Baking is one of the most soul satisfying things I do. I love to share home-made breads, cookies, pies, cakes, etc. with my family and friends. You can’t beat the taste of home-made. My favorite baked goods are things you rarely see at a grocery store or bakery: baklava babka, Nantucket cranberry pie, black bottom pie, rhubarb coffee cake, marionberry crunch bars. I could go on and on. Baking from scratch is a real money saver, too. Tonight I’ll be serving a rosemary and roasted garlic peasant bread with our dinner. A beautiful, crusty loaf of peasant bread costs less than $1 to produce. Baking relaxes me. From start to finish, it’s a joy.
I love baking so much that I feature it in my new Black Rock Guardians paranormal romance series. The heroines in the first three books—the Hagen cousins—own and operate Freya’s Bake Shop, named after their beloved Grandma Freya. Many of the pastries they sell at their bakeshop are my family’s favorite treats.
My Norwegian grandmother was a fabulous
baker. Her oatmeal cake is one of my all-time favorite desserts. It won’t wow
you with its looks. It’s a simple, homey, unfrosted sheet cake that tastes like
the pecan coconut filling in a German chocolate cake. Straight from the Torland
family cookbook, here’s the recipe.
Grandma Helena’s Oatmeal Cake
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x11-inch pan.
Stir together in a large bowl:
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/3 cups flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
Stir in:
1 cube of melted butter
2 eggs
Add:
1 ½ cups boiling water
The mixture will look very soupy and
watery. Pour into the greased pan. You’ll add the following topping before it
goes into the oven.
Stir together:
1 cup of chopped walnuts or pecans
½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 cup of grated coconut
6 tablespoons melted butter
¼ cup cream
Sprinkle the topping over the raw cake.
Bake for 45 minutes.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Excerpt:
Liv huddled next to the campfire, a flimsy Mylar sleeping bag wrapped around her shoulders. Soaking wet, her cheeks flushed scarlet from the frigid air, the human was in trouble. The sun had dipped below the horizon and the temperature was plummeting.
I glanced at my shivering captive. “Gimme your coat, dress, and boots.”
“What?” she sputtered. “Dude, I’m not stripping in front of you.”
My lip quirked. Nobody but this feisty, gotta-be-freezing-her-ass-off woman would dare call me dude. Most pack mates cringed in my presence, and referred to me as Mr. Creed, or sir.
Not Liv.“You’ll never warm up if you spend the night in wet clothes.” I pointed at the sticks wedged into the ground next to the campfire. “I’ll put your things close to the flames to dry out.”
“Forget it.” She yanked the emergency sleeping bag up to her ears.
I bit the inside of my cheek. I never got a good look at her body underneath the sodden down parka, but her legs were shapely and I bet her figure matched.
What the hell am I doing?
Was there any thing more pointless, more self-destructive than being attracted to the woman I’m turning over to my heartless alpha?
Time to shut this shit down.
I stepped toward her and deliberately shaped my features into an intimidating scowl.
“You telling me you’d rather freeze to death than take off your wet clothes?”
She didn’t answer, probably realizing how foolish she’d sound if she said yes.
“My orders are to bring you safe and sound to Medved. I can’t let you get hypothermia.”
“And a flunky like you doesn’t dare disappoint his alpha, right?” Scorn dripped from her voice.
“That’s right.” No point in taking offense when she spoke the truth. I lowered my chin and put command into my voice. “So either you strip or I’ll do it for you.”
Color returned to her cheeks in an angry flush. “Try it, buddy, and you’ll lose a hand.”
I could easily overpower the mouthy woman and peel her clothes off. Grizzly shifter versus human? Hell, no contest. Liv wasn’t stupid. She had to realize how powerless and vulnerable she was. Still, she jutted out her chin, and her pretty brown eyes shot sparks.Rubbing the back of my neck, I debated how to handle the insolent human. I’d ripped her away from everybody and everything she knew. Her next few days were bound to be rough, especially if she shot off her mouth in front of Medved. Why not cut her some slack? If she saw me as a reasonable man, she might be more willing to listen when I warned her to mind her manners in front of my alpha.
“How about I turn around and look the other way while you undress?” I proposed.
The fingers clutching the top of the sleeping bag had turned bone white, and she trembled from the cold. “Fine,” she said reluctantly. “Do it.”
I put my back to her. “Just don’t get any crazy ideas about picking up a branch and clobbering me.”
She snorted. “We’re in the middle of godforsaken nowhere.” I heard rustling as she dropped the sleeping bag and shed her wet clothes. My imagination filled in the details as I imagined her naked behind me. “Even if I managed to knock you out, where would I go?”
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