Welcome Guest Blogger - Wendy Lyn Watson!

Welcome guest blogger, Wendy Lyn Watson, author of I Scream, You Scream, a Mystery a la Mode! (Click the link above to visit her website and check out Cozy the Cat. Love it!) Today Wendy shares a great story, and her recipe for Chocolate Coconut Fondue:

Easter Bunny Fondue

I hit the grocery store the other day and instantly got sucked into the display of Easter candy. All the marshmallow eggs and pastel foil-covered bunnies made me think of my mama, and I decided to dedicate this blog post to her.

My mama’s a wonderful cook. Growing up, I didn’t realize that; I just assumed everyone ate as well as we did. Imagine my surprise when I started going on sleepovers. I still remember going to a friend’s house and her mom making us blueberry muffins from a mix for breakfast. I had no idea how blueberries could be in a box.

My mama made good food, but it wasn’t fancy-pants and it certainly wasn’t always healthy. We didn’t have boxed blueberry muffins for breakfast, but we did occasionally have melted cheese. Yep, that’s right: she’d melt about a pound of cheese in a skillet and then divvy it up. (The crispy edge parts were the best!) Give that woman a snack chip and a can of condensed soup, and she’d give you a casserole (my favorite was the Cheeto-chicken casserole). She taught me that cooking’s about taste, fun, and sharing.

One of my mama’s favorite treats is Easter chocolate. She always said she liked it better than regular chocolate because she preferred the texture. Personally, I figured she liked biting off their little chocolatey ears.

Whatever the reason, she would always stock up on spare bunnies after the holiday, when they were half off, and then stash them in the basement chest freezer. Our own bunny morgue.

One hot August day, when my dad was out cutting the grass, she sent me down to fetch a bunny. She wanted chocolate right then and there, and the frozen chocolate carcass posed a problem. She carefully skinned his foil wrapping off, stuck him in a bowl, and popped him in the microwave.

Alas, he melted. Not to be deterred, mama wrangled a bag of jumbo marshmallows out of the back of a cupboard. While my poor dad worked up a sweat in the blistering summer sun, the girls--my mom, my sister, and myself--stood around the kitchen island, laughing and downing Easter bunny fondue.

Mama, this one’s for you.

Chocolate Coconut Fondue

(adapted from a recipe in Bon Appetit)

1 15-oz can sweetened cream of coconut (like you use for pina coladas)

12 ozs. high quality dark chocolate (at least 70% cacao), finely chopped

1/4 c. whipping cream

1/2 tsp. almond extract

pinch of salt.

Combine cream of coconut and chocolate in a heavy large saucepan. Stir over very low heat until the chocolate melts and is smoothe. Remove from heat and stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into a fondue pot and set over a candle or fondue “canned heat.” (You can make the fondue in advance and refrigerate; just heat over low heat for a few minutes before serving.)

This is yummy with lots of stuff: cubes of pound cake, angelfood cake, biscotti, strawberries, bananas, dried apricots, pretzels, or even jumbo marshmallows. And the leftovers are awesome poured over good ice cream.

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From I Scream, You Scream:

Tallulah Jones, proprietor of Dalliance, Texas’s old-fashioned ice-cream parlor, dishes up luscious ice cream that is simply to die for….

Unfortunately, Remember the A-la-mode’s profits are melting faster than a snow cone in July–and Tally’s stuck scooping sundaes for her two-timing ex-husband and his bodacious new girlfriend, Brittanie, at his company luau. To make matters worse, twenty years after she dumped him in the Tasty-Swirl parking lot, Tally’s high school beau, Finn Harper, comes back to town–looking every bit as delicious as a double-dip raspberry mascarpone waffle cone.

The cherry on top? Brittanie drops dead, and Tally’s suddenly the prime suspect in her murder investigation. To catch a killer, Tally will have to churn up Dalliance’s darkest secrets and dip deep into the past. But can Tally freeze out the real culprit before a murder charge puts her dreams on ice for good?

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Thanks, Wendy for joining us today. I know readers will enjoy I Scream, You Scream - in bookstores everywhere!

Julie

Contest Results!

The winner of a set of cookie cutters from Wilton is DANICA M. RICE! Woohoo! Danica, please contact Krista and we'll get those cookie cutters off to you!




Congratulations to Peg, Janel and Marie A. who won Hank Phillippi Ryan's THREE BOOK GIVEAWAY. Please just email Hank directly by going to her website HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN, and click on contact in the upper left. (The little animation will resolve, and then it’ll say contact.) Enjoy a good read!!!

Tomorrow Jenn McKinlay will launch her new book Sprinkle with Murder, as well as a new CONTEST. One you won't want to miss! Don't forget to enter Jenn’s Name the Cupcake Contest. Go to her website to enter. You and your cupcake might be the lucky ones to be written into BUTTERCREAM BUMP OFF.