TVBT: CHRISTMAS AT THE CUPCAKE CAFE by Jenny Colgan (Cupcake Cafe #2) #Promo #Recipe #Giveaway @WilliamMorrow @AvonBooks

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CHRISTMAS AT THE CUPCAKE CAFE

Issy Randall, proud owner of The Cupcake Cafe, is in love and couldn’t be happier. Her new business is thriving and she is surrounded by close friends, even if her cupcake colleagues Pearl and Caroline don’t seem quite as upbeat about the upcoming season of snow and merriment. But when her boyfriend Austin is scouted for a possible move to New York, Issy is forced to face up to the prospect of a long-distance romance. And when the Christmas rush at the cafe - with its increased demand for her delectable creations - begins to take its toll, Issy has to decide what she holds most dear.

This December, Issy will have to rely on all her reserves of courage, good nature and cinnamon, to make sure everyone has a merry Christmas, one way or another. . .

Indulge yourself and your sweet-toothed friends with Jenny Colgan’s new novel, simply bursting with Christmas cupcake recipes and seasonal sugar-fuelled fun.

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Polar Bear Cupcakes

These little cakes are irresistible. Cut the liquorice into tiny eyes and a little nose, and use white buttons for the ears. Or if, like me, you hate liquorice, use chocolate chips. Try not to feel too sad when you bite into them; let’s face it, anyone who can eat a jelly baby can eat a coconut baby polar bear.

125g unsalted butter, at room temperature

125g caster sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

125g sifted self-raising flour

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp milk

For this recipe you need two different sizes of cupcake tin, one smaller than the other. Preheat oven to 190°C/gas mark 5, and put paper cases in the tins. Beat butter and sugar together, then add eggs, flour, vanilla and milk and beat until the mix drops slowly off the spoon (add more milk if it won’t). Spoon into paper cases, put in oven. Check with a toothpick after 12 minutes – if it comes out clean, we’re ready.

For the topping

125g unsalted butter

250g icing sugar, sifted

1tsp coconut extract (you can also use Malibu, if you’re feeling frisky!)

splash of milk

desiccated coconut

chocolate chips, large and small

white chocolate buttons

Beat the butter and add the icing sugar, then add the coconut extract and the milk until you have a light frosting. Spread the frosting all over one small and one large cupcake, then stick them together so the little cake makes the polar bear’s head. Carefully roll the bear in the desiccated coconut.

Add chocolate chips to make the eyes and the nose, and the white chocolate buttons to make the ears – and voilà! Polar bear cupcakes!!!!

Merry Christmas!

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Jenny Colgan is the author of numerous bestselling novels, including Christmas at the Cupcake Café and The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris, which are also published by Sphere. Meet Me at the Cupcake Café won the 2012 Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance and was a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller, as was Welcome to Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop of Dreams, which won the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Award 2013. Jenny is married with three children and lives in London and France.

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Q&A with The Always Amazing Kristan Higgins #NewRelease #Giveaway #Recipe @kristan_Higgins @sarahburningham

A Tasty Read chats with Kristan Higgins

 So, for any of my readers that have been with me from the beginning, you MUST know by now that I am a HUGE Kristan Higgins Fan...Yes, I have met her and acted like a teeny-bopper at an N'CYNC concert, but I squeeled on the inside!  And I might have asked her to adopt me a few times, but all in fun...haha!  In all seriousness, I one day hope to be as talented and as fantastic of a person as she is, and I am HONORED to have her stopping by for a little chat about her New Release, Blue Heron Book Four, IN YOUR DREAMS. (You can read my review here.)

A Tasty Read: So, since IN YOUR DREAMS is Book Four in the Blue Heron Series, which revolves around the Crazy Holland Family, I have to ask, are the Hollands based on a Family you know, or your family?

Kristan Higgins: A little bit! The grandparents, Goggy and Pops, bear some resemblance to my own maternal grandparents in the way they both bicker and love each other, and how hard they still work. There are some familiar sister dynamics between Honor and Faith that might (just might) resemble those between my sister and me. And I have a brother who’d rather drive his car into the frigid Bering Sea than hear about any feminine problems, so he and Jack have that in common.

ATR: When you first began the Blue Heron Series, did you know that you would eventually use Emmaline as a main character, or for Jack's love interest, or was that something that came to you later on?

KH: No! Em came as a surprise to me. When I first started the series, I only knew I’d write about Jack eventually. I thought about Colleen, but that seemed too easy. So when it came time to write his book, I took a look around town, so to speak, and all of a sudden, there was Emmaline, who works as a cop with Levi, Jack’s brother-in-law. And I just knew she was the one. Funny, how that happens sometimes. I didn’t know too much about her, other than she gives Levi a hard time, but the second she was in my brain, she started taking on this great personality.

ATR: Kevin...UGH...Where did his part of the storyline stem from?  Were you reading "Amazing Weight Loss" issue of People?

KH: Watching The Biggest Loser, actually! Body image is such an issue with women, but I wanted to tackle it with a male character, too. Kevin and Emmaline meet in 8^th grade, both outcasts in a tough crowd of over-indulged, wealthy kids. Em has a profound stutter; Kevin is overweight. I guess I wanted to show that men struggle with body image just as much as women. In fact, Em’s the one with healthy self-esteem, until Kevin becomes obsessed with weight and food. He was a character I loved to hate…and yet I ached for him, too. There’s a scene when he admits how much he hates being overweight, and it was heartbreaking!

I do love stories of people who’ve gone from morbidly obese to healthy and so admire what they’ve had to do to get there. But I’ve also wondered about these people who’ve hidden behind weight. What are they like without that shield? In Kevin’s case, while he became more and more attractive and fit, he also became meaner. I think he’s a great character because he’s complicated, and kind of fun to hate.

ATR: My one question that I am wondering, as I do a re-read of JUST ONE OF THE GUYS and CATCH OF THE DAY, do you ever look back and wish that you had written the heroes POV as well?

KH: Nah! I think both of those stories would’ve been weaker if we’d known what was going on in the heroes’ heads. In CATCH OF THE DAY, half of Malone’s appeal is that he’s a mystery; if we get inside his head, he’s not anymore. The same is true with Trevor. If the reader knows how he feels all along, it would certainly take a lot of bang out of certain scenes.

I love writing first person books for just that reason. In real life, we don’t get a window into someone else’s brain. Reading a first person story is incredibly intimate for that reason; it’s like we become that person. But I also love writing from the male perspective, because the dichotomy between a guy’s take on what happened vs. a woman’s take can be so funny and surprising. Jack, for example, says to Emmaline at one point: “I also like you.” A very simple statement (if you’re a guy). But when Em hears that, she has a little mental freak-out. What does that mean? He likes her, sure, but how? For how long? Why? Like as in buddy, or like-love? Like with a potential for love, or just like-lust? And there’s Jack, just cooking dinner, oblivious that “I like you” can be such a complicated statement.

ATR: Are you allowed to share what you are working on now?  Is it another Blue Heron Series Romance or a Stand Alone?

KH: I just finished a book is called IF YOU ONLY KNEW, and it’s a stand-alone women’s fiction book about two sisters. Jenny, a wedding dress designer constantly faced with happy brides, is stuck on her ex-husband, who just had a baby with his perfect and wretchedly likable new wife; Rachel, a stay-at-home mother of triplet toddlers, has just found out her husband is cheating on her. The book was incredibly fun to write and has a really lovely romance in it. It will be released as a trade paperback.

There will also be another Blue Heron book, which I’m working on right now. Connor O’Rourke shouldn’t stay single, don’t you agree?

KH: Thanks for having me, Tasty Reads! It’s been wicked fun!

ATR: Kristan, it's such a pleasure and you are welcome back ANYTIME!!

Recipe

ATR: Because this is A Tasty Read, can you share a favorite recipe, maybe one of your Grandmother's Delicious Desserts!

KH: Well, since chocolate cake plays an important role in this story, here’s Gram’s Hershey Bar Cake!

1 7-ounce Hershey bar (milk chocolate, no nuts) broken into pieces

¼ cup butter

1 ²/₃ cups boiling water

2 ¹/₃ cups unsifted flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs, lightly beaten

½ cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups light brown sugar

Combine chocolate, butter and boiling water in medium bowl; stir till smooth. In large bowl, combine flour, soda and salt, Gradually add chocolate mixture, beating well. Blend in eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Beat till smooth, for about a minute. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

Perfect Chocolate Frosting (Hershey’s recipe)

1 stick butter

²/₃ cup Hershey’s cocoa

3 cups powdered sugar

¹/₃  cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla.

Want to Win a Print copy of IN YOUR DREAMS (US ONLY)

Answer Kristan's Question and Comment with Valid Email Address

Jack and Emmaline take a midwinter trip to beautiful Malibu, California. If you could go away for a long weekend in the dead of winter, where would you go?

Places to Find Kristan:

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