For Real Lemon Meringue Pie

About six months ago, I got an email from romance writer Alexis Hall. He wanted to know if I'd consider developing a lemon meringue pie recipe for this kinky book he was writing about a chef and a doctor. Of course I agreed and therefore ended up helping with this book, For Real (out everywhere today), in a super small and amusing way. But since I kinda qualify as a beta reader, I'm not going to do a full review. I just want to share some personal and HELLO BIASED reflections on why I thought this was a terrific book. And also pictures of pie. You've been warned.

There are lots of things I loved about For Real, mainly the large age gap between the heroes, the realistic, engaging portrayals of BDSM within the context of a really romantic story and the dueling first person, present/past point of view which could have gone really far wrong, but didn't. Toby is a short-order cook and he's believably, adorably, relatably nineteen to Laurie's jaded, cynical, tired thirty-seven. In a quirky way, their relationship kind of works because they have such a large gap in their experience--with life, with work and yes, with kink. When I discovered that Toby is the dominant in the book, I liked it even better because it's so not the typical romance pattern. Toby is a new dominant and has lots of questions, but also lots of enthusiasm which works for Laurie as nothing else has in recent memory. If I were writing a real review, which I'm not, I'd also go into how the book makes some really insightful points about sex and kink in romance.

Laurence Dalziel is worn down and washed up, and for him, the BDSM scene is all played out. Six years on from his last relationship, he’s pushing forty and tired of going through the motions of submission.
Then he meets Toby Finch. Nineteen years old. Fearless, fierce, and vulnerable.  Everything Laurie can’t remember being.
Toby doesn’t know who he wants to be or what he wants to do. But he knows, with all the certainty of youth, that he wants Laurie. He wants him on his knees. He wants to make him hurt, he wants to make him beg, he wants to make him fall in love.
The problem is, while Laurie will surrender his body, he won’t surrender his heart. Because Toby is too young, too intense, too easy to hurt. And what they have—no matter how right it feels—can’t last. It can’t mean anything.
It can’t be real.
- See more at: http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/for-real#sthash.jIPDQKcK.dpuf

Laurence Dalziel is worn down and washed up, and for him, the BDSM scene is all played out. Six years on from his last relationship, he’s pushing forty and tired of going through the motions of submission.
Then he meets Toby Finch. Nineteen years old. Fearless, fierce, and vulnerable.  Everything Laurie can’t remember being.
Toby doesn’t know who he wants to be or what he wants to do. But he knows, with all the certainty of youth, that he wants Laurie. He wants him on his knees. He wants to make him hurt, he wants to make him beg, he wants to make him fall in love.
The problem is, while Laurie will surrender his body, he won’t surrender his heart. Because Toby is too young, too intense, too easy to hurt. And what they have—no matter how right it feels—can’t last. It can’t mean anything.
It can’t be real.
- See more at: http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/for-real#sthash.jIPDQKcK.dpuf

And scene with the lemon meringue pie recipe in it is a very kinky, very sexy scene. It's also creative, funny and tender. But it's not actually my favorite. For all that For Real is a smoking hot BDSM romance, it's also incredibly romantic. The scene that melted me was when Laurie takes Toby to a dinner at his old college and at the tail end of this slightly awkward excursion...I can't even...Toby teaches Laurie to quickstep in a courtyard. I don't think it's just because I'm a dancer that this scene put a completely silly smile on my face, but it might be. It's as sensual as any of the BDSM scenes in the book and even requires Laurie surrendering to being led--in a venue he's much less familiar with than being tied up. But mostly I thought it was a brief moment of utter loveliness--romance perfection even--that has stuck with me for months and that I now think about every time I quickstep. It's about love and trust and becoming a "we" instead of a "you" and a "me" in a way that has the potential for a healthy amount of humiliation. And that's something I love about all of Hall's books: how he fills recesses of hurt and vulnerability with things that are better. Maybe not all the way, and maybe not perfectly, but better.

For Real isn't Hall's cleverest, most daring book, with the lushest language, the starkest metaphor or the largest concept. It's just real and glorious in equal measures. I think it's his best one yet.

But hey, I'm biased.

Oh, and the recipe for the pie is in the book. So you should, ya know, get it. In fact, until June 7th, there's a giveaway going on over on my post at Read a Romance Month where you could win a copy of For Real, Rose Lerner's Sweet Disorder or any number of other fabulous foodie romance prizes.

Disclosure: In case you somehow missed it, I beta read a section of For Real, wrote the lemon meringue pie recipe in the book, have a review column once a month at All About Romance with Hall and pester him via email frequently. I also received an ARC of For Real from the publisher. So you should obviously ignore everything I have to say about this book because BIASED in all the ways.

Guest Post: Food & Romance at Read a Romance Month

I'm guest posting over at Read a Romance Month's blog today, sharing some thoughts on food and romance, plus trying out a recipe from Brenda Novak's new cookbook to raise funds for the American Diabetes Association. I made the crepes from the book and they turned out great. I also got a sneak peek at the rest of the cookbook and all the recipes look really good. Plus, it's for a good cause and there's a giveaway of a couple of my favorite foodie romances, including Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner and Alexis Hall's latest, For Real. 

And just to entice you to go read the post, I'm including a bonus recipe here. Brenda suggested filling the crepes with fruit or goat cheese and blackberry jam. But I happened to have some whipping cream left over from another recipe so I decided to see if I could make goat cheese whipped cream. Doesn't that sound good? Turns out...it is good. Really good. Good enough that I pretty much think that breakfast should always include honeyed goat cheese whipped cream. And fresh farmer's market strawberries.

Pretty please?

Honeyed Goat Cheese Whipped Cream
Makes: 6 servings
Difficulty: Intermediate

4 ounces soft goat cheese, room temperature (very important--goat cheese cannot be too cold or the whipped cream will separate)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
2 teaspoons honey

1. In a medium bowl, combine goat cheese, powdered sugar, honey and 1/4 cup of the whipping cream. Using a hand mixer, mix on low speed until smooth. Add the remaining whipping cream and beat on medium speed until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.

2. Serve with crepes or french toast for breakfast or with crepes and fresh berries for a light spring dessert.

Into the Shadows Bourbon Chocolate Milkshakes

So this is a secret baby book. I hate secret baby books. HATE. I hate them so much that my review policies caution people against sending them to me.

Except...I loved this secret baby book.

Into the Shadows, the third book in Carolyn Crane's Undercover Associates series, features undercover Associate Thorne, who isn't really an official part of the group. He's a self-contained unit, tasked with taking down a large criminal syndicate and the highly placed government officials shielding it, from the inside. Vengeance for his sister's murder years before is what drives him and he's spent years getting to a place where he can kill the last guy involved in her death. Heroine Nadia is the daughter of Thorne's former boss, who died two years before. While Thorne was working for Nadia's dad the two of them were an item and unbeknownst to Thorne, Nadia got pregnant shortly before they broke up. Fast forward to the present and their son, Benny, is almost two years old.

The major reason I loved this book is Thorne. Thus far, the Associates books have worked well for me largely because of the heroines. And Nadia is terrific. She's fierce, protective and smart. She has her own goals that have nothing to do with the hero. In fact, she never expected to see him again. She was heartbroken when he left, but she has gone on with her life and I loved her for it. But it's tortured, messed up Thorne who made this book for me. He thinks he's a bad guy, a thug and unworthy of love. He doesn't trust anyone. He can't take a compliment. Both he and Nadia think he'd be a terrible father. The only reason he and Nadia ever got together in the first place is that she told him to fuck off. And while Nadia has some of her own demons to slay, it's Thorne's emotional journey toward being able to accept the love and intimacy Nadia offers that made this story so gripping for me.

Previous stories in this series have been quite epic. In general, the protagonists have been saving the world, or at least a bunch of innocents, from certain destruction. Into the Shadows is a much more personal, intimate, family-oriented plot. Thorne's issues stem largely from his dysfunctional childhood. Nadia's wasn't much better. And the two of them have to band together to save both Nadia's mother and their son. The result is a poignant, closely-written, emotional book. Honestly, I had no idea romantic suspense could be this good.

So if you aren't reading the Associates series, you should start, even if you're not that into romantic suspense. Maybe not with this one since you'll have more background on the secondary characters if you read them in order (and the fourth book just came out this week), but yeah. Start today.

The connection between bourbon chocolate milkshakes and Into the Shadows will probably not be apparent to anyone but me. But there are several key scenes involving whiskey and one right at the very end of the book involving some ice cream.

So I'll just say this: what are milkshakes but ice cream that has been melted strategically?

This recipe couldn't be easier. Just put everything in a blender and blend until smooth. The only bit of advice I have is that actually, the quality of the ice cream seems to be more important than the quality of the bourbon. Though I used pretty good bourbon here because I just don't really buy bad bourbon. This isn't the time to go generic on the ice cream though. You want the creamy richness of premium chocolate ice cream. I've found that if I use the cheap stuff it just takes more of it to get the consistency right because it has more air whipped in. So yeah. Häagen-Dazs or your favorite local artisan brand is the way to go.

Oh, and try not to fall over when you drink this much alcohol and sugar through a straw.

Bourbon Chocolate Milkshakes
Makes: 2 16-oz shakes
Difficulty: Easy

4 ounces bourbon
4 ounces chocolate syrup
3 1/2 cups good quality chocolate ice cream

1. Put all the ingredients in a blender. Blend on low speed for 15-30 seconds. Pour into glasses.

Disclosure: I am friendly with Carolyn Crane on Twitter and often receive ARCs from her, but I purchased Into the Shadows myself.

AAR Guest Post + Next #DCRom Gathering + Sweet Disorder Pound Cake

Just popping in today to say that my monthly joint review with Alexis Hall is up at All About Romance today. We rave over Rose Lerner's Sweet Disorder and, as I mentioned in our review, I just couldn't get over how much amazing food is in it. I've already used it as inspiration for three different recipes, but since one wasn't mine and one was only very loosely inspired by the book, today I'm sharing pound cake.

But first, a group of Washington, DC adjacent romance-loving folks have decided to get together once a month in person to eat, drink and chat about the books we love. I've hashtagged it #DCRom on Twitter, which is super uninspired, but works, I guess. The plan is to get together on the third Tuesday of every month at Northside Social, the coffeehouse and wine bar in Arlington, Virginia. The next one will be Tuesday, May 19th from 6-8 pm. If you want reminders closer to the date, email or tweet me and I'll add you to my totally ad hoc list that will not be used for any other purpose but reminding folks of gatherings.

And now, pound cake.

One of the more amusing aspects of Sweet Disorder is when confectioner Mr. Moon, the heroine's prospective Whig groom, tries to tempt the sweet-averse Phoebe into trying his various treats. One of those is a pound cake that he describes as tasting of tea and lavender with a lemon glaze. Lucky for me, I happen to have had some leftover lavender sugar from making these cookies, a bag of Black Dragon Pearl tea that's been hanging out in my cupboard since December and a notion for a light lemon syrup that would work kind of like basting a fruitcake in alcohol.

I have no illusions that this is in any way historically accurate. But that's never been my goal. But what came out of the oven on the very first try was something like a cup lavender black tea flavored with lemon, albeit in cake form. I had no notion it would work on the first try and I didn't take pictures.

So I had to make (and eat) it again. I swear. Such hardships I endure for you people.

Lavender and Black Tea Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze
Makes: 12 servings
Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
2 heaping tablespoons black tea
1/2 teaspoon culinary lavender
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) melted unsalted butter
cooking spray
parchment paper

1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice

1. Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray, line with parchment sized to fit the pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a food processor, combine sugar, tea and lavender and run until tea is pulverized--not dust, but no big pieces either. Add flour, baking powder and salt and pulse to combine. Add eggs ones at time, pulsing to combine. Add vanilla extract. Remove to large bowl.

2. Add melted butter and mix until just combined. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth the top. Cook for 50-55 minutes until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean.

3. Mix powdered sugar and lemon juice until combined. Set aside.

4. Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Unmold the cake and poke holes in it all over with the skewer. Baste the cake on all sides with a pastry brush until the syrup is used.

5. Allow to cool completely, then slice and serve.

Disclosure: Rose Lerner and I have a friendly relationship on Twitter, but I bought Sweet Disorder myself.

The Bride and The Beast Candied Bacon Salted Oatmeal Cookies

Gwendolyn Wilder loved Bernard MacCullough from afar as a girl. But when the English raid his father's Castle for harboring the Scottish pretender, the young would-be laird is killed. Or so she thought. And when a dragon comes to claim the ruined castle, the villagers send the only virgin left in Ballybliss to slake The Dragon's hunger.

The Bride and the Beast by Teresa Medeiros is one of those books that despite some issues, I really loved. It doesn't hurt that beauty and the beast is pretty much my favorite trope, or that the dialogue is witty and hilarious or that it has all the charm of old skool kidnapping romance without any of the problematic consent issues. Less good are a difficult relationship with female sexuality and a healthy helping of fat-shaming. But even those downsides are mild and ameliorated by the book's charm, fairy tale framing and 14-year-old publication date.
 
It's a fascinating book for sure. It was published in 2001 and seems to fall somewhere between the slightly uncomfortable for a contemporary reader 1990s Highland romances and today's carefully feminist historicals. There's a ton of subtext here for lovers of romance and fairy tales, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't. The heroine is pretty judgmental of her pretty, selfish, sexualized sisters. She slut-shames the youngest one for having sex outside of marriage. And the oldest, who has had several marriages, still isn't good enough because it appears that she married for material considerations rather than for love. If we forgive Gwen for her judgment, it's because her sisters are generally pretty terrible to her, which fits within the fairy tale aspect of the story.

Then there's the fact that Gwen muses fairly consistently on how sad and terrible it is that she's fat. She does get a bit of a makeover via some lovely dresses, but she never loses the weight and is even shown doing some emotional eating. It's a realistic portrayal of many women's complex relationships with their bodies. Gwen has clearly internalized a negative perception of her eating habits and fuller figure. But a lot of this bad messaging and internal script comes from her not-quite-evil, but not nice either sisters. And both her sexual desires and her shape ARE validated by the hero, which is a good thing. But the (likely unintended) message seems to be that if a man says it's okay, then it's really okay. But ONLY if a man thinks so.

In a current romance, I might have been less forgiving than I was with this one. The problem is that it's just so darn charming. The heroine is abused by herself and her sisters, but not by the hero. He wars with his desire the same as she does. And his thirst for revenge makes for a creative take on the beast archetype. The reason I mention the publication date is that in the mid-1990s I read an awful lot of romance featuring semi-barbaric Highlanders. Those heroines were generally kidnapped English mewling misses (with the requisite flashing eyes) who tame their savage beasts. And I had resigned myself to that being the narrative in this book. After all, that arc's still somewhat nostalgic fun, even if I've kinda grown out of it. But that's not what happens. Or well, it is, but it's not as heavy-handed, sexual or physical as what I remembered from this sort of story. The hero might be a beast, but he's a beast primarily concerned with the heroine's comfort, confidence and pleasure. Where he's most beastly is in his dealings with the admittedly not very likeable villagers who were complicit in his father's death. It makes for a much more subtle transformation.

The thing is, despite the issues, this book really worked for me. While some of the details weren't all I would have hoped for, my overall impression was positive. All the banter between hero and heroine and the hero and his friend is witty and clever and fast-paced. The action keeps the plot moving, but doesn't overshadow the characters' emotional journeys. It's just an interesting moment in historical romance--after pirates and barbarians and before The Dukes. If you can overlook some of its old-fashioned ideas, it's really quite a perfect historical.

I don't know how much I really need to say about these cookies. They're dense and oaty and not too sweet and full of bacon. When I posted them to Twitter, I got several requests for the recipe, which obviously didn't exist yet. And then I had to find a book for them. The book is admittedly sort of a stretch, but who cares. When the Dragon gets pissed at the villagers for sending him a virgin instead of the thousand pounds he asked for, he punishes them by sending Gwen's ridiculous list of all the food she can think of, including oatmeal.

I made these cookies one night when I was, well, craving cookies. And though I salted them, there was still something missing. Turns out that something was candied bacon.

I pretty much always bake my bacon in the oven. Weird, right? But there's no hissing, spitting bacon grease or splattered cooktop. And if I'm making it for breakfast, I can use my large skillet for pancakes or eggs instead. It just works for me. So that's what I did here, adding a little bit of maple syrup, brown sugar and cinnamon in the final few minutes.

I like cookies the size of my head (or well, my palm I suppose) so this recipe makes about a dozen and a half BIG cookies, which is good because these don't keep. I'd make them for a crowd or a potluck or some time when they'll all get eaten within a day or two. After that they'll get chewy and stale.

I suspect it won't be a problem though. They're pretty delicious.

Candied Bacon Salted Oatmeal Cookies
Makes: 18 large cookies
Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes (30 minutes hands-on time)
Difficulty: Easy

6 slices thick-cut or country bacon
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, divided
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon course sea salt
16 tablespoons butter (2 sticks), softened
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon reserved bacon grease
2 large eggs
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not the quick cooking kind and DEFINITELY not instant)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Lay out 6 slices of bacon on a cookie tray covered in aluminum foil. Bake for 10 minutes and flip. Bake and additional 5 minutes and check for crispness.

2. In the meantime, mix 1 tablespoon of maple syrup, 2 tablespoons brown sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in a small mixing bowl until combined. When the bacon is almost done, drain off bacon grease and reserve. Brush the mixture over one side, flip and brush over the other side. Continue to bake for 3 minutes, making sure not to scorch the sugar.

3. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sea salt and remaining 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.

4. In the a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the butter, sugar, brown sugar and 1 tablespoon of the reserved bacon grease. Add eggs one at a time, mixing to combine after each addition. Add flour mixture and and mix until almost combined. Add oats [and crumbled bacon] and mix.

5. On three cookie trays covered with parchment paper, scoop out dough into balls approximately 1 1/2 inches to 2 inches across. Refrigerate trays for 15 minutes.

6. Bake for 22-25 minutes until golden on the edges and set in the middle, rotating and switching halfway through baking. Allow to cook on trays for 10 minutes, then move to wire racks to cool completely.

7. Consume immediately. Recommend refrigeration for any leftovers to be extra cautious. These do have meat in them, after all.

[edited to add: when to add the bacon in step 4--thanks to commenter Kelly for catching that missing instruction!]

For My Lady's Heart Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake

Laura Kinsale never disappoints me. In For My Lady's Heart, she has written a masterpiece, not just of romance, but of universal literary merit. It's one of the most subversive works of literature I've read. Well, listened to actually. My husband and I got the audio book and played it in the car on road trips for about six months. And since I'm going to spend the rest of this review talking about myths and cake, let me just say that Nicholas Boulton's narration of this book is outstanding. Well worth acquiring, even if you've already read it. What Kinsale subverts in this book though isn't just narrative structure or genre conventions. No, she's got a much bigger target: the archetypal heroic story arc that underpins much of humanity's storytelling.

For My Lady's Heart's romantic arc begins with the hero and heroine's meet-cute across a crowded room full of priests and petitioners. The hero is instantly attracted to the beautiful, sophisticated heroine, who promptly laughs at him, then saves his ass when he gets in over his head. He pledges his life and sword to her and they go their separate ways, she with her court, he to earn his name and seek his fortune. We rejoin the couple years later when Melanthe is now the widow of a powerful Italian noble, has promised to wed yet another Italian noble, and is journeying home to England to solidify her claim to some land that her soon-to-be-betrothed wants to get his dastardly hands on. Another chance meeting brings Ruck back into her life, this time for good, and he serves as her bodyguard on the trip back north. Nothing goes as planned of course, their pasts catch up with both of them and they have to learn to either stay apart forever or work together.

For My Lady's Heart is anything but straightforward, however. Right away, both my husband and I keyed in on the fact that Ruck calls himself "The Green Knight" in lieu of a name for much of the story. Even before Kinsale hopped into a conversation I was having with Lisa Hendrix on Twitter to say that she'd been inspired by Tolkien's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the parallels were obvious. If you're not familiar though, basically, we're talking King Arthur here, which clued us into the idea that the book would follow Ruck, his mysterious identity and daring exploits. There's a whole tradition of this kind of literary behavior going back to the beginning of written story-telling. It's the "hero's journey" Joseph Campbell talks about in The Hero With A Thousand Faces: the man leaves home to seek adventure, experiences trials, hits rock bottom, transforms, rights his wrongs, reconciles with his father and emerges triumphant, returning home a hero. That's Ruck's story completely. It's also Luke Skywalker's. And Thor's in the Marvel movie. If you ever studied The Odyssey or Gilgamesh in school, you probably learned about this concept. There's a reason it's considered archetypal.

What's fascinating to me about veering off from something like the hero's journey in a romance novel though, a genre written primarily for, by, and about women, is that those stories are all about the dudes. They're the heroes. The protectors. Large and in charge, even when being buffeted by life. The women are mainly witches, connivers and adulteresses; goddesses and temptresses; Madonnas and whores. They're dramatic foils; obstacles that get in the way of the heroes' honorable impulses.

But what about the "heroine's journey"; a woman's archetypal/literary/epic/mythological path? I'm not sure there is one, at least not one that doesn't focus exclusively on fertility. It's not like most Medieval men ran off and became knights. Or that Grecian peasants were out sailing the Mediterranean for a decade or two. For high school literature students, Elizabeth Bennett might have been the first female main character encountered who was written by a woman. Before that it's all Penelope, Hester Prynne and Lady Macbeth. At least, it was at my school. And while I will never say anything negative about Austen because of course I adore her books, her world was small. The heroes in epics and myths, their worlds are not small. Melanthe's world is not small. Melanthe plays on the highest levels of the Medieval international political stage. She's skilled at diplomacy and deception, but limited in power by her gender and hampered rather than helped by her beauty, which would be the more typical role of feminine beauty in an historical romance. And most people in the story believe that she is a witch who took lovers and murdered her husband.

Outside of the maiden, the mother or the crone, there's no script for Melanthe to follow. Even though she does rather torture Ruck in his celibacy, she for sure doesn't follow the archetypal path of mythological women. She's not a goddess or a witch or a whore or a virtuous woman who stays home and waits for her husband to return triumphant. And, well, maybe that's the point. Despite what everyone would want to believe of Melanthe, how they perceive her, how they would use her or how they would change her (Ruck included), she resists. She remains her own paranoid, difficult, irascible self, refusing all aid and comfort, solving her own problems and shaping her world to suit herself. She proves not to be a witch on their trip through the marsh, not a whore in her sexual inexperience, not a mother or wife when they marry and arrive at Wolfscar, Ruck's castle, midway through the book.

Contrasted with the set path Ruck is allowed to tread, one worn into the literary bedrock over the course of centuries, Melanthe's is one of her own invention. She almost never does what either Ruck or the reader expect. Her values include her freedom, her life and perhaps the well-being of her beloved pet falcon. And whatever she has to be or do in order to preserve those things are what she does. She's rather infinitely adaptable actually, not particularly constrained by social mores, the Church or an inconveniently well-born husband despite being hyper-aware of those restrictions. Ruck is far below her in social standing and can't match her wits, except on rare occasions (and we do root for him when he stands up to her because he's so utterly outmatched most of the time). She makes her own way right to the very end. And speaking of the end, it's no one's triumph. It's an accident that delivers our heroine. Or an act of God.

For My Lady's Heart contains all this and yet, it still functions as a road trip romance. As Melanthe and Ruck journey together, sometimes together, sometimes apart, sometimes in harmony and sometimes (okay, mostly) not, their attraction to one another becomes obvious to both of them. However, Melanthe for fear of her political enemies and Ruck out of fear for his immortal soul, must resist the temptation they represent to each other. All that thwarted desire is awfully hot. We also get Kinsale's humor in hunting herons, slaying dragons, and jokes about sex and confession. The scene where Ruck and Melanthe consummate their unusual marriage and Ruck turns out to be rather a savant of sex as a result of his many, many forays into the confessional is one of the funniest things I've ever read. I went back and read the scene in the book to be sure that it wasn't only Boulton's impeccable comedic timing and it wasn't. Still funny.

I grabbed a used copy of For My Lady's Heart just so I could put it on my Very Favorite Book Ever shelf next to Flowers From the Storm and Prince of Midnight. It's just...everything.

C'est n'est pas Wolfscar.

In my head, this post was going to utilize this pan. Perhaps with a great deal of green food coloring. And probably some Dungeons & Dragons miniatures. Why? Well, how often do you get to use a bundt pan in the shape of a castle? And there are, like, four castles in this book. I mean, really.

But then I realized that there actually is food in For My Lady's Heart. In fact, there's kind of a whole thing about oranges and almonds. Melanthe's decision to share her treats with Ruck represents a shift for her in terms of both how she thinks of him and how she thinks of herself. For the first time, she's laid bare. And he's not sure what to make of that at all.

As for this cake, it's a little bit fussy, but if you follow the instructions exactly, it should work out fine. The first time I tried making the original recipe for a friend who's dairy free, I was too fast and loose with the process and it didn't rise properly. I don't specifically recall what I did, but I'm guessing I probably oiled the sides of the pan. Don't do that. This is sort of a chiffon-type cake and it needs to be able to cling to the sides to rise.

So anyway, when I modified the recipe for this post, I was extra special careful and it turned out fine. I'd say...er...don't fiddle with this one. If you don't have the precise right ingredients (blood oranges are rapidly going out of season and dried orange peel may require a trip to a specialty spice shop) and tools (you'll need a 9-inch spring form pan and parchment paper), make something else or go shopping first. Cool? Cool.

For more photos of this cake, visit Cooking Up Romance on Facebook. I often stash extra photos there so you can see what each step of the process is supposed to look like.


Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake
adapted from epicurious
Makes: 12 servings
Time: 2 1/2 hours (hands-on: 45 minutes)
Difficulty: Advanced

3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for pan
2 blood oranges, zested (1 1/2 tablespoons zest)
2 tablespoons blood orange juice
1 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon dried orange peel
5 egg yolks, 4 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Oil the bottom of a 9-inch spring form pan. Place a piece of parchment in the bottom and close the pan. Oil the parchment only (not the sides).

2. In a food processor, pulse together the blood orange zest, cake flour and dried orange peel until combined.

3. In a large bowl, beat together egg yolks and 1/2 cup of sugar with an electric mixer on high speed until thick and pale (about 3 minutes). Add 3/4 cup of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of blood orange juice. Mix until combined. Stir in the flour mixture (by hand--do not use mixer).

4. Wash the electric mixer beaters thoroughly. In another large bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Add 1/4 cup of sugar a little at a time until sugar is incorporated and egg whites form soft peaks.

5. Gently fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the egg yolk and flour mixture to lighten it, then fold in remaining egg whites carefully, but thoroughly.

6. Pour batter into prepared pan and gently tap to release air bubbles. Sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar. Bake until puffed and golden, 35-45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

7. Cool the cake on a rack for 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edge of the cake and remove the side of pan. Cool cake to room temperature, about 1 1/4 hours. Remove the bottom of the pan, peel off parchment and serve.

Disclosure: Laura Kinsale and I follow each other on Twitter and engage in occasional conversation.

Under His Touch Cannoli

Under His Touch by Jeffe Kennedy is a May-December boss-subordinate office romance, a setup that is complete catnip for me that nevertheless has epic potential to go really far wrong. I love huge age gaps in my romance (my husband and I are ten years apart) and I love the realism of office romances. But often neither of these storylines work so well. In any office romance, especially a boss-subordinate romance, and even more so with an age difference, there's a fine line to walk between hella hot and hella creeptastic. Kennedy manages to walk the line with room to spare, creating a delightful story of a precocious, ambitious young woman and her older, more experienced lover that worked for me on every level.

Amber Dolors is a bright, ambitious young woman who knows just what she wants, but not how to get it. Not quite yet anyway. She's had no trouble attracting harmless young men, but what she wants is a relationship that's quite different from that. Amber has developed an interest in BDSM and is eager to explore it with someone attractive, experienced and willing to teach. Her nascent kinkdar tells her that her boss, Alec Knight, might be her ticket into the world of dominance and submission. Maybe her only ticket since her local NYC kink scene is portrayed as being difficult for a youngster such as herself to break into.

Alec Knight is Amber's boss, many rungs above her in the corporate hierarchy. This presents a huge problem for him because not only is he in fact a dominant with a ex-wife in his past whose kinky standards he couldn't live up to, he's also a really good guy. He's painfully aware of the fact that getting involved with Amber could ruin his career, but mostly that it would open her up to accusations of having slept her way to the top, which is horrifically unfair because she's super bright and fully capable of getting there all on her own. After much resisting though, he finally gives into her pleas to teach her the, ahem, ropes.

One little fun thing for me was that Amber is also just a little bit geeky. She makes all these references to Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic series, which is the series that got me into comics and which hasn't ever been replaced in my affections. Seeing the myriad Sandman references just tickled me silly and probably significantly influenced my affection for this book. But they're not just Easter eggs for Sandman fans. Amber tries to share the series with Alec, who is fairly dismissive of them. It's a problem that isn't unique to May-December romances, but a lot of the time such issues signal death in them. Despite the relative youth of one partner, there still needs to be mutual respect and Alex spends much of the novel struggling with the fact that Amber is just so young.

Together the two of them eventually stumble their way through the minefields of all their various power dynamics (including the boss-subordinate one) in a way that felt believable to me, even given current human resource realities. It's mainly Alec's reticence to ruin Amber's career and her insistence on a sexual relationship that made this work for me. Alec really has a rough time trying to decide the best course of action. He veers a bit into over-protectiveness, which Amber neither needs or wants and which she makes very clear. I think it would be easy to say, "Nope, no way, always wrong" when confronted with a scenario like this. But I remember being a young woman eager to make my own decisions (even if they turned out to be wrong ones, against the wisdom of my friends and family) and sometimes big gambles pay off. It's part of growing up. And definitely makes Under His Touch one for my keeper shelf.

Jeffe Kennedy is a writer who keeps her characters very well fed. It's an aspect of her work that I very much appreciate. Her smoking hot erotic romance Ruby really belongs on every foodie romance lover's keeper shelf. The hero is a chef and, well, I reviewed it here so you can just go look at that if you're interested. Her latest effort is no exception. Even when her characters order in, they do it in style. When the hero and heroine get delivery, cannoli, an Italian filled pastry, is on the menu.

I made several batches of cannoli while testing out what might work best. At first, I thought I wanted the most traditional cannoli possible as Italian restaurants in New York City do not mess around. But sometimes what's possible in a restaurant isn't possible for the home baker. I suspect Italian pastry chefs likely roll this very stiff dough through a pasta machine. Just guessing since following a very traditional recipe, I was presented with a cannoli dough that was far too stiff to roll as thin as I'd have liked (and I have a MONSTER of a solid maple rolling pin). But adaptation is the name of the game.

I had made several pie crusts recently and the current trend in getting flaky, tender crusts is to use vodka in place of some of the water. The alcohol inhibits gluten formation. And well, this is basically pie crust dough. The proportions are almost the same. So I decided that rather than go completely toward the traditional Marsala, I'd replace some with vodka for a higher alcohol content. And OMIGOSH. Did that ever make a huge difference. They look like cannoli shells, they taste like cannoli shells, they get all blistered and crispy like cannoli shells. Teensy tiny little change, big damn result. I was pretty pleased with myself for figuring that out.

Anyway, once I'd added vodka, there was no looking back. Ricotta filling is a pretty traditional choice for cannoli and I did like this one just fine. I cut this filling recipe in half in case you want to do more than one filling. I also happened to have made a milk chocolate chantilly for a recipe over Christmas and thought it might be excellent as cannoli filling. Spoiler: it was. And I used the same technique to make a Nutella version. Make these two whipped ganache fillings a day ahead as they need to rest in the fridge overnight. You can double the recipes with no problem if you only want to make one type of filling. Otherwise, these are sized to fill 12 shells each and the shell recipe makes 24 so just pick two.

I stored the pre-fried, unfilled shells for 48 hours before filling and they were fine. Filled ones didn't last 4 hours in the fridge before they started to get a little soft and not as crispy. So it's best if you can fill them as you need them. I know I say this twice a month, but these cannoli are the best thing I've ever made for the blog. It's one of those horrible projects that takes forever and requires dipping molded baked goods into vats of boiling oil, but it's sadly completely worth the effort. Also, because it's a trifle complicated, I've included a dozen more photos of the process here.

I'm legendary among my friends for being able to resist my own baked goods, but I might have eaten a couple of these for breakfast. Okay, a few. And I maybe did it three days in a row. So there's that.

Cannoli
adapted from Canelle et Vanille and Food Network
Makes: 24 mini cannoli
Time: 2 hours (1 1/2 hours hands-on)


Nutella Filling (fills 12 cannoli)
250 grams heavy cream
90 grams Nutella
2 tablespoons chopped, toasted hazelnuts

1. Boil the cream and pour over the milk chocolate. Stir until the chocolate has melted. Cover with plastic wrap adhering to the surface so it doesn't form a skin. Let ganache rest in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Whip it as whipped cream.

2. Spoon into piping bag or ziploc bag with a corner cut off and use to fill cannoli shells. Sprinkle ends with chopped hazelnuts.


Milk Chocolate Chantilly Filling (fills 12 cannoli)

250 grams heavy cream
90 grams milk chocolate, chopped into small pieces

1. Boil the cream and pour over the milk chocolate. Stir until the chocolate has melted. Cover with plastic wrap adhering to the surface so it doesn't form a skin. Let ganache rest in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Whip it as whipped cream.

2. Spoon into piping bag or ziploc bag with a corner cut off and use to fill cannoli shells.


Ricotta Filling (fills 12 cannoli)
1 cup ricotta cheese (full-fat)
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon allspice
2 tablespoons heavy cream, whipped stiff
4 tablespoons of miniature chocolate chips, divided

1. Mix together the ricotta, powdered sugar, cinnamon and allspice. Gently fold in the whipped cream, then fold in 2 tablespoons of the mini chocolate chips.

2. Spoon into piping bag or ziploc bag with a corner cut off and use to fill cannoli shells. Sprinkle ends with remaining mini chocolate chips.


Cannoli Shells

2 cups all-purpose flour + more for work surface
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons butter, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
1 egg yolk + 1 egg white, separated
5 tablespoons dry Marsala
3 tablespoons vodka
4 cups vegetable oil (or other neutral high heat oil like canola--do not use olive oil)

1. Combine flour, sugar and salt in a food processor, about 6 pulses. Add butter and combine, about 10 pulses. Add egg yolk, Marsala and vodka and process until the dough starts to come together, about 15-20 seconds.

2. Form into a ball and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Heat 4 cups of vegetable oil to 365 degrees Fahrenheit. Flour a work surface and roll out dough to about 1/16th of an inch. Shells will puff while cooking and thinner shells will cook more evenly. Cut circles using a 3" or slightly smaller biscuit cutter.

3. Working four at a time (or however many cannoli molds you have) wrap each circle around a cannoli mold and coat one edge with egg white. Press together VERY firmly and then flair the ends. This is the most important step because otherwise your cannoli shells will unmold themselves in the oil and look more like taco shells than cannoli tubes.

4. Once the oil reaches the proper temperature, fry each cannoli one at a time, about 2 minutes each. I used metal tongs to hold each cannoli suspended in the oil. If you let them rest on the bottom of the pan, they brown unevenly. If I did this again, I might rig up a way to fry more than one at a time because this step was very time-consuming.

5. When removing hot shells from the oil, using a clean kitchen towel, gently remove the mold from the shell and set both aside to cool. Repeat until all shells are fried. Fill as desired and serve.

For more photos of the process, visit the cannoli album on my Facebook page.

Disclosure: I am friends with the author and I received a complimentary copy of Under His Touch from NetGalley for review purposes.

Christmas in the Duke's Arms Chocolate Cookie Mix

When I picked up Christmas in The Duke's Arms, I went into it with trepidation. I expected...well...Dukes. And while I don't have a problem with Dukes per se, I do have a problem with the sameness of Dukes: powerful guy, lots of wealth and responsibility, inevitably rakish, rarely seen doing any government work or estate business despite that I can only imagine those things took at least some amount of their time? I need not have worried. In fact, only one of the heroes in these novellas is a Duke. And even that Duke bears very little resemblance to the stereotypical romance Duke described above. Rather, the title refers to "The Duke's Arms" a pub that serves as one of the loose ties that hold these four stories together. There are others and we'll get to that below when I explain what candy canes are doing in a Regency romance review.

Each of these stories has something to recommend them. The main thing I appreciated about each is that they didn't try too heart to force the cheer and sentimentality. The first story, A Knight Before Christmas by Grace Burrowes, does have a number of fluffy bunnies, but as breeding rabbits, they hardly fit the stereotypical mold of the puppy-cover Christmas romance. This novella features the unconventional courtship of a widow and her deceased husband's man of business, himself a widower. The heroine, by virtue of an odd stipulation in her deceased husband's will needs to marry rather quickly and while the two have an affinity, there is an evil other woman holding up the show. The EOW trope is not one I'm fond of in general, but the way the conflict was resolved was hilarious; a farce, but one I enjoyed.

The second story, In The Duke's Arms by Carolyn Jewel, who I've heard wonderful things about, but hadn't read, features the only actual Duke of the bunch, a busy, distinguished fellow who tends to scare everyone around him, including his heroine. My favorite aspect of this story would be a bit of a spoiler, but suffice to say that I very much appreciated that the Duke of Oxthorpe is pretty much the opposite of the stereotypical historical romance Duke. He was socially isolated as a child and doesn't engage easily with other people. Heroine Edith Clay is very much the opposite as everyone likes her, except perhaps for her relatives. Seeing her wake up to the truth of Oxthorpe's personality and regard for her is a joy. And all those other Jewel books I've got languishing on my TBR just got bumped up several notches.

Licensed To Wed by Miranda Neville features another man bound by duty and ambition with designs on his now penniless childhood neighbor. In contrast to Jewel, I've read all of Neville's books and for the most part enjoyed them all. I was not at all disappointed by this one in which the poor orphaned girl who may never receive another offer of marriage rejects her dutiful, determined suitor out-of-hand right at the beginning of the story. Wyatt Herbert, Viscount Carbury, is a bit of a stick in the mud and a touch OCD, making to do lists of items, big and small, which get progressively funnier. Robina Weston is delightfully independent, but not excruciatingly so, making this clash of wills most enjoyable.

The final story, Spy Beneath the Misteltoe by Shana Galen, was the odd one out in a number of ways, a send-up of 007 Bond spy lore recast as a romance between two competitive spy colleagues. It didn't work quite as well for me as the other three novellas, but still had its charms, including the resolution to another plot thread running through the other stories, that of a highwayman terrorizing the road through the neighborhood in which the stories are set.

Christmas in The Duke's Arms had a little drop in price over the weekend as well. It's now 99 cents at Amazon so if you were holding off, now is the time to snap it up. If you're an historical romance reader looking for a short and sweet but not saccharine holiday read, I definitely recommend it.

One of the neat things about Christmas in The Duke's Arms is that not only do the characters in each story visit the book's namesake pub, many of them also end up at the same Christmas party at the home of Penelope Carrington. Since I'm not a big historical recipe developer, instead of coming up with a Regency treat that might appeal to a modern palette, I thought I'd just pull together a last-minute hostess gift idea for the holiday parties you might be attending in the upcoming week.

The whole mix-in-a-jar idea isn't new. But sometimes I've gotten gift cookie and cake mixes that 1) suffered from being in a jar because the order ingredients are mixed isn't ideal, and 2) require you to add so many things, you might as well just have baked it from scratch yourself. This recipe is super simple because all the gift recipient has to add are one stick of melted butter and a couple tablespoons of water. No eggs, no shortening or perfectly softened butter and no vanilla or other liquids. And since you just spread all the dough out in a slab, the instructions are pretty easy too!

This kind of project is helped by having a stash of craft supplies. I sew and do some paper crafting so I had the pinking shears, scrap fabric, hole punch, cardstock and twine on hand. If you had to go out and buy all that stuff, this might end up getting a little more expensive. Oh, and here's a printable gift tag/instruction sheet for the mix.

The ingredient list below is a total shopping list: the amount of each ingredient you'll need for 6 gifts. If you just want to do one gift, you can use the amounts in the first line of the assembly instructions below. Otherwise you're going to have to do some math. Sorry!

Chocolate Cookie Mix
adapted from The Washington Post
Makes: 6 gifts
Time: 1 hour

Supplies
6-32 ounce wide-mouth mason jars with lids
6-6" squares of fabric
6-18"lengths of ribbon or twine
3 sheets cardstock
12 plastic sandwich bags or treat bags

Ingredients
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
6 teaspoons vanilla powder (also great for flavoring Royal icing because it doesn't turn white icing brown)
2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 cups Dutch process cocoa powder
2 1/4 cups white sugar
3 cups brown sugar
9 cups bittersweet chocolate chips
3 cups crushed candy canes (approximately 32-36 6-inch candy canes)

To assemble gifts:


1. In each jar, from the bottom up, layer 3/4 cup flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla powder, 1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 cup cocoa, 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons white sugar and 3/4 cups chocolate chips. Put 1/2 cup crushed candy canes and 3/4 cups chocolate chips in two separate ziplock bags and put in on top of the mix.

2. Lay the top on the jar. Print and fold the gift tag/instruction sheet. Punch a hole in the upper lefthand corner. Using twine or ribbon, tie the tag to the neck of the jar. Lay one fabric square over the top of the lid and use the rim to screw down both the lid and the fabric.

To use mix:

1.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Ready an unlined baking sheet.

2. Take out chocolate chip packet and candy cane packet and set aside. In a medium bowl, thoroughly combine the remaining jar contents with ½ cup melted unsalted butter and 2 tablespoons water.

3. Leaving a 3-inch margin on all sides, spread dough into a rectangle that measures about 11-by-8 inches. Pat it into an even layer.

4. Bake 12-14 mins until top looks dull. When done, sprinkle the chocolate chips from the packet over the cookie slab. Let the chocolate chips sit for 5 mins to melt, then use a spatula to spread it. While chocolate is warm, sprinkle candy cane packet on top.

5. Let cool on baking the chocolate topping is firm, about 2 hours. Break each cookie slab into about two dozen 2- to 4-inch-long irregular pieces.

A Matter of Disagreement Lavender Earl Grey Tea Cookies

Back in October during Queer Romance Month, I picked up A Matter of Disagreement by E.E. Ottoman. The premise of the book grabbed me right away: two steampunk scientists have an academic difference of opinion regarding the future of their chosen field of mechanical animation. As plots go, it's a fresh one, and the conflict between the two main characters is not trivial. In fact, they are genuinely atrocious to each other for much of the novel. It's an incredibly sexy ramp-up that left me panting for the moment when they would finally succumb to their attraction to one another, among other things.

Andrea, Lord Ashcroft de Bourbon, is a gently-born scientist who has been effectively disinherited by his family because of his insistence on an academic career. Rather than lead an idle life as a lord, he obtains grants for his research until changes in his field make acquiring funding difficult. Those changes are largely the fault of the charming, erudite Marquis de la Marche, and Andrea bitterly resents him for it. To make matters worse, one of his favorite research assistants and a gifted scientist in his own right is going to be forced to take another position outside academia if Andrea can't come up with sufficient funding. Andrea is grumpy, short, pudgy and ill-understood by just about everyone. He’s really having quite a difficult time of it at the beginning of the novel.

Gregory, the Marquis de la Marche, is Andrea's scientific rival. His wardrobe is to die for and he’s also much more conventionally handsome, confident and dashing than Andrea. Their first meeting is one of the most appealing I've read this year. Though they have corresponded forever via opposing journal articles, they don't meet in person until they encounter one another in Gregory's laboratory during a party he should have been hosting up at his house. They are immediately attracted to one another, both physically and intellectually. It isn't until late in the conversation that they discover each others' identity, and Andrea goes storming off.

Andrea and Gregory are fantastically awful to each other throughout much of the novel, making their banter incredibly quick and clever. I was reminded of Elizabeth and Darcy in their worst moments, though these two are substantially more cutting. There's something so delicious about an enemies to lovers narrative. When they finally do get together, the sex is just as explosive as you might expect from two such passionate people. It's sexy and tender and humorous, just like the rest of the book.

The world-building in this book is also unique, particularly with regard to legal, scientific, and medical details, which normally get overlooked in steampunk fiction in favor of weaponry and other engineering marvels. I did feel there were a few areas where the world-building could have been more substantial. Details of society, magic, and engineering felt sketched in at points, so I'm looking forward to future books in the series shedding more light. But the information we are given supports Gregory's personal history, especially his transition. It isn’t until midway through the novel that we learn Gregory is trans*, which has implications in their society beyond gender identity, specifically in terms of inheritance law. And when Gregory recounts his story to Andrea, it marks a turning-point in their relationship for the better.

A Matter of Disagreement is one of those brainy romance reads that I wish were more common. It's terrifically romantic, but the scientific context, family politics and unrelentingly witty dialogue made it shine. And finally, and this is odd for me because I never comment on covers, but I just love this one. Romance covers are terrible pet peeve of mine. If all of them looked like this one though, I might buy more physical books.

My holiday baking is epic. I've stopped counting how many dozens of cookies I make because last year it freaked me out. I think it was 72 dozen or maybe 84 dozen? For the math-challenged, that works out to 864 cookies. Or maybe 1,008? That sounds about right. Anyway, it's a lot of cookies. They all get eaten every year though. And not by me!

For years I have made pretty much the same basic bunch of recipes: gingerbread cookies, Mexican wedding cakes, decorated sugar cookies, jam thumbprint cookies, chocolate peppermint bark, chocolate-dipped meringues, and my favorite, Earl Grey tea cookies. And usually one or two others depending on my mood and what kind of ingredients I have left over. I've got a recipe to try this year with cardamom and crystallized ginger that sound interesting, for instance.

So this is a tried and true recipe that I fussed with just a smidge. In A Matter of Disagreement, The Marquis wears an aftershave that smells of black tea and lavender, which immediately made me think of adding lavender to these Earl Grey tea cookies. For the record, I would completely fall all over anyone who walked around smelling like black tea and lavender. I mean, holy smokes, how hot is that?

Anyway, about a week before baking, I put 2 tablespoons of culinary lavender in 2 cups of granulated sugar and shook it every day until the whole thing smelled and tasted faintly of lavender. When it was time to make the cookies, I considered straining out the flowers, but decided against it since I make these in the food processor anyway and all the lavender would get pulverized along with the loose black tea. If you're using a mixer though, you might want to remove the flowers or at least pulverize them with a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.

It's a small amount of lavender when all is said and done, about half a tablespoon, so you just get a floral hint along with the tea flavor. It makes the cookies ever-so-slightly more complex. These might seem a little different, but they're really excellent. Whenever I give these to people, they're always skeptical and it always ends up being their favorite.

In fact, you might just want to triple this recipe before you even start. I always do.

Lavender Earl Grey Tea Cookies
adapted from Real Simple Magazine
Makes: 4 dozen
Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes (Hands-on Time: 30 minute) + 1 week


1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tablespoon culinary lavender
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons Earl Grey tea leaves (approximately 6 tea bags)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon water
1 cup salted butter, softened

1. About a week before baking, add lavender to granulated sugar and mix to combine. Cover and set aside, shaking daily to redistribute the lavender.

2. Pulse together granulated sugar, Earl Grey tea leaves and salt in a food processor until tea and lavender are pulverized. Add flour and powdered sugar. Pulse briefly to combine. Add the vanilla, water and butter. Pulse together until a dough forms.

3. Divide the dough in half. Lay out two sheet of plastic wrap and roll the dough into 12" long logs. You can flatten each side for square cookies or leave round for circular cookies. Chill for a minimum of 30 minutes or as long as overnight.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove dough from fridge and slice approximately 1/3 inch slices. Place on baking sheets about 2 inches apart.

5. Bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly browned. Allow to cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Cookies last up to a week, tightly wrapped.