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 
Leave a Reply to Good to meet you…author Judy Penz Sheluk | Helena Fairfax Cancel reply