Dowser 5: cupcakes

I’ve had a few requests to post a list of the cupcakes eaten or mentioned in the Dowser books with each new release. So, I thought I would dash off this blog post just in case anyone wanted to bake before – or while – they’re reading Dowser 5 (release date: July 23, 2015).

New Creations (recipes to come):

Vixen in a Cup – chocolate gingerbread cake with a salted caramel icing.

Blitzen in a Cup – a rich but airy chocolate cake that was heavy on the mocha and iced with eggnog buttercream.

Joy in a Cup – a simple buttercream-frosted lemon cake (Recipe will be posted – along with a giveaway – on the Reading Cafe on August 7, 2015).

Old favourites:

Charm in a Cup – lemon cake with strawberry buttercream

Love in a Cup – chocolate cake with strawberry buttercream

Buzz in a Cup – mocha fudge cupcake with mocha buttercream icing

Other recipes can be found here.

<3 <3 <3

The Dowser 5 ebook will be available THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2015 on Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, B&N, and Smashwords. The paperback will follow about two weeks later. The preorders are now available.

To help celebrate there will be two large giveaways. One the week before (July 15 – 18) and one the week of the release (July 20 – 23).

Don’t want to miss the release day? Please make sure you’re signed up for my mailing list.

Don’t want to miss the giveaways? Please subscribe to my blog via the link second from the top on the righthand side of this page.

Charm in a Cup

Here is Charm in a Cup from Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1) and Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser 5).

This is a super dense, but moist, sponge cake. The cake is also the base for Sunshine in a Cup and Joy in a Cup. The frosting is also the icing for Love in a Cup.

<3 <3 <3

The Dowser 5 ebook will be available THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2015 on Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, B&N, and Smashwords. The paperback will follow about two weeks later. The preorders are now available.

To help celebrate there will be two large giveaways. One the week before (July 15 – 18) and one the week of the release (July 20 – 23).

Don’t want to miss the release day? Please make sure you are signed up for my mailing list.

Don’t want to miss the giveaways? Please subscribe to my blog via the link second from the top on the righthand side of this page.

Love in a Cup

So this is one of those recipes I swear I’ve posted before, but now I can’t seem to find it.

Love in a Cup from Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1) as well as Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser 5).

<3 <3 <3

The Dowser 5 ebook will be available THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2015 on Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, B&N, and Smashwords. The paperback will follow about two weeks later. The preorders are now available.

To help celebrate there will be two large giveaways. One the week before (July 15 – 18) and one the week of the release (July 20 – 23).

Don’t want to miss the release day? Please make sure you are signed up for my mailing list.

Don’t want to miss the giveaways? Please subscribe to my blog via the link second from the top on the righthand side of this page.

Dowser 5: Buzz in a Cup

Updated recipe: April 18, 2016

BuzzinaCup_postcardsize_recipe

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Original Post:

I did a poll to ask readers of the Dowser Series what cupcake Drake should eat in Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser 5).

Buzz in a Cup won.

ETA: as a noncoffee drinker I found these very strong, as a regular coffee drinker (who drinks his coffee black) Michael found these tasty, but not overly strong.

Without further ado here is the recipe:

<3 <3 <3

The Dowser 5 ebook will be available THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2015 on Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, B&N, and Smashwords. The paperback will follow about two weeks later. The preorders should start going live around July 9 or 10th.

To help celebrate there will be two large giveaways. One the week before (July 15 – 18) and one the week of the release (July 20 – 23).

Don’t want to miss the release day? Please make sure you are signed up for my mailing list.

Don’t want to miss the giveaways? Please subscribe to my blog via the link second from the top on the righthand side of this page.

Bake a cupcake and win five paperbacks

CONTEST CLOSED! Winner: CORI from NEW YORK, USA. Lucky #4

I still have a few of those misprinted paperbacks hanging around in a box in my office. It’s a handy box, because it raises my laptop up when I’m working from the treadmill desk, but it isn’t very pretty. I should replace it with something in the nearish future, so the books need to go! Plus it feels like a long time since I’ve hosted a giveaway.

This is the final full set of misprints. The books are slightly streaked with pink lines. The files/printings have all been corrected, so once these are gone there won’t be any more. I’d be happy to sign them, personalized or not.

Do you want to win all FIVE of these paperbacks?

Yes?

Then, to enter:

1. Bake some cupcakes inspired by one of the cupcake creations in the Dowser books. You can use one of my recipes or your own – from scratch or a mix, your choice.

2. Take a picture of your cupcake(s) and post that picture in the comments as a .jpg (if possible).

Unfortunately, there isn’t mechanism that allows you to post a picture directly in the comments, but you can link a .jpg. The comment thread should embed it automatically — direct links to the .jpg are best for this. If this isn’t possible for you then you can link to a post on Instagram/Flickr/Facebook/Twitter/etc. This will just show up as the link, not the picture though.

3. Tell me about your cupcake. Which Dowser cupcake inspired yours – Lust in a Cup, Sunshine in a Cup, Buzz in a Cup, etc?

This is not a baking or beauty contest. Even with how much I bake I cannot manage bake/frost a ‘pretty’ cupcake.

FUN! FUN!

Notes/Rules: OPEN INTERNATIONALLY. Each cupcake/picture will be assigned an entry number. The winning entry will then be selected via random number generator. One entry per person. Please make sure to fill out a valid email address in the comment form. Email addresses are not collected for any purpose other than notifying the contest winner.

If you haven’t commented on the blog before, or you comment from a different IP address, the comments are moderated. So don’t worry if you don’t see your entry right away. I will approve it, then assign it an entry number.

Contest closes SUNDAY, JUNE 14, 2015 at 8 p.m. PDT.

NEW TO THE DOWSER SERIES BUT YOU STILL WANT TO PLAY ALONG? Dowser 1 is currently perma-free on all retailers.

What cupcake should be featured in Dowser 5?

At the beginning of Dowser 5 *spoiler alert* Drake eats three different cupcakes. Two are new creations of Jade’s, and the fledgling has previously tasted the third one.

Dowser Series cupcake Masterlist — The Cupcake Masterlist for the Dowser Series

As I was working through the third draft today, I thought it might be fun if readers of the Dowser Series decided on the ‘previously tasted’ cupcake.

To that end, I have embedded a poll below – which I seriously hope works – with five possibilities. All of the cupcakes on the poll were mentioned in Dowser 1, and therefore could have previously been consumed by Drake (which is the main criteria).

Pick one. Majority rules.

I promise to release the cupcake recipe a couple of weeks before I release Dowser 5. Yum!

Dowser 4 – Tease in a Cup

Presenting Tease in a Cup, Kandy’s second birthday cupcake, from Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4). These blackberry chocolate cupcakes share the same base with Sass in a Cup but they’re iced with blackberry buttercream! The touch of lemon in the buttercream is definitely the secret ingredient. So tasty!

∞

Tease in a Cup was originally featured on the Reader Cafe on March 14, 2015. 🙂

Oh, happy birthday to my sister!!

Chocolate and Eggs

Yesterday a lovely neighbour messaged to see if I wanted a dozen of her eggs. Though I had a dozen in the fridge, I immediately said “yes, please,” jumped in the car, and tore off down the street to pick them up. Who says no to farm fresh eggs? Not me.

Before I even got my hands on the eggs I had plans for Egg Benedict for Sunday brunch (courtesy of Michael) and Chewy Gooey Chocolate Cookies for an afternoon snack. I believe this is the perfect pairing, using the yolks for the hollandaise sauce and the whites for the cookies.

Then Gerri – the lovely neighbour who is willing to share eggs from her heritage flock – mentioned she was making a chocolate soufflé, which – having never made one myself – sounded like WAY too much work for a Saturday evening to me.

Of course, sometime before making mini pizzas for dinner last night I decided I should try to make a chocolate soufflé as well.

Yeah, I know one doesn’t just whip up a soufflé on a whim, but around 8:30pm Michael and I paused Winter Soldier and gave it a go … the first attempt at the ‘chocolate part’ seized, and I over-whipped the whites as a result of the delay. But, eventually, I baked something that looked reasonable for a first try.

Except I didn’t like it.

It tasted floury, even though the recipe only called for three tablespoons of flour.

Four eggs, some sugar, and a half cup of chocolate. I used some of my precious Allure from Chocolate Arts, and I didn’t like it.

Why?

Not enough chocolate.

You know what has more than enough chocolate?

The Chewy Gooey Chocolate cookies currently in my oven. I’d recommend these over a fiddly soufflé any day.

This is what I look like when I blog on a Sunday afternoon. First selfie ever taken on my new laptop!

Modifications to the recipe/notes: My go-to chocolate for these bad boys is Tanzanie by Cacao Barry, which cuts the sweetness perfectly. Don’t refrigerate the batter!! And either eat these the day you bake them, or freeze immediately. Michael loves them frozen, but they thaw beautifully. 😀

Dowser 4: Sass in a Cup

Updated recipe: April 18, 2016

SassinaCup_postcardsize_recipe

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Original Post:

Presenting Sass in a Cup – one of Kandy’s birthday cupcakes – from Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4). These blackberry chocolate cupcakes frosted with a generous swirl of blackberry chocolate buttercream happen to be my favourite of the four new cupcakes mentioned in Dowser 4. They’re insanely good, so moist! And the pairing of blackberry and chocolate so works (if I may say so myself).

∞

Tease in a Cup will be featured over at the Reader Cafe on March 14, 2015, then I will post the recipe here.

A read-a-long with the author: Cupcakes (Etc)

I’m about to send The Oracle #1 off to the editor – yay – and dig back into writing Dowser #4. Yes, I have titles for both of those books and I will release them soon as well.

During the next couple of weeks as I write Dowser #4 I’m going to be doing some fun things that I thought you might like to know about and/or participate in.

Starting Wednesday, I’m reading through the first three Dowser books. I’ll download them on my iPad, sit down, and actually read them as if I was … well, a reader. I’ll share my favourite quotes and thoughts about certain sections as I read. Perhaps you will have questions yourself? Or favourite quotes to share?

I’ll start a new post here on the blog and a new thread on my Facebook page for each book as I read.

I’m expecting to start Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic on Wednesday. The ebook is perma-free everywhere if you haven’t grabbed it yet (links on the book page). I’m a fast reader, so I expect to have it done in a day, barring any other work that needs my attention. Then I’ll read Trinkets (Etc) and then Treasures (Etc).

The second thing I’m going to be doing is testing some new cupcakes – specifically with some wild blackberries I picked the other day. It has been suggested that my readers may want to participate in this process and perhaps even come up with a name or two, so we will do that as well 🙂

Third, and most importantly because Jade needs new chocolate for Dowser 4, I will be test tasting these:

I know I’m such a martyr for my craft. Yes – if you didn’t already know it from my Facebook post – I went a little crazy and dented my credit card pretty hard at Xocolat right before we moved. Did I mention we just picked up and moved to Salt Spring Island? No? Well, we did. It’s an adventure (more on that later).

I will select a chocolate bar a day … or two or three a day if I run into something I don’t like enough to eat plain (I bake with any chocolate I don’t love enough to just eat). I’ll share the bar and my tasting notes on Facebook and do a digest version here.

Fun, yes?

Okay, so it all begins Wednesday with reading Cupcakes (Etc).

I hope you join me!