A recipe for applesauce spice cake and maple buttercream frosting

Happy autumn! Here’s one of my favorite cake recipes, a real indulgence and a favorite as the leaves turn color and the temperatures cool. I love it with maple buttercream frosting, recipe below. Soooo good.

I try to use my own homemade applesauce. There’s nothing quite like writing away with applesauce bubbling on the stove and a fire in the woodstove. Just can’t get too absorbed in the writing and forget the sauce and the fire! APPLESAUCE SPICE CAKE

Ingredients

2½ c. all-purpose flour

 

1 tsp. salt

¼ tsp. baking powder

1½ tsp. baking soda

¾ tsp. ground cinnamon

½ tsp. g… Read More

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Light, fluffy scones (a recipe) for Christmas

… Read More

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Wild Maine blueberries (recipe included!)

I just put a quart of wild Maine blueberries in the freezer. I know I’ll love having them when it’s frosty outside! They’re a family favorite, whether for pies, muffins, cobbler, pancakes or sprinkled fresh on yogurt or cereal. We love cultivated blueberries, too, but wild berries bring back many special memories. The photo below is of my granddaughter a few years ago in a coastal Maine wild blueberry patch.

My first memory of picking wild blueberries for the first time was a child, too, on a family picnic at Quabbin Reservoir with my parents and six brothers and sisters. Quabbin an… Read More

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It’s back: Strawberry Meringue Roulade Recipe

Strawberry season is upon us (soon!) and here again is my recipe for strawberry meringue roulade. It’s gluten-free, relatively easy to make and delicious. I only make it when local strawberries are available.

The recipe also works well with mixed fresh fruits or raspberries. Enjoy!

Strawberry Meringue Roulade

Ingredients

4 egg whites
1 c superfine sugar
1 pint heavy cream or whipping cream
1 pint fresh strawberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 300​°F.​ Line an 8″X12″ jelly roll pan with parchment paper. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites with half the sugar unti… Read More

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The joys of rhubarb

My first encounter with rhubarb wasn’t promising: I was around seven and ate a chunk off the ”vine.” It was ultra-tart. I had friends who loved it straight that way but not me! I don’t like it too sweet but I do like some sweetness.

Since then I’ve come to love rhubarb stewed, in pies, cakes, crisps, crumbles, pies and jams. I’m trying savory glazes for meats and vegetables now, too. It’s hard to go wrong.

Not everyone is a fan. An Irish friend remembers his mother peeling rhubarb and using it in many dishes, but he never developed a taste for it. After many years, he ga… Read More

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Merry Christmas!

Yesterday’s flooding rains haven’t dampened our Christmas cheer. We’d have preferred snow (there’d have been a ton of it!) but appreciate the sunny days ahead as we finish our shopping, wrapping and planning for our gang to arrive.

Fine-tuning what goodies to bake and buy is especially fun! We’re planning on making a Christmas wreath pavlova. Here’s the amazing Mary Berry’s version.

Looks so good, doesn’t it? We love it in part because it’s naturally gluten-free for our grandchildren with celiac. They love helping to make it (a… Read More

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Create a hygge reading nook

The past few winters we’ve been incorporating the Danish art of hygge into lives up on our hilltop in northern New England.

Pronounced “hue-guh,” hygge doesn’t translate easily into English. “In essence,” says Visit Denmark, “hygge means creating a warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life with good people.”

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Here are a few ideas for bringing hygge into creating a cozy reading nook:

Candles

A lot of candles. Candles are a hygge must. They can be flameless. It doesn’t have to be dark (or cold!) to light candles. I’m just careful to k… Read More

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A recipe for mulled wine

A pot of mulled wine simmering on our wood stove is such a treat!

Our wood stove came in handy this past weekend when a nor’easter hit Vermont hard with extensive power outages. We were out from Friday to Sunday evening. Other people are still without power but we see hardworking crews out there and appreciate their efforts. It was quite a storm.

Back to mulled wine…

Below is the recipe included in my Swift River Valley novella, “Christmas at Carriage Hill.” By the way, it’s just $1.99 in digital and now available in audio. And A Knights Bridge Christmas is on sale t… Read More

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Christmas cookies! A recipe…

I posted this recipe a couple of years ago. It’s a family favorite. When I was growing up, my Dutch father would make spritz cookies throughout the Christmas season.

My six brothers and sisters and I all loved to help.

The buttery smell of the cookies warm from the oven is a great memory and something I can recreate in my own kitchen. The cookies are relatively simple to make and fun to decorate:

SPRITZ COOKIES

Equipment: Cookie-press or pastry bag
Ingredients
3/4 c. sugar
1 c. unsalted butter
2 egg yolks
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt (or less)
Directions
Ble… Read More

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Summer means blueberries!

It’s blueberry season in New England. I just pulled a batch of blueberry muffins out of the oven. Never mind I didn’t add enough baking powder, they taste great. Hard to go wrong with blueberries.

Wild blueberries in particular have featured in a number of my books, including the first book I ever submitted to a literary agent and publisher. I remember typing The Venus Shoe on a rented typewriter with my then infant daughter beside me. It’s a favorite of longtime readers, available in eBook if you’d like to dip into my early days as a writer.

Emma Sharpe in my Sharpe and D… Read More

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