Happy St. Valentine’s week, all! When you’re a romance writer, it takes a certain amount of willful self-cloistering in an unheated, shuttered garret studio to forget about old Valentine’s Day. I’m a social media Luddite compared to many, but I am on Twitter, and it’s been abuzz with V-Day-themed blog posts and giveaways and book releases, to say nothing of friends sharing their plans for the holiday. And if that wasn’t reminder enough, my local NPR station (which is on about as constantly as the heat or lights in our house) runs an annual guerrilla fundraiser selling Valentine’s roses by the long-stemmed, fairly traded dozen that lasts nearly a week. It’s not a day I can forget.

Not that I want to forget it. I used to get a real kick out out of Valentine’s Day, back when I worked in an office. It’s fun to have flowers delivered; I’m girly enough that I like having my roses or new shoes or haircut complimented (oh, this old thing?) Now I work from home, which I wouldn’t trade for anything, but it leaves just little old me to admire any flowers that might show up. Plus there are no witnesses to keep me from eating an entire cardboard heart full of chocolates in a single afternoon.

But the main reason my husband and I don’t bother with Valentine’s Day is that his birthday is two days before. We always go out for a nice dinner (Indian this year, with plenty of wine) and watch a movie and get otherwise romantical, and to do that twice in one week would kind of take the shine off it, I suspect.

But to everyone who digs V-Day, I hope you had a great one! I, alternatively, had a great Husband’s Birthday Day on Sunday, which I kicked off by baking his favorite dessert item—carrot cake. Carrot cake cupcakes, to be precise. It was my first time making carrot cake, but I found it pretty easy, if a bit intensive, clean-up-wise. Credit where credit is due—I’ve adapted the following recipe (changed some ingredients and most measurements) from the one in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking cookbook.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Cake batter:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. salt
1½ cups grated carrots (4–5 medium, 2–3 large)
½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts
½ cup raisins
1 cup sugar
1 stick salted butter, melted
2 eggs

Frosting:
⅓ cup cream cheese, room temperature
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
1½ cups confectioners’ sugar
juice from ½ lemon (optional, but I like it)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease bottoms and sides of 12 muffin tin cups, then dust bottoms with flour and shake out excess. You could probably also use muffin liners, though I didn’t try it myself.

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

3. In another bowl, stir together carrots, walnuts, and raisins.

4. Melt butter and allow to cool slightly. Using an electric mixer, beat sugar and butter together in a large bowl on medium speed until smooth. Add eggs and beat some more. Gradually add in flour mixture, mixing on low speed until just mixed. Fold in carrots, walnuts, and raisins.

5. Dole batter evenly into muffin tins.

6. Bake 20–25 minutes, until a sharp knife inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Let cool 5 minutes, then gently run a butter knife around the sides to loosen the cake. Invert and cool.

7. For the frosting, use an electric mixer to beat cream cheese and butter together in a medium bowl until creamy. Gradually add confectioners’ sugar and continue to beat until frosting is velvety smooth. Beat in lemon juice.

8. Once cupcakes are cool, frost them. I found they tasted better when they’d cooled completely, rather than still warm from the oven—I could taste more of the cinnamon for whatever reason.

Also, if you’d rather not have a dozen cupcakes tempting you at once, cut the recipe in half, or refrigerate half the batter and frosting to bake another day. I did the latter, and the second batch was just as good as the first.

For the calorie-conscious, I fed the ingredients into my little nutrition app while I was baking, and can report that each cupcake is about 270 calories—190 for the cake and 80 for the icing. Not too bad, for birthday cake!

That is to say, for us folks above the equator now settling into our hemisphere’s cooler months, thank goodness for the cold-weather clothes that camouflage seasonal overindulgence. Oh yeah, I’m starting early this year.

I’m an avid baker (of the fool-proof cookie, bread, and pie variety, not the delicate pastry or tidily iced cakes variety) and I’m thrilled it’s finally cold enough to fire up the oven…without also having to fire up the air conditioner. For the past week I’ve been on a banana bread kick, so I thought I’d share my super easy recipe with everyone. This recipe makes two loaves, for a total of 20 generous slices (or 40 more restrained ones). Takes about 15 minutes of prep work, and 50 minutes of baking time.

Photo credit to http://applestoorangesca.wordpress.com

You’ll need:

1 rounded cup sugar
1 stick butter, softened
super-ripe bananas, 4 small or 3 large
2 eggs (cage-free organic if you want to go to heaven)
½ cup whole milk (or if you’re like me and never have milk in the house, mix 2:1 half-and-half plus water)
1 tsp. vanilla extract (or lemon extract, and swap the chocolate chips for slivered almonds—nom)
2½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
12 oz. package chocolate chips (optional, really, but delicious—also try cranberries, blueberries, raisins, nuts, etc.)

1. Move the rack to the low position and preheat your oven to 350°. Grease the bottoms of 2 loaf pans.

2. In a large mixing bowl, mix the sugar and butter until smooth. I do it with a fork, but you could use an electric beater, too.

3. Add the peeled bananas, eggs, milk, and vanilla, and mix thoroughly.

4. Stir in the flour, salt, baking soda, and chocolate chips (not too thoroughly).

5. Split the batter between the 2 loaf pans and bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick or kebab skewer (or the tip of a sharp steak knife, if you, like me, don’t own toothpicks or kebab skewers) stuck in the center comes out clean.

6. Let cool 5 minutes. Run a butter knife along the sides of the pans, to loosen the loaves. Gently turn out the loaves and let them cool under a clean cloth for 30 minutes, then store any extra bread you don’t gorge yourself on in an air-tight container or plastic bag.

Enjoy! And happy fall.

Meg

Good morning, Isabel Sharpe here, from Wi(ll-it-ever-be-spring?)sconsin. On the 15th of each month I’ll be providing a Blaze-appropriate recipe for your enjoyment, everything from mood-brightening cocktails to tantalizing appetizers to hot main dishes and happy-after sweet endings, because as a devoted foodie, I believe when it comes to pleasures of the body, eating and drinking are right up there with . . . you know.

Today’s recipe is about celebration: of our Blaze blog’s first month, of Harlequin’s 60th anniversary, and of course, of love and everything wonderful about it, especially the naughty bits. What better way to celebrate than with champagne, my very favorite indulgence? I’m one of those people who sees athletes spraying the stuff around the locker room and thinks, “God, I hope that’s cheap Asti.”

On my refrigerator I have a comic strip: Man comes up to the bar and says, “A bottle of your very best champagne!” The bartender asks, “What’s the occasion?” and the man says, “Thirst.” That’s my kind of thinking. When I grow up I want to be able to have a bottle of the “good stuff” in my refrigerator at all times for when the mood strikes. Until then I have to be content with a bottle of the “okay stuff” in my basement.

In this recipe, the champagne is mixed with pomegranate juice flavored with orange and ginger. Don’t bother buying expensive champagne when you’re mixing, but don’t buy garbage either. Domaine Ste. Michelle, made in Washington State, is my current favorite lower-priced sparkling wine (if it doesn’t come from the Champagne region in France, it can’t be called champagne.).

Epicurious.com will allow me to post the link, but not reproduce the recipe

Isabel’s tips: Mix the non-champagne ingredients together rather than measuring them individually in each glass, and try using only a tablespoon of the mixture first, unless you like your drinks sweet (I don’t) in which case use a couple.

Enjoy!

Isabel

P.S. I’m sending this for posting early because I’ll be on a road trip with my kids on the 15th. I will do everything possible to find wireless Internet so I can check in during the day, but can’t promise. So apologies ahead of time if I don’t respond to comments right away!