart of Constantine

Vigilante Native American rock star Constantine Dufray has hit rock bottom. His telepathic abilities have spun out of control, and destructive rumors about him run rampant. Some are true—he caused a violent cop’s suicide, and telepathy destroyed his marriage—but he didn’t poison his wife, and he couldn’t have caused riots at his concerts, killing his fans…or could he? Now an unknown enemy is trying to frame him for rape and murder. 

Aura reader Marguerite McHugh finally gets a close encounter with the mysterious star, but it’s nothing like she expected. When Constantine finds her after she’s been drugged at one of his shows, she’s pulled into his quest for the truth. As dangers mount and murders pile up, Constantine and Marguerite are forced into an ever more intimate relationship. Only by facing their fears and working together can they unmask the killer before more innocent people die. 

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COOKING WITH CLORIS-- AUTHOR BARBARA MONAJEM AND THE MYSTERY OF MATRIMONY CAKE

Author Barbara Monajem started writing when she was eight years old. She has wandered from children’s fantasy to paranormal and historical romance, with mystery thrown in whenever she can make it fit. Today she joins us with a recipe for Matrimony Cake and to tell us about her historical romance novellas. Learn more about Barbara and her books at her website. – AP  

The Mystery of Matrimony Cake

Sometimes, I wish I wrote a mystery series about food. It would supply me with blog topics, because who doesn’t like recipes? And I love cooking, although I rarely write my experiments down.

But no – I write historical and paranormal romance and mystery, and although my characters (even the vampires) enjoy good food, it’s not the focus of the story. I’ll have to try to remember to put something recipe-worthy in each story. Occasionally, it happens purely by serendipity. For example, last year’s Christmas novella mentions a wassail-like drink called lamb’s wool. It’s made with apples and tastes fabulous. A vampire novella I’m writing that takes place in kinky Bayou Gavotte, Louisiana, has a food fight club where they provide banana cream pies. The heroine of the historical I’m working on right now tries to get her mind off sexy dreams about the hero by thinking about asparagus pudding.

Um, no. I bet no one’s going to try making that (well, except maybe me, because I love trying old-fashioned recipes). 

Anyway, here’s a recipe that has nothing to do with any of my books. I got this recipe from my mother, who I assume got it from her mother. I have NO idea why it's called Matrimony Cake. It's not like any wedding cake I've ever had. In fact, it's a variety of what is normally called date squares or date bars. Is it named for the institution of marriage? It has oats -- because hopefully all the wild oats have been sown and from now on there will only be domestic ones. It has dates -- lots and lots of dates, of which a happy marriage should have many. Sugar -- well, yeah. Cinnamon and salt for spice. Okay, so I’m getting carried away, but if anyone knows the real reason for its name, please tell me!

Matrimony Cake

Crust:

1/2 cup butter

1.5 cups rolled oats

1 cup flour (I use whole wheat pastry or white whole wheat)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon soda

Mix together to a crumbly texture and spread half the mixture on the bottom of the pan. My recipe doesn't specify the pan size. I seem to remember my mother using a rectangular pan, but I used an 8"x8" pan and it worked fine.

Filling:

1 pound dates, pitted and chopped. (I suggest using those very sweet lovely dark Mediterranean dates. The lighter-brown California dates just aren't as good, in my opinion.)

1 cup water

Salt. (The recipe doesn't specify; I used 1/2 teaspoon)

Cinnamon. (Again, the recipe doesn't specify. I used 1 teaspoon.)

Cook filling until soft and spread over the bottom crust. Then spread the rest of the crumble on top.

Bake for 1/2 hour at 350 degrees. Cut into squares. They're great hot with ice cream or cold just by themselves.

My May Day Mischief novellas don’t have much in the way of food, but they do have magic!

The Magic of His Touch (May Day Mischief, Book One)

Tired of being paraded before every eligible bachelor, Peony Whistleby decides it's time to find her true love—through the ancient custom of rolling naked in the dew on May Day morning. But the magic goes awry when she is caught in the act—and by an entirely unsuitable man. And yet, the way his eyes linger upon her flesh ignites a sensual craving that can only be satisfied by his touch…

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Bewitched by His Kiss (May Day Mischief, Book Two)

Lucasta Barnes knows the folly believing in magic can lead to, and won't accept that her illicit tryst with a notorious rake was the result of anything more than pure lust—or that it has bonded them together forever. Yet she can't deny that she yearns for just one more night in his arms…

David, Earl of Elderwood, is known as an enchanter of women, but ever since a passionate encounter with Lucasta three years ago, he desires only her. How can he convince his thoroughly practical paramour that love is the greatest magic of all?

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