Best-selling author Lois Winston recently came up with a winning idea for a recipe book: a compilation of authors’ favourite dessert recipes, mixed with their tips on writing and relationships. When Lois asked me to contribute a recipe, I was thrilled. The ideal recipe book for a romance author!
Now, 105 authors later and a LOT of editing, organisation and co-ordination on Lois’s part, I’m excited to say our recipe book is a reality. Check out the beautiful cover!
Here’s the blurb: 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.
And if you want to see some mouthwatering photos, plus a taster of what’s inside the book, you can check us out on our Pinterest board. So many delicious recipes, I don’t know which to start baking first!
As you can maybe tell from Lois’s blurb, the majority of the authors are from the US or Canada. (Here in the UK we eat biscuits and sweets, rather than cookies and candy – and we can eat them for England!) As the only English author in the book, I gave a lot of thought on which recipe to contribute. I wanted to contribute a recipe that was authentic and English, that was fairly easy to make, and that pretty much everyone in England has eaten at some time or another. Finally I plumped for a childhood favourite, and a dessert I still bake today: rhubarb crumble and custard.
Rhubarb isn’t in season at the moment, so I’m showing a photo of the blackcurrant and apple crumble I made last week, plus a tin of Bird’s custard powder. I give a recipe for “real” custard in our recipe book, but to be honest, most people in England would use custard powder when making a dessert at home. And Bird’s custard powder has the “By Royal Appointment” seal on the tin – so if it’s good enough for Her Maj, it’s good enough for me! And I expect Prince Philip loves nothing better than to tuck into a bowl of crumble and custard after his Sunday roast.
If you’d like to try any of the recipes, Bake, Love, Write is available as a paperback, and as an e-book, from places like Amazon US and Amazon UK, also Barnes and Noble and iTunes, etc . I hope you’ll give it a try, and if you do try my rhubarb and crumble recipe, please come back and let me know!
And finally I’ll leave you with a lovely video made by Kaye Spencer, one of the 105 contributing authors.
Do you love baking? What’s your favourite childhood dessert? And can you get custard powder where you live? (I know this was one of the things I missed when I lived in Europe!) If you have any questions or comments at all, I’d love to hear from you!
Helena Fairfax 
Thanks for featuring the cookbook, Helena!
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Pleasure, Lois! Looking forward to my print copies arriving :)
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Helena, I love desserts and I love cookbooks. I have your recipe for scones that you wrote about on a previous blog probably a year ago. I love rhubarb and make something I bet that is similar to your rhubarb crumble and custard.
Lois, this looks like a fabulous cookbook with lots of yummy recipes. Great idea. Love the title. Thank you.
Susan
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Hi Susan, thanks so much for coming. I’m really looking forward to checking out all the recipes in the book, because most of them I won’t know, living in the UK. There is a similar dessert to crumble in Germany and Austria called Streusel, so I’m not surprised there are also versions of crumble in the US. I’ve yet to see anything exactly like our custard. The French call custard “creme anglaise”, but theirs is a much paler version. I love to try out recipes from different regions. Thanks very much for dropping by, and your great comment!
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Hi Helena, Your recipe is on my must-try list. But, I have to admit, I plan to work my way through the entire book even if I have to increase my running miles.
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Hi Kathleen, that’s my intention, too! There are so many recipes in there that I’ve never heard of and I’m dying to try. I’ll have to increase my dog’s walk to burn it all off :) Thanks for dropping in, and for your lovely comment!
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There are so many wonderful recipes in this book. I’m going to get so fat trying them all!
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Hi Melissa, yes, I know! I think I put on a couple of pounds just looking at the photos on Pinterest! :)
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Looks great, Helena – wonderful cover and I love crumble, though I try not to eat it often!
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Thanks, Ros! Yes, Lois made a great cover. I was so chuffed when I saw it. Thanks very much for calling in!
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I think if you’re going to make a treat, it should be from scratch (but that’s just me – a writer fighting chair-butt who tries not to keep sweets in the house).
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You have a good point, Mel. Powdered custard is convenient – and to be honest, I love it! – but you can’t beat the taste of the real thing. I empathise with the chair-butt :) Thanks so much for coming by!
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Just wanted to pop on and mention that I’m enjoying the other authors’ recipes too much–on come the pounds! (This despite being dairy and wheat allergic, many of the recipes are substitution friendly like yours, Helena.)
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Thanks for popping in to tell us, Conda! I’m taking the book on holiday next week, and my husband is looking forward to baking some of the recipes :) The only problem is deciding which ones. They all look good! Thanks for your lovely comment!
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