Bready or Not Guest: Fiery Surprise Cupcakes by Wendy Nikel, author of THE CAUSALITY LOOP
I’m happy to welcome Wendy Nikel back for another bout of cupcakes and a time travel novella! The Causality Loop finishes up her four-book sequence from World Weaver Press, and it’s fantastic. The perfect end for the series. (Disclaimer: I have indeed read them all, courtesy of WWP.) As novellas, each book makes for a quick read… but not so quick that you can’t enjoy a cupcake (or two) as you snuggle into your reading nook for a much-needed escape from our current timeline.
If you haven’t yet, check out Wendy’s past visits:
THE CONTINUUM and Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes
THE GRANDMOTHER PARADOX and Cherry Cupcakes
CASSANDRA COMPLEX and Chocolate Blueberry Cupcakes
THE CAUSALITY LOOP
Fiery Surprise Cupcakes
by Wendy Nikel
It’s release day for THE CAUSALITY LOOP, the fourth and final Place in Time novella, which means that once again, it’s time for me to pull out my mixer, cupcake pans, and frosting tips, and share with you something delicious to celebrate my new book!
I have loved coming up with new cupcake recipes for each of these books. In a way, it’s kind of like being on Cupcake Wars or Sugar Rush – some of my favorite Netflix competition shows. In each of these, the judges provide a theme or challenge for each round, and bakers have to come up with ways to meet it by producing a delicious dessert. And while the previous books were a bit easier to figure out – space-inspired chocolate coffee cupcakes with galaxy-swirled frosting for THE CONTINUUM; Midwest county fair-inspired cherry chocolate cupcakes for THE GRANDMOTHER PARADOX; and a blueberry cupcake for THE CASSANDRA COMPLEX, which was inspired by an old Fred Harvey recipe – this one was a bit more difficult to figure out, but I had a couple elements I knew I wanted to include.
The first of these was fire! As you can see from the cover, fire plays an important role in this book. The opening pages (which you can read here) start out with an act of arson, which our main character Dodge Greenley hopes will protect his family – and the scent of smoke follows him throughout the book.
The second element I wanted to include was a callback to the previous books. In many ways, this final novella brings things full circle, pulling in story threads, characters, and elements from the previous three books, so I wanted to tie that into my celebration cupcake somehow. I scoured recipe books and baking blogs, searching for the perfect combination.
I pulled out my favorite basic cupcake recipe and grated the zest of one lemon to balance out some of the bolder, more “fiery” flavors I was planning to add later.
After mixing all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder) in one bowl and the wet ingredients (sugar, butter, eggs, lemon zest) in another, I combined them with a bit of milk. Then, it was into the cupcake trays and into the oven for 16 minutes at 350 degrees.
While they were cooling, I started on the orange frosting. I blended the orange extract and orange food coloring (I used the gel kind for a bright hue) into the butter until it was smooth, then alternated adding the powdered sugar and milk until it was the consistency I wanted. Then it was time to try out a new tip I’d run across in my research – a pastry bullet.
The idea with these is to lay out plastic wrap, drop your frosting directly onto it, and then twist it up into a “bullet” that’s easier to handle and tidier to clean up. Tie one end close to the frosting and leave a few inches of twisted plastic wrap on the other end. I was really pleased with how this worked out. When it was time to frost, I could just throw it all into the pastry bag, thread the longer end through the piping tip, cut off the extra, and be ready to frost without the mess of trying to maneuver the frosting into the very bottom of the bag or the excess frosting coming back out the back of the bag.
But first, it was time to add my surprise! I found large, round sprinkles in the colors of each of my previous book covers – blue, red, and purple – and mixed them together in a dish. Then I took each of the cupcakes, cut a hole in the middle, and had my assistants (my kiddos wanted to help with this part) drop the sprinkles into the center of the cupcake.
Then we took the inner section we’d cut out of the cupcake and placed the top of it back onto it to cover the hole we’d made. Ta-da! Now when you bite into the cupcake, you’ll get a confetti-like surprise!
After we frosted the cupcakes, I threw them back into the fridge while I prepared the next step: our fiery cinnamon Red Hot drizzle. I dumped about half a cup of Red Hots into a saucepan and just barely covered them with water. Stirring constantly, I melted these over medium heat.
Once they were melted and I pulled them off the stove, I could drizzle them onto the frosted cupcakes. The drizzle thickens fairly quickly; I had to put it back onto the hot burner a couple times to thin it out again to make it easier to dribble onto the cupcakes.
I topped the cupcakes with orange and white sprinkles (if you do it while the Red Hot drizzle is still hot, they stick to it pretty well).
And now our fiery surprise cupcakes were finally ready for consumption!
About THE CAUSALITY LOOP:
Dodge Greenley is tired of being the go-between for his time-traveling family. All he wants is for them all to be able to live together peacefully in one era—is that too much to ask? But after breaking all the Rules of time travel in a desperate attempt to retroactively free his parents from the threat of the secret organization his father worked for a hundred years earlier, Dodge makes a startling discovery. It turns out there’s someone else stalking his family up and down the timeline, and this time, the menace may be coming from within the Place in Time Travel Agency itself.
Enlisting the help of his 22nd century coworker, Dodge sets off to the year 1915 to rescue his sister from a threat that might have originated at any point in their past, present, or future, proving once again that the greatest threat to time travelers is other time travelers.
THE CAUSALITY LOOP: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes/Apple Books | World Weaver Press
About the author:
Wendy Nikel is a speculative fiction author with a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips, and a terrible habit of forgetting where she’s left her cup of tea. Her short fiction has been published by Analog, Nature: Futures, Podcastle, and elsewhere. Her time travel novella series, beginning with The Continuum, is available from World Weaver Press. For more info, visit wendynikel.com
THE CAUSALITY LOOP Fiery Surprise Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcake Ingredients:
- 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 cup butter 2 sticks 2 sticks
- lemon zested zested
- 4 eggs
- 3 Tablespoons milk
Frosting ingredients:
- 1 cup butter 2 sticks 2 sticks
- 4 cups confectioners' sugar
- 6 Tablespoons milk
- orange food coloring
- 1 teaspoon orange extract
- Red Hot candies
- sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Sift together flour and baking powder. In separate bowl, blend sugar and butter. Grate lemon zest into the mixture.
- Add eggs to sugar mixture one at a time.
- Gradually add the dry mixture and milk into the sugar mixture until well blended.
- Fill cupcake liners half full and bake for 15 to 17 minutes. Let cool.
- Beat butter, food coloring, and orange extract until creamy. Alternate adding 1 cup confectioners' sugar and 2 tablespoons milk, mixing well after each addition, until all ingredients are mixed in.
- When cupcakes are cool, carefully cut a hole into the top of each cupcake. Pull out the inner section of cake and set aside. Fill hole with sprinkles, then replace the top of the cake and frost!
- Melt Red Hots on the stove. Drizzle melted candy over the frosted cupcakes. Top with sprinkles and enjoy with a good book!
Bready or Not Guest: CASSANDRA COMPLEX author Wendy Nikel with Chocolate Blueberry Cupcakes
I’m happy to welcome back author Wendy Nikel for the release of the 3rd book in her time-traveling novella series with World Weaver Press. The Cassandra Complex is out TODAY. Be sure to print out her previous recipes for Continuum Coffee Cupcakes and Grandmother Paradox Cherry Cupcakes.
The third book in my Place in Time novella series, THE CASSANDRA COMPLEX, is now out into the world, which means it is once again time to make some celebration cupcakes!
My original plan was to use one of the original Harvey Girls recipes, which have been collected online by Stephen Fried in the Harvey Girls Cookbook Project. The Harvey Girls were waitresses who worked at one of the “eating houses” (and later dining cars) of Fred Harvey, a restaurant pioneer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His goal was to serve good food to people traveling west on the new railroad lines, and he was very successful in doing so, thanks in part to the thousands of women who came out west to serve his food – including the protagonist of my story, Cass.
I soon found out, though, that in trying to bake from a classic recipe like this one for Homemade Blueberry Cake, I was biting off a bit more than I could chew. Even after doing all the math to figure out how much 5 ounces of sugar is in tablespoons and how much 1 gill of milk is, my dough didn’t rise as it was supposed to, and I ended up with a sticky mess.
It was time for Plan B. I pulled out a tried-and-true cupcake recipe, made some tweaks, and created a chocolate cupcake, topped with blueberry frosting and fresh chocolate-covered blueberries for my own version of a blueberry cake.
I started by melting down some chocolate chips with a tiny bit of coconut oil. I created my garnishes by dropping a nickel-sized dot of chocolate on waxed paper, then stacking five blueberries together and sprinkling with sea salt before throwing them in the freezer. These are some of my favorite snack treats, so I made a couple extra.
After that, I started on the cupcakes, mixing the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, and baking powder) in one bowl and the wet ingredients (sugar, butter, and eggs) in another before combining them together, along with some milk. These then went in cupcake trays with a couple chocolate chips on top, and went into the oven for 16 minutes at 350 degrees.
While those were cooling, I made up my blueberry frosting. I started by blending a cup of butter until it was smooth and then alternated adding powdered sugar and blueberry pie filling until I had the consistency I wanted. I loved the color the blueberries turned the frosting – a perfect match for my new book!
Then, it was time for my favorite part: decorating! I added two kinds of sprinkles to the top.
And, for the final touch, I pulled my frozen chocolate-covered blueberries out of the oven and plopped them on top. And there you have it: a tasty treat for an afternoon of train riding, reading, or traveling through time.
About The Cassandra Complex:
Cass is a 22nd century university student who – like most young adults – has always believed her parents were a bit stuck in the past. But on her eighteenth birthday she learns exactly how true this is: not only are her parents time travelers, living in an era different than either was born in, but now, to ensure that history plays out as it’s supposed to, she must travel to the year 1914 to live out her adult life.
Cass isn’t the type, though, to just sit back and watch while all the tragic events she’s learned about in her history courses play out in front of her. Not when she’s the only one in the world with the foreknowledge – and determination – to change it.
The Cassandra Complex: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes/Apple Books | World Weaver Press
About the author:
THE CASSANDRA COMPLEX Chocolate Blueberry Cupcakes by Wendy Nikel
Ingredients
Cupcakes:
- 1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup butter
- 4 eggs
- 3 Tablespoons milk
- chocolate chips
Frosting:
- 1 cup butter
- 4 cups confectioners' sugar
- 6 Tablespoons blueberry pie filling
Topping:
- Blueberries
- Melted chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Sift together flour, cocoa, and baking powder.
- In separate bowl, blend sugar and butter.
- Add eggs to sugar mixture one at a time.
- Gradually add the dry mixture and milk into the sugar mixture until well blended.
- Fill cupcake liners half full, add a few chocolate chips on the top, and bake for 15-17 minutes. Let cool.
- Melt chocolate chips and make nickel-sized dots on waxed paper. Create a pyramid of blueberries on each dot, with 4 berries on the bottom and 1 on the top. Drizzle melted chocolate over them, sprinkle with sea salt, and freeze.
- Beat butter until creamy. Alternate adding 1c powdered sugar and 2T pie filling, mixing well after each addition, until all ingredients are mixed in.
- After cupcakes are cool, frost and top with frozen blueberries and sprinkles. Enjoy with a good book!
Bready or Not Guest: K. Bird Lincoln with Spicy Mocha Chocolate Mochi Cake
I’m excited to welcome author K. Bird Lincoln with a special Bready or Not guest post! I’ve read over 130 urban fantasies and it’s hard to wow me these days, but the first book in her Portland Hafu series was a delight. She’s here today to celebrate the release of her second book, Black Pearl Dreaming, with a multicultural chocolate cake.
Plus, you can enter a Rafflecopter giveaway for her first book, Dream Eater! Read the recipe, and you might win yourself a great book to pair with this special chocolate cake.
The Portland Hafu Urban Fantasy series features a Japanese American young woman named Koi. She finds out her father isn’t entirely human and has to battle evil professors and dragons. The second in the series, Black Pearl Dreaming, has Koi traveling to Japan to seek answers for her father’s mental decline.
Chocolate is a huge part of Koi’s world. Like really important. So important that when love interest, Kitsune trickster Ken, wants to apologize for getting her in trouble in Tokyo, he gives her Oregon Chocolatier Dagoba’s Xocolatl Chocolate bar, invoking rosy childhood memories of the only chocolate Koi’s father ever deigned to consume.
So Xocolatl, possibly “bitter water” from the Mayan language, is the flavor I thought I’d play with for this recipe. Drawing on Koi’s happa haole heritage (she’s Japanese on her father’s side and Caucasian-Hawaiian on her mother’s) I thought it fitting to turn Hawaiian Butter Mochi into an homage to my favorite Oregon Chocolatier.
Butter mochi isn’t the same thing at all as Japanese mochi celebrated at New Year’s and used in making daifuku. Butter mochi is a Hawaiian cake incorporating Mochi flour (sweet rice flour or glutinous rice flour not to be confused with ye olde plain rice flour) milk, and butter to make a squishy, bouncy, chewy rich cake like deliciousness.
Don’t be scared off by the mochi flour. All the rest of the ingredients in this are pretty easy to get, and I even found Mochiko Flour (Koda Farms Brand) at my local Hy-Vee grocery store here in the Southeastern Prairie of Minnesota in the Asian Foods section. And of course, you can order Mochiko on Amazon.
This is Hawaiian soul food with a spicy chocolate twist, y’all. One bite, and you’ll be hooked, I promise.
Bready or Not Guest Recipe: BLACK PEARL DREAMING Spicy Mocha Chocolate Mochi Cake from K. Bird Lincoln
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter
- 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
- 1 1/2 cups white sugar
- 16 oz Mochiko Flour sweet or glutinous rice flour
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup cacao powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 12 oz coconut milk
- 1 1/2 cup milk if you don’t mind the sugar, use 1 cup condensed milk
- Cayenne pepper to taste I used 1/4 tsp
- Cinnamon to taste I used 1 Tb
Instructions
- Grease or insert parchment paper into a 9×13 pan.
- Melt the butter and chocolate together. Mix in sugar and vanilla. In a different bowl, mix Mochiko flour, cacao powder, baking powder, cinnamon, and cayenne. Beat in 1/2 of the Mochiko flour mixture, eggs, and coconut milk. Add in another 1/2 of the Mochiko flour mixture, 11/2 cup milk and beat until all flour and milk is added and mixed in until smooth.
- Pour into pan and cook at 350 deg F for 45-55 minutes.
- Let cool completely. Cut with a plastic knife or wet your knife between cuts.
Koi visits Japan looking for answers and instead is forced to make an impossible choice.
With the help of powerful new friends, Koi defeated her dragon enemy in Portland. Now, no longer able to deny her dream-eating powers or the real reason for her father’s mental decline, she flies to Tokyo with her new Kitsune love, Ken, and the trickster Kwaskwi, seeking answers. But secrets from Ken’s past and Kind politics threaten to unravel their newfound trust and someone in Tokyo is desperate to kidnap a Baku. Koi must untangle a long history of pain and deceit in order to save her father, an imprisoned dragon, and herself.
“I absolutely got sucked in by the way several mythologies were mixed with modern-day and WWII history to form a cool, surprising, and action packed plot. ”
— Pat Esden, author of The Dark Heart and Northern Circle Coven series.
“In Black Pearl Dreaming, Koi is a delightfully watchable heroine in way over her head. She struggles to figure out whom to trust, where she can get good coffee, and what exactly she should do about this enormous sleeping dragon, in this fast paced paranormal intrigue set
in a vividly detailed contemporary Japan.”
— Tina Connolly, author of Ironskin and Seriously Wicked series.
World Weaver Press
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
iTunes/Apple iBooks
Kobo
K. Bird Lincoln is an ESL professional and writer living on the windswept Minnesota Prairie with family and a huge addiction to frou-frou coffee. Also dark chocolate– without which, the world is a howling void. Originally from Cleveland, she has spent more years living on the edges of the Pacific Ocean than in the Midwest. Her speculative short stories are published in various online & paper publications such as Strange Horizons. Her medieval Japanese fantasy series, Tiger Lily, is available from Amazon. World Weaver Press released Dream Eater, the first novel in an exciting, multi-cultural Urban Fantasy trilogy set in Portland and Japan, in 2017 and will release the sequel, Black Pearl Dreaming, October 2018. She also writes tasty speculative fiction reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Check her out on Facebook, join her newsletter for chances to win chocolate and ebooks, or stalk her online at kblincoln.com
Read MoreBready or Not Guest: DETOX IN LETTERS Sugar Cookies with Avocado Frosting by Cheryl Low
I’m happy to welcome Cheryl Low with a Bready or Not guest post today! The second book in her Crowns & Ash series, Detox in Letters, is out TODAY. Her unique take on cookies here includes a frosting that mixes powdered sugar and avocado. That sounds like my kind of alchemy! Read on to find out more about her cookies and her series from World Weaver Press.
SUGAR COOKIES WITH AVOCADO FROSTING & PIXIE DUST
&
DETOX IN LETTERS
Sweet, unexpected, and addictive. One is never enough.
The Crowns & Ash series takes place in a fantasy world where magic is a drug steeping in every cup of tea and baked into the cakes eaten at every meal. The characters are indulgent, born in a city with few rules and too much time filled with parties and duels. But they quickly realize that their comfort is orchestrated by the Queen, their magic stolen and fed back to them in drugs to keep them sedate.
The fine veneer of their posh city is cracking and soon not even Vaun, Prince of the Realm, can turn a blind eye to the mounting dangers in their midst. Flesh-eating pixies, poisoned dust, soul-snatching wolves and so much more.
The first book in the series, Vanity in Dust, introduces the Realm, the prince, and a deadly ploy to undermine the Queen’s monopoly on the city’s dust.
And the second, Detox in Letters, is available now! The Realm finds out exactly where their magic comes from, Prince Vaun tries to survive his mother’s terrible demands, a rebel group threatens the High, and Princess Fay eyes the Queen’s throne.
All while eating cake and sipping tea, because some things just never change.
Detox in Letters – About the book:
Welcome to the Realm, where magic is your drug, your poison, and your only hope.
An illness is spreading through the city, marking the sick in mysterious letters scrawled across their skin. What is first thought to be madness reveals itself to be an awakening as residents rediscover themselves, their pasts, and their long-forgotten magic… things the Queen wants to remain buried. Things she will sacrifice her own children to suppress.
Mercy has never been a staple of the Realm. Treachery, blood, and magic steeps the city as the rebel leader, Red, seeks to topple the Tower, Princess Fay eyes her mother’s throne, and Prince Vaun must decide whether to submit to his mother’s terrible demand.
Where to buy Detox in Letters:
Amazon
Amazon UK
Goodreads
World Weaver Press
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
iBooks
Bready or Not Guest Recipe: DETOX IN LETTERS Sugar Cookies with Avocado Frosting by Cheryl Low
Ingredients
Cookie Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup butter
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Frosting Ingredients:
- 1 avocado
- 2 cups confectioners' sugar
- Cake dust
Instructions
- Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla.
- In a separate bowl mix flour, baking powder and salt.
- Add flour mixture to butter mixture and then chill at least 1 hour in the refrigerator.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Roll out dough onto a floured surface and cut into cookie shapes.
- Bake 8-10 minutes. I take them out before the edges brown so they’ll be super soft. Let cool.
- Mash avocado and mix with powdered sugar into a frosting.
- Frost cookies. Let the frosting harden and then dust with glittery cake dust so you can pretend their coated in magic pixie dust.
About the Author:
Cheryl Low might be a dragon with a habit of destroying heroes, lounging in piles of shiny treasure, and abducting royals—a job she fell into after a short, failed attempt at being a mermaid. She can’t swim and eventually the other mermaids figured it out. She can, though, breathe fire and crush bones, so being a dragon suited her just fine.
…Or she might be a woman with a very active imagination, no desire to be outdoors, and more notebooks than she’ll ever know what to do with.
Find out by following her on social media @cherylwlow or check her webpage, CherylLow.com. The answer might surprise you! But it probably won’t.
Bready or Not Guest Recipe from Author Wendy Nikel: The Grandmother Paradox Cherry Cupcakes
Today I welcome Wendy Nikel! Her novella The Grandmother Paradox is out TODAY from World Weaver Press. This is the sequel to The Continuum. I’ve read both, and I can testify they are fun, fast reads that reminded me of old favorite shows like Quantum Leap and Sliders. Find out more about her new release below, and grab a recipe for some cupcakes that are loaded with cocoa and cherries!
When Dr. Wells, the head of the Place in Time Travel Agency, learns that someone’s trying to track down the ancestors of his star employee, there are few people he can turn to without revealing her secrets. But who better to jump down the timeline and rescue Elise from being snuffed out of existence generations before she’s born than the very person whose life she saved a hundred years in the future?
But Juliette Argent isn’t an easy woman to protect. The assistant to a traveling magician, she’s bold, fearless, and has a fascination with time travel, of all things. Can the former secret agent Chandler, with his knowledge of what’s to come, keep her safe from harm and keep his purpose there a secret? Or will his presence there only entangle the timeline more?
THE GRANDMOTHER PARADOX Cherry Cupcakes
by Wendy Nikel
Today is release day for THE GRANDMOTHER PARADOX, the second time travel novella in the Place in Time series. Which means, once again, it’s time to celebrate with cupcakes!
In this novella, which can be read as a sequel or as a standalone story, Chandler – a man from our present who’s been living in the future – is sent back to the year 1893 to protect the great-great-grandmother of the woman who saved his life. There, he joins up with a traveling magic show touring Michigan before heading down to the Chicago World’s Fair.
One of the many wonderful things that Michigan is known for is its cherries, which made cherry cupcakes an easy choice for this book’s recipe. Substituting fats like butter and oils with fruit in baking also makes for a healthier cake, which is something I’ve had to keep in mind since I’m still recovering from having my gallbladder removed. Fortunately, I happen to have a cherry tree in my backyard filled with sweet cherries just ripe for the picking.
THE CUPCAKES:
Bready or Not Guest Recipe: THE GRANDMOTHER PARADOX Cherry Cupcakes by Wendy Nikel
Ingredients
Cupcake Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 egg whites
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup applesauce
- 1/4 cup buttermilk
- 1 cup cherries pitted & pureed
Frosting ingredients:
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 1 cup confectioners' sugar
- 1-2 Tablespoons milk
- 1 box cherry-flavored instant gelatin mix
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
- Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- In separate bowl, mix egg whites and vanilla.
- Add honey, sugar, applesauce, and buttermilk.
- Gradually add the dry mixture into the egg and milk mixture until well blended.
- Add cherries
- Fill cupcake liners half full and bake for 22-25 minutes. Let cool.
- After cupcakes are cool, frost.
- Sprinkle gelatin mix on the top and enjoy!
THE CONTINUUM (book #1) out NOW
paperback via World Weaver Press $9.99
eBook via iTunes
eBook via Barnes & Noble
eBook via Amazon
eBook via Kobo
THE GRANDMOTHER PARADOX (book #2) out TODAY
paperback via World Weaver Press $8.95
eBook via iTunes
eBook via Barnes & Noble
eBook via Amazon
eBook via Kobo
Wendy Nikel is a speculative fiction author whose short stories have appeared in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Daily Science Fiction, AE Sci-Fi, Nature: Futures, and various anthologies and e-zines. She is a member of SFWA and Codex Writers Group and is a managing editor at Flash Fiction Online.
Read MoreBready or Not Guest: Author Dan Koboldt with Gooey Butter Cake Cookies
I’m happy to welcome friend and fellow author Dan Koboldt! The third book in his fantastic Gateways to Alissia series is out today, and Dan is here to celebrate in proper Bready or Not fashion: with COOKIES. But first, a bit about The World Awakening:
Quinn Bradley has learned to use the magic of another world. And that world is in danger.
Having decided to betray CASE Global, he can finally reveal his origins to the Enclave and warn them about the company’s imminent invasion. Even if it means alienating Jillaine…and allying with someone he’s always considered his adversary.
But war makes for strange bedfellows, and uniting Alissians against such a powerful enemy will require ancient enmities–as well as more recent antagonisms–to be set aside. The future of their pristine world depends on it.
As Quinn searches for a way to turn the tide, his former CASE Global squad-mates face difficult decisions of their own. For some, it’s a matter of what they’re willing to do to get home. For others, it’s deciding whether they want to go home at all.
Continuing the exciting adventures from The Rogue Retrieval and The Island Deception, The World Awakening is the spellbinding conclusion to the Gateways to Alissia fantasy series from Dan Koboldt.
I grew up in St. Louis, a place that specializes in delicious food and drink that’s not necessarily good for you. It’s home, for example, to Anheuser-Busch, the makers of Budweiser. When a new employee starts at Anheuser-Busch, they receive another local specialty as a welcome gift: a gooey butter cake. This delicious concoction is exactly what it sounds like. It has an almost pie-like consistency, however, so it’s not very portable. The solution to that problem is today’s recipe, gooey butter cake cookies.
These are easy to make and require only six ingredients. They taste like yellow butter cake. You really can’t go wrong.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsisus. For you non-scientists, that’s 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and cream cheese. Once that’s consistent, blend in the egg and vanilla. Then, add cake mix, and continue mixing/stirring until it’s smooth and well blended.
Optional pro tip: chill the dough for 30 minutes, which will make the next step much easier.
Pour the powdered sugar into a separate shallow bowl. You’ll use this to coat the doughballs before you lay them on the cookie sheet.
Roll the dough into 1-inch balls. I like to use a cookie dough scooper for this part, but you can also use a spoon. Optional pro tip: spray whatever you use with non-stick spray before you start.
Drop each into the powdered sugar to form a light coating. This can be a little messy if you didn’t chill the dough. Once you get some powdered sugar on them, the doughballs are easier to handle. Place sugar-coated balls at least an inch apart on a greased cookie sheet.
Bake for 11-13 minutes, until the edges begin to turn brown. Let them cool for a few minutes before you transfer them.
These cookies keep remarkably well in an airtight container. Enjoy them with a good book!
Author Bio
Dan Koboldt is a genetics researcher and fantasy/science fiction author from the Midwest. He is the author of the Gateway to Alissia series (Harper Voyager) about a Las Vegas magician who infiltrates a medieval world. He is currently editing Putting the Science in Fiction, (Writers Digest), a reference for writers slated for release in Fall 2018.
By day, Dan is a genetics researcher at a major children’s hospital. He has co-authored more than 70 publications in Nature, Science, The New England Journal of Medicine, and other scientific journals. He lives with his wife, daughter, and twin boys in Ohio.
Find out more about Dan’s books:
The World Awakening
Bready or Not Guest: Gooey Butter Cake Cookies By Dan Koboldt
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter softened
- 8 ounce cream cheese
- 1 egg
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 18.25 ounce yellow cake mix
- 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsisus. For you non-scientists, that’s 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and cream cheese. Once that’s consistent, blend in the egg and vanilla. Then, add cake mix, and continue mixing/stirring until it's smooth and well blended.
- Optional pro tip: chill the dough for 30 minutes, which will make the next step much easier.
- Pour the powdered sugar into a separate shallow bowl. You’ll use this to coat the doughballs before you lay them on the cookie sheet.
- Roll the dough into 1-inch balls. I like to use a cookie dough scooper for this part, but you can also use a spoon. Optional pro tip: spray whatever you use with non-stick spray before you start.
- Drop each into the powdered sugar to form a light coating. This can be a little messy if you didn’t chill the dough. Once you get some powdered sugar on them, the doughballs are easier to handle. Place sugar-coated balls at least an inch apart on a greased cookie sheet.
- Bake for 11-13 minutes, until the edges begin to turn brown. Let them cool for a few minutes before you transfer them.
- These cookies keep remarkably well in an airtight container. Enjoy them with a good book!
