I created a white cake with raspberry cream filling, frosted with a lavender colored Italian Meringue buttercream and decorated with buttercream flowers.

GUP (Gay Uncle Patrick)’s solitary life in Palm Springs is turned upside down when his sister-in-law passes away. Guardian over his niece and nephew for the summer, he guides them through their grief and cheers them up with pink Christmas trees, celebrity parties, and lots of brunch.

I laughed, I cried. The Guncle was *chef’s kiss.*

The Guncle is a great book if you like heartwarming stories with just a touch of romance, stories that star LGBTQ+ characters, instant family for a secluded bachelor, and healing stories about grief and loss.

While helping the children navigate their grief, Patrick realizes one day that it’s their mother’s birthday. He orders a white cake with lavender icing and sugar flowers. The moment is so pivotal to the story and just beautiful, I knew I had to recreate this cake.

I used this white cake recipe from Chelsweets. For the cake filling, I made a raspberry mouse instead of strawberry by swapping out the freeze-dried fruit.

I used my very favorite Italian Meringue Buttercream recipe from Erin McDowell for the buttercream.

This tutorial from Georgia’s Cakes is a great beginner’s guide to piping buttercream flowers.

In the background, I have a pink and sparkly garland to represent GUP’s pink Christmas tree in the middle of summer. And, honestly, that pink garland was insanely cute on the mini Christmas tree we keep upstairs for Darcy to decorate. She was over the moon about it.

I also laid down my (very comfortable) green wrap dress that matches the kaftan GUP is wearing on the cover. There are keys to represent Patrick’s fear of driving, my phone playing the song Patrick dances to with the kids in the kitchen–Wang Chung’s Let’s Go.

Finally, there are 3 candles to represent the candles Patrick and the kids blow out while making a wish for their best friend/mom.

The pink cake stand is from Target a few years ago, but I found a similar one here.

What wish would you make for someone you love? We don’t have to wait until our loved ones are gone to let them know how important they are to us (ahem, Steven Rowley’s The Celebrants).

Check out the reel I created for The Guncle!

Pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese frosting, moist and rich with hints of nutmeg and brown sugar mixed together with sweet roasted pumpkin that melted lusciously in the mouth all layered with velvety decadent cream cheese frosting, and in a whim she had topped it off with shreds of toasted coconut, adding a hint of crunch and extra sweetness.  —Heartless by Marissa Meyer

I was so excited to read Heartless after finishing Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles. Such a great series. While Heartless didn’t live up to Cinder, it was still an entertaining origin tale of the Queen of Hearts. Not to mention overflowing with baking inspiration!

“…overflowing with cakes and gingerbreads, pies and strudels and chocolate filled croissants. The back wall would be hung with baskets , each stuffed with fresh baked bread. She saw herself behind the case wearing a pink-checkered apron still dusted with that morning’s flour. She was filling a jar with biscotti while Mary Ann, in matching yellow checkers, wrapped up a dozen shortbread cookies in a lime-green box.”

Pro tip: Prep a snack before cozying down with Heartless. Preferably a sweet one.

The protagonist, Catharine, is a baking fiend. (She reminded me quite a bit of Ari from The Wish Granter). I wrote down no less than 27 different goodies I could have made for the blog: tarts, macarons, cobblers, cakes…don’t read this book hungry.

After much deliberation, I decided on cupcakes inspired by the pumpkin spice cake Cath enters into the baking contest. I skipped on the coconut and questionable pumpkins.

I used this delicious cake recipe from Zoe Bakes. I doubled the ginger. When I make it again, I’m going to double all the other spices and triple the ginger. Cause I like my pumpkin spice with a emphasis on the spice. The recipe as is is deliciously sweet and subtle, so you can’t go wrong there. The recipe is for a cake, but I got 24 cupcakes out of it, baked at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

I didn’t make any changes to Zoe’s cream cheese frosting recipe. (I opted for the honey option instead of syrup).

Autumn goodness in every bite!

She blurted something that had nothing to do with anything. “Do you know how to make honeyed half-moons?” 

“Do I…” He lowered the map. “Kestrel, I hate to disappoint you, but I was never a cook.” 

“You know how to make tea.” 

He laughed. “You do realize that boiling water is within the capabilities of anybody?”

The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski, 5/5 stars

For some novels, food is almost a central character, like Brian Jacques’s Redwall series. (I can’t believe I haven’t covered any Redwall yet!) Typically, I just don’t feature the novel on my blog if food isn’t prominent, though I’ll give the book a shoutout on my Bookstagram. Then there’s books that are just too good to let slide by. I don’t care how far I have to stretch a recipe to relate it back to the book, it will be on the blog! The fruit tart I created for Illuminae is a perfect example of this. Nobody ate a fruit tart in Illuminae. In fact, I think all food products were freeze dried. Ew.

Marie Rutkoski’s Winner’s trilogy doesn’t focus much on food, other than fruits, many of which were made up and specific to Herran, the principle setting in this series. Frankly, a lot of the food was gross, like this meal from book two, The Winner’s Crime:

There were boats made from a meat terrine, their sails clear gelatin. She ate slowly.

So…meat loaf shaped like a boat with Jell-o sails. No, thank you. Dessert for this meal was accompanied by a pile of pink whipped cream. Just no. We can do so much better.

These scrumptious coconut macaroons are influenced by Kestrel and Arin’s disastrous half-moon cookie experiment as well as Arin’s love of oranges.

Other slaves might have been tempted, during the walk through the orange grove that stood between the forget and the slaves’ quarters, to pluck a fruit from the tree. To peel it hurriedly, bury the bright rind in the soil, and eat. Sometimes as Arin ate his meals of bread and stew he thought about it. When he walked under the trees, it was almost unbearable. The scent of citrus made his throat dry. But he didn’t touch the fruit. 

-The Winner’s Curse

I keep getting the question: “Any food aversions during pregnancy?”

My response: “….all foods?”

During my first trimester when all smells were offensive and I felt miserable at all times, Brice and I were walking through Wegman’s. It was like an assault on my nose, each scent worse than the last. Until I got this whiff of freshly squeezed orange juice. It was soothing. It was refreshing. It was glorious. Oranges and their smell have been a consistent safe harbor over the last few months, so naturally, I had a drawer full in my fridge!

He jumped the orange from one hand to the other, marveling at it. 

She said, “I didn’t know whether you like them.” 

…

“I never told you. Actually …” He rolled it in the well of one palm. “I love them.”

– The Winner’s Kiss

Me too, Arin. Me too.

These cookies were a lesson in balance. Too much orange juice just added moisture which created cookie pools. The zest helps the flavor come through, in addition to some zest added to the chocolate coating.

He dug his thumb in and peeled it open. Its perfume sprayed the air. He halved it and gave Kestrel her share. 

They sat on the grass outside his tent. They’d camped in a meadow not far from the road. He touched the grass, sleek beneath his fingers. He ate. The fruit was vibrant on his tongue. It had been years. “Thank you.” 

He thought he saw her mouth curve, and he was washed by a breathless nervousness. He spat a seed into his palm and wondered what little kernel lay in the folds of this moment. Then he told himself to stop thinking. An orange. A rare enough pleasure. Just eat. 

– The Winner’s Kiss 

Half-Moon Chocolate Orange Macaroons

Yield: appx. 24 cookies

Adapted from this Kitchn recipe.

Ingredients: 

5 cups of sweetened, shredded coconut

4 large egg whites

1/2 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1/4 teaspoon of salt

zest of 1/2 an orange

juice of 1/2 an orange

For the chocolate:

zest of 1/2 an orange

1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 teaspoon of coconut oil

Directions: 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Optional: On a separate cookie sheet, spread the coconut on a cookie sheet and toast the coconut for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, until the coconut starts to toast. Stir and check the coconut frequently. The original recipe calls for 5 minutes, but at least in my oven, it was 10 minutes before I had any color on the coconut.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg whites, sugar, vanilla, salt, orange zest, and orange juice. This works best with an electric mixer. Mix for a couple of minutes until the egg whites are frothy.
3. Stir the coconut into the egg white mixture until everything is evenly mixed.
4.  Line a cookie sheet with a Silpat sheet or parchment paper. Scoop the coconut mixture into small balls (about 1 and 1/2 tablespoons) and space evenly on the cookie sheet. I used my cookie dough scooper to keep the cookies consistent in size. With wet hands to prevent sticking, shape the cookies into half-moons. Place in the freezer for 10 to 20 minutes to help the cookies set.
5. Bake the macaroons for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown.
6. Allow the cookies to cool completely while you prepare the chocolate. Combine the chocolate, coconut oil, and orange zest. Be careful not to get any orange juice in your chocolate with the zest. This will cause your chocolate to seize up. Microwave the chocolate for 30 seconds, stirring every 15 seconds. After 30 seconds, most of the chocolate won’t be melted, but stirring it all together will do the trick. If the chocolate still isn’t melting, put it in the microwave for ten second increments until you have a smooth chocolate dip.
7. Dip the bottoms of the macaroons in the chocolate. Set on your Silipat/parchment paper lined cookie sheet, chocolate side up. Set in the freezer for 20 minutes. Store the cookies in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one week.

Here’s to hoping you have easier access to oranges than Arin.

We all sat around the table. (Father was away again.) I was thrilled. I had watched Mandy bake the cake and Bertha sew the gown and Nathan pick the flowers.

Mandy cut the cake. When she handed me my piece, she said without thinking, “Eat.”

The first bite was delicious. I finished the slice happily. When it was gone, Mandy cut another. That one was harder. When it was gone, no one gave me more, but I knew I had to keep eating. I moved my fork into the cake itself.

“Ella, what are you doing?” Mother said.

“Little piggy.” Mandy laughed. “It’s her birthday, Lady. Let her have as much as she wants.” She put another slice on my plate.

I felt sick, and frightened. Why couldn’t I stop eating?

Swallowing was a struggle. Each bite weighed on my tongue and felt like a sticky mass of glue as I fought to get it down. I started crying while I ate.

Mother realized first. “Stop eating, Ella,” she commanded.

I stopped.

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, 5/5 stars

Ella Enchanted has been my favorite book since I was twelve. I’ve read it at least a dozen times. Most recently, I re-read it  for book club and was nervous it wouldn’t stand the test of time, especially with how much I had hyped it up in my mind.

Spoiler: it did. For me and everyone else in the book club, whether it was one of their old favorites or their first time reading it.

It’s also the ultimate love story, so of course I had to team it with my Valentine’s Day post. I was inspired by Ella’s birthday cake and wanted to make something that would truly be a show-stopper. Plus, Brice and I  binge-watched the Great American Baking Show and I became obsessed with doing some proper chocolate work.

I usually have a love/hate relationship with cake. They’re fun to make, but it’s never a go-to dessert for me, because it’s usually so heavy and sweet, especially when filled with frosting. These three layers of fluffy red velvet cake sandwiching a light and fresh raspberry cream filling, topped with white chocolate frosting and dark chocolate decor are a perfect balance, though. No “sticky masses of glue” here.

For the chocolate work, I highly recommend using a thermometer with a digital reader. I did not and my temperatures were slightly off meaning my tempered chocolate was a little streaky and wasn’t setting as well as I would have liked. For my first time tempering chocolate, it worked out well enough.

Here are the recipes I used:

Paula Deen’s Red Velvet Cake – the only thing I changed was the amount of food coloring. I had a .25 ounce container, some of which I used for these mini princess cakes.  I just tossed in the remainder of the container. (An ounce just sounded excessive!)

Zoe Bakes Raspberry Cream Filling

White Chocolate Frosting

Instructions for Tempering Chocolate

• Before tempering the chocolate, I traced onto wax paper with a pencil the words and hearts that I wanted to make.
• Once I’d tempered the chocolate, I poured the chocolate into a piping bag with a medium sized tip. I experimented with different tips and the tiny tips were harder to work with.
• Outline your shapes and words. I free-handed some of them as well. Just have fun.

Just don’t force your Valentine to eat more than desired, like poor Ella. (Not that they’ll be able to stop eating it!)

Sam O’Neill drew a deft little caricature of the two of us as Mulder and Scully (I still have it, somewhere) and Cassie stuck it to the side of her computer, next to a bumper sticker that said BAD COP! NO DONUT! 

— In the Woods by Tana French, 5/5 stars

This book is impossible for me to discuss without spoiling everything. I can say, though, that it would make a great book club selection as it lends a lot of room for discussion between the crime, the psychological elements, the character’s decisions.

In The Woods relates a chilling crime investigation involving a young girl murdered in the detective/narrator’s hometown. The novel is at once nail biting and creepy, while also waxing nostalgic in quiet, beautiful passages.

In my memory, we spent a million nights in Cassie’s flat, the three of us. The investigation only lasted a month or so, and I’m sure there must have been days when one or another of us was off doing something else; but over time those evenings have colored the whole season for me, like a brilliant dye flowering slowly through water. The weather dipped in and out of an early, bitter autumn; wind whined through the eaves, and raindrops seeped in the warmed sash windows and trickled down the panes. 

Besides plastic-y warm chicken sandwiches and lots of whiskey, this book didn’t offer much in the form of food inspiration. So I followed the line of Cassie’s bumper sticker and made some woodsy-Halloween-y donuts with an earthy, green base and a rich, chocolate glaze.

This is Joy the Baker’s Baked Brown Butter Pistachio Donuts with some minor revisions. You could opt out of the green food coloring, especially if you’re making these outside of Halloween. Instead of Joy’s brown butter glaze, I used a chocolate glaze similar to the one I used for Celaena’s cake. While I’m typically a dark chocolate advocate, I recommend milk chocolate chips for these donuts. The richness of the dark chocolate overpowers the subtle pistachio flavor. Speaking of pistachio, I wanted the flavor to come through loud and clear, so I added a homemade “nut butter” of sorts to my version of this baked donut.

These beauties are sure to fuel you sleuthing appetite for whatever crimes you’re solving, fictional or otherwise.

Baked Pistachio Donuts with Chocolate Glaze

Revised recipe from Joy the Baker’s Baked Brown Butter and Pistachio DonutsIngredients:For the donuts: 2 cups of unbleached, all-purpose flour1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder1/2 teaspoon of baking soda3/4 teaspoon of salt1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg2/3 cup of granulated sugar1 and 1/2 cups of shelled pistachios, finely chopped and divided2 tablespoons of unsalted butter, melted and browned2 large eggs1 cup of buttermilk1 teaspoon of vanilla extractOptional: 4 drops of green food coloringFor the chocolate glaze: 1/2 cup of milk chocolate chips1/2 cup of heavy cream1 teaspoon of vanillaDirections: 

1. Place a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a donut pan and set aside.In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, sugar, and 1/2 cup of chopped pistachios. Set aside.In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, melt butter. Butter will begin to crackle and pop as it melts. That’s the water melting out of the butter. Once the water has evaporated the butter will quiet down and begin to brown. Keep an eye on it, it browns quickly. The butter will begin to smell nutty. Remove from heat pour into a ramekin to cool for about 5 minutes.In a food processor, grind 1/2 cup of pistachios until they begin to clump together and stick to the sides. Get the mixture as smooth as possible, though it will still be grainy. That’s alright.In a medium bowl, whisk together the pistachio butter, eggs, and buttermilk until smooth. Once smooth, whisk in the vanilla extract and browned butter. (Optional: Add 4 drops of green food coloring).Add the wet ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients. Stir together until no flour bits remain and all of the ingredients are well combined. Try not to overtax the batter or you’ll get rubbery donuts.Place in the oven and bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely.Do not make your chocolate glaze until the donuts are completely cool and ready to be glazed!To make the glaze, combine the chocolate chips, cream, and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium-low heat and stir until completely melted. Watch the mixture closely, and keep the heat down low! You don’t want burned chocolate.Set the glaze aside for 5 minutes to cool, stirring occasionally to help it along.(Note: leftover glaze will keep in the freezer for 2-3 months. When ready to use it again, pour it into a saucepan and reheat until melted and smooth). Dip the tops of the donuts in the glaze, turning back and forth, clockwise and then counterclockwise. Lift carefully, twisting your wrist to allow the glaze to drip back into the pan and settle smoothly across your donut.While the glaze is still wet, sprinkle the donuts with the final 1/2 cup of finely chopped pistachios.Enjoy.