Last year my agent called me in November and asked me if I would be interested in writing a veterinarian cozy mystery because she'd been approached by the publisher. I jumped at the chance because I love animals!
After a couple of hours and a fresh murder mystery series in my head, she called back and said to scratch that idea because they had a better one for me...SOUTHERN BAKING MYSTERY SERIES.
Southern, check! Baking....oh no....
Okay. I can bake. I just can't decorate. No joke! I'm the one with the chocolate cake that is supposed to have white icing and the cake has mixed in with the icing when I'm spreading the icing so it looks gross.
The publisher loves my southern voice and as we all know we southerners love food, especially our sweets.
Fear ran through me as I stepped out of my comfort zone and tip-toed (not jumped) at the chance to write the series. The reason I agreed to it was to go outside of my comfort zone and learn something new.
Again, it wasn't the baking that I needed to know, it's the decorating.
(Hahhaaa! We had to bake and bring six flat cookies to our first class. Tracy, my sister, made personal pan cookies...it was so funny!! Hahhaa! My little cookie compared to her big cookie. The instructor couldn't stop laughing.)
This week our class started. After the first hour, there were new terms in my head that clashed into each other. I spent most the time with my brows furrowed wondering what I'd gotten myself into. Not only can I not decorate with tub icing in the baking aisle from my local grocery, but I've got to buy special butter that's not yellow because it will turn my icing yellow, I can't use PAM to bake my cakes and I've got to make some sort of other thing....
Literally, that's not just the icing on the cake. There's all these tips, bags, and the couplers. The what??? Needless to say, I can make stars...
The instructor asked me at the end of class what I'd taken away from the first class to use in my book. Interesting enough, I did have my notebook with me and the ideas were coming...only it wasn't baking or murder. I came up with a fun, romantic scene in the kitchen between my protagonist and the local sheriff....yeah...there's a romance.
SQUEE!! Until next week! Don't miss a blog post. Subscribe to the free feed in the sidebar >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Do you have a fun recipe to share or baking story? I'd love to hear it.
It will be a fun series. Are you going to incorporate your learning to decorate into the books that would be funny. I use to decorate cakes for the grandkids my most accomplished was a cake that was like a gown with a Barbie in the middle so the cake looked like her dress and a Darth Vader.they weren't perfect but made with a lot of frustration and a whole bunch of love
ReplyDeleteOh!! I love that!
DeleteWhen my best friends grandson turned one years old he was really into Dora and he wanted a Dora cake. His momma wasn't working at the time and the decorated cakes where expensive. I told my friend go buy a Dora cake pan and supplies at Michael's and make it yourself. She is like you and doesn't know a thing about decorating a cake. She bought all the supplies came to my house and dumped them on the table. She told me you are crafty make us a Dora cake. I spent hours messing around with the cake and after watching endless videos I finally finished it! She was a little lopsided but he loved the cake! Once I got the hang of it I made every kid including my own personal cakes for their birthday's! I have an extensive collection of shaped pans and spent years decorating cakes and cupcakes into crazy shapes and character's! My kids are all grown now but now I have a granddaughter who I can't wait to start making cakes for! I would definitely put your experiences bad and good into your new series I have some funny experiences trying to make these cakes and we have had some good laughs over my really bad mistakes! I am excited to read this new series! Good luck with it I am sure it will be a hit!
ReplyDeleteHahha! You're a good one! Today I tried my hand at decorating Eddy's birthday cake....smh...I'll forge on though!
DeleteI can't wait to read this series it sounds like fun.
ReplyDeleteThanks girl! I'm so excited!!
DeleteSounds like fun. You'll be able to use the new stuff you learn in this series. Yeah!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYes! I'm excited!!
DeleteLet me try again I hit something and disappeared, LOL. All I can say about me is that I look like a snowman when I bake, no matter how neat I try to be. I will tattle on my sister, the first time she ever baked, she used a boxed cake mix. She was upset that it wasn't baking right, we finally figured out that instead of using 1 1/3 cups water she used 3 1/3, I found it funny, she was not amused. Trial and error, she's a wonderful baker now.
ReplyDeleteNo recipe to share today, but a baking story. By profession, until disability, I worked as an RN managing clinical research. To pay for my first year of college, I worked at a bakery icing and decorating cakes. For a number of years, I had the opportunity to bake good for departmental parties and social events. My grown children still take about some of their birthday cakes. If you'd like tomorrow I can post a photo of Minion cupcakes. Our granddaughter will be coming for dinner to help celebrate my birthday early (thank you for the card)and she requested Minion cupcakes!
ReplyDelete