Gossamer Wing Fruit-Bedecked Meringue

Steampunk romance is tricky. I generally want to like it more than I actually do. From a genre romance perspective, it seems like it would be a powerful combination to add a fantasy or science fiction element to alternative history: all the atmosphere of a historical with none of the rigidly defined social conventions or ultra-precise historical reckonings (in theory, though this book, Gossamer Wing by Delphine Dryden, adhered to some typically Victorian social conventions and it worked very well).

The problem seems to be that the loosey-goosey nature of the steampunk subgenre lends itself to a mix of science fiction and fantasy, blending pseudoscience with clearly fantastical elements resulting in murky world-building. The ones I have liked, this one by Dryden, and Prosperity by Alexis Hall (out later this month), seem to decide between a science-heavy worldview and a magic (or fantasy science) worldview. Dryden's offering is more science-based. Hall's is more mystical. Both work equally well.

Gossamer Wing is a humorous, fast-paced, sexy romance that flips the traditional adventurer-solider-spy/bluestocking pairing on its head. The action-packed adventure undertaken by Charlotte and Dexter is well-balanced with a marriage-of-convenience romance plot. Charlotte's spymaster father tries to distract her from the ongoing grief of her first husband's death at the hands of a French spy by interesting her in a mission in France.

Dexter is known as the legendary Makesmith Baron. Not only has he made much of the equipment Charlotte uses to fly her personal dirigible, the Gossamer Wing, he may be able to solve a problem with an underwater base the British and Americans hope to utilize in their ongoing cold war with the French. By enacting a temporary marriage, Charlotte's father hopes Dexter can keep Charlotte safe (though in reality Charlotte ends up keeping Dexter safe most of the time) and keep their cover intact as honeymooners vacationing in France.

Charlotte is delightfully independent and capable. She has education, training and wits. She reminds me a bit of Miss Fisher from Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. She's not completely averse to violence, but she, like Dexter, mostly thinks her way out of tight spots. Speaking of Dexter, he is quintessentially tall, dark and handsome, but also a raging geek, in true Dryden fashion. He's also more emotionally intelligent and more sexually experienced than Charlotte and it's him driving their relationship to a large extent.

I adored both Charlotte and Dexter and will hope to catch glimpses of them in the rest of the series. If all the books in the Steam and Seduction series are as good as Gossamer Wing, I will be happy to say I've finally found a steampunk romance series worth reading.

I suspect that you will be quite skeptical when I tell you what's in this. See, it has some to my attention that an awful lot of my favorite people avoid both gluten and dairy. And when it comes to my desserts, well, they're pretty much full of both gluten and dairy. Think people are 70% water? Not me! I am 70% heavy cream. The rest is flour.

I'm pretty sure that's true. Yep.

So when the running joke endearments between the hero and heroine in Gossamer Wing took a turn for the food-related and the little gem "fruit be-decked meringue" popped up, well, I knew that was 1) perfect for the book and 2) something all my Twitter buddies can eat!

"But, Elisabeth," you're probably thinking. "What is all that fluffy white stuff pouring out of your meringue cups if not whipped cream?" That, my friend, is whipped coconut milk. It's refrigerated and whipped and whipped and whipped in the stand mixer until it is soft and fluffy like loose whipped cream. My understanding is that if you refrigerate it over night, flip it over and pour out the liquid from the bottom that you can get it much stiffer, but that was not my objective here. Soft and fluffy works great.

I actually made two versions of this dessert, the one pictured here which is tropical fruit, whipped coconut milk and meringue cups and a version of the British dessert Eton Mess, which is normally fruit, whipped cream and broken up meringue cookies. Either one works, but the cups photographed better so that's what you get here. Check out my Twitter feed for the Eton Mess version if you're curious. If you do want to try piping your own meringue cups, here's a little video I made showing how I went about doing that.


If you don't have three hours to spend waiting for meringues to dry out in the oven, you can make those ahead of time and keep them in the freezer. And meringue cups are available in some grocery stores. That takes this from an almost four hour project to a 10 minute one. Just cut up your fruit, whip your coconut milk and you're on your way. Oh, and resist the impulse to sub in whipping cream for the coconut milk. It's really quite, quite good for a simple little thing.

Fruit-Bedecked Meringue
Makes: 6 servings
Time: 4 1/2 hours (hands on time: approximately 15 minutes)
adapted from How Sweet It Is and Martha Stewart

3 egg whites, room temperature
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 can unsweetened full fat coconut milk, refrigerated overnight
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
8-12 ounces tropical fruit, chopped (I bought an 8 ounce pre-cut tub from Whole Foods and supplemented it with a kiwi that I cut up myself)

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. On a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie tray, draw 6 circles approximately 3" in diameter by tracing a biscuit cutter, drinking glass or other appropriately sized object with a pencil. Flip the parchment paper over so pencil doesn't get on your cookies.

2. Using hand mixer, whip egg whites on medium-low until frothy. Turn up mixer to medium and whip until soft peaks form. Add superfine sugar and vanilla. Whip on high until they form firm, glossy peaks.

3. In a piping bag fitted with a large star tip starting the center of one of the pre-traced circles on parchment, pipe first a circle, then a little wall to make a meringue cup. See the video above if these instructions aren't clear.

4. Bake for 1 hour at 200 degrees. Turn the oven down to 175 degrees and bake for an addition 3 to 4 hours or until meringues easily lift from the parchment paper without sticking.

5. Whip the coconut milk on high in a stand mixer for about 5 minutes or until fluffy while the meringues cool.

6. Layer fruit on top of meringue cups and whipped coconut milk on top of the fruit. Serve immediately.

Disclosure: Delphine Dryden and I are friendly on Twitter.

Mai Tai for Two Chocolate Macadamia Tart

Delphine Dryden is a writer I probably should have discovered a long time ago, but somehow didn't. I mean, she writes for Wonkomance, she's in frequent conversation with a lot of my other favorite writers on Twitter (like Cara McKenna, Ruthie Knox and Charlotte Stein) and, well, she's a nerd. How could it have taken me this long to find her books?

So at some point a couple of weeks ago, I decided to rectify my unfortunate oversight and Read All The Things. Yep, I promptly devoured her entire backlist, especially the very nerdy Science of Temptation BDSM books. In fact, I had to put myself on Kindle restriction the next day just to get stuff done. I was sad when I finished all her books a few days later. Lucky for me, Dryden then released a new book: Mai Tai for Two.

Mai Tai for Two was a total departure from the rest of what I've read by Dryden. Mainly, it's not at all kinky or edgy. The plot premise is of a friends-become-lovers nature and both the Hawaiian setting and the characters' relationship are very sweet. In fact, the sweetness seduced me into thinking that this was a very simple "beach read" kind of book. I breezed through it the morning it appeared, pronounced it good and then moved on.

Then in preparation for this review, I read it a second time. And on second examination, it's not so simple. Alan and Julie, the hero and heroine, have a wonderful back-slapping jovial chemistry as friends and the dialogue is just as clever, nerdy and snappy as in the other books I've read by Dryden. There's a line that references motherfucking turtles that was funny the first time, but took me by surprise when it was just as funny the second time. And the friendly banter carries through the book, even as Alan and Julie start using it as a crutch for the more difficult conversations they have yet to have. It makes for a wonderful counterpoint, where what's happening on the surface is different than what's happening underneath. They're both aware of it, but they haven't learned how to communicate on this new level yet.

Which points to what I loved most about this book: the charming awkwardness. Moving from friends to lovers is really graceless in a way that people who haven't experienced it might discount. And since I married a man who was first my best friend, I know of what I speak. A lot of things that might be hard in a traditional dating scenario are easy, but things that don't matter when you're just friends suddenly take on a grave importance when you're looking at someone in a new light. The best moments in Mai Tai for Two are when we get inside the characters' heads as they sort all of this out. The actual stumbling blocks are different than what I experienced, but Dryden just nails the emotion of it all.

Mai Tai for Two is a good, quick read, but don't let the sweetness fool you. There's more to Alan and Julie than first appears.

Near the end of Mai Tai for Two, the protagonists end up eating chocolate-covered macadamia nuts in bed. Immediately my brain said: chocolate tart with macadamia nut crust! With some kind of coconuty thing. Because Hawaii. Apparently I think in baked goods? 

This tart is not simple. It's not quick. It's not even easy. But it's so worth it, much like how Alan and Julie's relationship develops. The crust is flaky and delicate. The chocolate custard is rich in both taste and texture. The chocolate glaze is pretty and shiny and satiny. And the coconut whipped cream just cuts right through all the chocolate with the perfect hint of island flavor. I recommend saving it for someone you really, really like.

Like yourself. Or your best friend.

Chocolate Macadamia Nut Tart
Adapted from Gourmet Magazine and Bon Appetite Magazine
Serves: 12
Time: About 4 hours (including chilling and baking time)

Crust
1 cup all purpose flour
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup macadamia nuts (about 1 1/2 ounces), chopped and toasted
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 egg yolks

1. Add macadamia nuts to the food processor and mix until chopped. Remove from food processor and toast in a small saucepan over medium heat on the stovetop, keeping a careful eye out to be sure they don’t burn. Remove from pan and let cool.
2. Combine flour, sugar and salt in processor and mix.
3. Add toasted macadamia nuts.
4. Add butter and cut in using on/off turns until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add yolks and process just until moist clumps form.
5. Gather dough into ball; flatten to disk. Wrap in plastic and chill 30 minutes.
6. Preheat oven 375°F. Butter 9-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom.
7. Roll out dough between sheets of waxed paper to 11-inch round. Peel off top sheet of paper.
8. Transfer crust to prepared pan, pressing dough firmly to fit pan and patching if necessary. Discard paper. Trim edges of crust. Freeze crust 15 minutes.
9. Bake until firm, about 10 minutes.
10. Allow crust to cool on rack at least 30 minutes.

Filling
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
9 ounces bittersweet chocolate (not more than 65% cacao if marked), chopped
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Heat oven to 350°F.
2. Bring cream to a boil, then pour over chocolate in a bowl and let stand 5 minutes. Gently stir until smooth.
3. Whisk together eggs, vanilla, and salt in another bowl, then stir into melted chocolate.
4. Pour filling into cooled crust.
5. Bake until filling is set about 3 inches from edge but center is still wobbly, 18 to 22 minutes.
(Center will continue to set as tart cools.) Cool completely in pan on rack, about 1 hour.

Glaze
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 3/4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 teaspoon light corn syrup
1 tablespoon warm water

1. Bring cream to a boil and remove from heat. Stir in chocolate until smooth. Stir in corn syrup, then warm water.
2. Pour glaze onto tart, then tilt and rotate tart so glaze coats top evenly. Let stand until glaze is set, about 1 hour.

Whipped cream
Servings: 4
Time: 2 minutes

1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
½ teaspoon coconut extract

1. When ready to serve tart, combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. Beat on medium using hand mixer until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Recipe can be scaled for more than 4 people without additional changes.

Come back next Monday! I'll review Elizabeth Hoyt's Thief of Shadows and present you with scones good enough to encourage you to make bad decisions.

Is old school synonymous with rapey?

In the seminal modern romance novel The Flame and the Flower, Kathleen Woodiwiss provided the blueprint for the future of the historical romance, at least the Regency ones. But it really wasn’t my kind of book. In fact, I never made it past the first sex scene. Why? Well, let’s just say that it doesn’t conform to contemporary standards of consensual sex. To be blunt, it’s kind of rapey. There are a lot of older historical romances like this and collectively they seem to have acquired the term “old school”. So what do people mean when they say old school? Is it synonymous with rapey?

I’m not using the diminutive here to be be cutesy. Rape is not cute. Ever. I’m using the term “rapey” to signify a particular brand of dubious consent hero-heroine sex that typically takes place early in a novel. I’m sure you’ve read the kind of scene I’m referring to here. The hero and heroine are alone together and the heroine wants a bit of convincing. In the worst ones, the hero takes what he wants without any positive signal from the heroine, and in fact, the hero steamrolls over some definitively negative ones. In the best ones, some form of generally non-verbal agreement from the heroine occurs before penetration.

Now, these scenes don’t bother everyone. Women with normal sexual experiences, histories and appetites have rape fantasies. And these scenes are usually written in such a way that the heroine ultimately receives some sort of reward for allowing the hero’s bad behavior. For the context of the period and the context of the romance genre, there’s an argument for including these books in a romance canon. Before the current raft of interest in and mainstream acceptance of BDSM ethics and norms, the forced seduction concept probably serves the same fantasy role. They still bother me. It’s what has turned me off to significant numbers of historical romances so it’s in my own interest that I ask this question. Because if I see “old school” I want to know if I’m getting into a book I might not enjoy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a little BDSM between consenting adults. Cuffs + flogger + some rough oral + a clever safeword = WIN in my book. Some of my favorite erotic romances have a pretty sharp edge: Willing Victim by Cara McKenna and The Theory of Attraction by Delphine Dryden. They get a little snarly, but at no point is the heroine’s consent ever in doubt.

There does seem to be a certain segment of the romance reviewer population that regards the term “old school” as being synonymous with those 1980s historicals that feature rapey sex. So what do you think? Should we be using these terms synonymously? If not, what are the features of an old school romance?