The Party Planners Cut-Above Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes Served Up by Sharon Ledwith...

Got a party to plan for your kids or family members? What about a special treat for your Holiday hostess? Bake sale you signed up for? Need a quick fix for a shower, book club, or potluck engagement? Got. You. Covered. 

Everybody loves cupcakes. Even wedding planners love to suggest to the bride-to-be to serve cupcakes instead of the traditional tiered cake. Cupcakes are like having a party for one in your mouth. Seriously. So, let’s get to it. These cut-above chocolatey peanut butter morsels of heaven will make you look like a five-star baker with your family, friends, PTA members or ‘fill-in-the blank’ guests. 

Cut-Above Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

1 ⅔ cups all-purpose flour (400 mL) 

½ cup Hershey’s® Cocoa (125 mL)

½ teaspoon each baking powder and baking soda (2 mL)

¾ cup butter

1 ½ cups brown sugar (375 mL)

2 eggs

½ cup sour cream (125 mL)

¾ cup boiling water (175 mL)

Preheat oven to 350° F (180° C). Line a 12-cup muffin pan with large, paper liners.

Stir flour with cocoa powder, baking powder, and baking soda.

Beat butter and brown sugar in a separate bowl until fluffy. Gradually beat in eggs, sour cream and vanilla until combined.

Using low speed, gradually blend in dry mixture and mix until combined. Slowly, pour in boiling water; scrape down sides of bowl and mix on low just until combined.

Divide batter evenly between lined cups. Bake for 22 minutes or until a tester inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely.

Frosting 

Using a piping bag with a star-shaped tip gives these cupcakes their bakery-made look.

2 cups Peanut Butter Chips (500 mL)
1 cup softened butter (250 mL)
1 teaspoon vanilla (5 mL)
Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Melt peanut butter chips in the microwave on medium (50%); microwave for 1 to 2 minutes; stir until smooth. Cool to room temperature.

Beat butter and vanilla with melted chips until fluffy. Pipe or spread frosting over the cupcakes, sprinkle with chocolate chips. Enjoy!

Once you’ve hung up your baker’s hat and apron, how about taking a break, and delve into one of my books? May I suggest a visit to mysterious Fairy Falls, or if you’re feeling really adventurous, a trip back in time with The Last Timekeepers? Whichever you choose, either series will entertain, engage, and open your world to new adventures.

Here’s a glimpse of the premises of both my young adult series:

The Last Timekeepers Time Travel Adventures…

Chosen by an Atlantean Magus to be Timekeepers—legendary time travelers sworn to keep history safe from the evil Belial—five classmates are sent into the past to restore balance, and bring order back into the world, one mission at a time.

Children are the key to our future. And now, they are the only hope for our past.

Mysterious Tales from Fairy Falls Teen Psychic Mysteries…

In the small, quiet tourist town of Fairy Falls, a new-to-town teen, an unlikely hero who possesses an unusual psychic ability, is drawn into a mystery and is tasked with uncovering corrupt truths that threaten the town’s future.

Welcome to Fairy Falls. Expect the unexpected.

Buy Links:

The Last Timekeepers Time Travel Adventure Series:

The Last Timekeepers and the Noble Slave, Book 3

UNIVERSAL BUY LINK ׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES & NOBLE ׀

The Last Timekeepers and the Dark Secret, Book 2 Buy Links:

UNIVERSAL BUY LINK ׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES & NOBLE ׀

The Last Timekeepers and the Arch of Atlantis, Book 1 Buy Links:

UNIVERSAL BUY LINK ׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES & NOBLE ׀

Legend of the Timekeepers, Prequel Buy Links:

UNIVERSAL BUY LINK ׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES & NOBLE ׀

Mysterious Tales from Fairy Falls Teen Psychic Mystery Series:

Lost & Found, Book One Buy Links:

PANDAMONIUM PUBLISHING HOUSE ׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES & NOBLE ׀

Blackflies & Blueberries, Book Two Buy Links:

PANDAMONIUM PUBLISHING HOUSE ׀ AMAZON ׀ BARNES & NOBLE ׀

Learn more about Sharon Ledwith on her WEBSITE and BLOG. Look up her AMAZON AUTHOR page for a list of current books. Stay connected on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, LINKEDIN, INSTAGRAM, and GOODREADS.

BONUSES:

Download the free PDF short story The Terrible, Mighty Crystal HERE

Download the free PDF writing resource Tips, Tools  & Tricks for the Tenacious Writer HERE

A Recipe and a Read: Strawberry Sour Cream Muffins and a Romantic Suspense compliments of Author Vonnie Hughes...

It’s my pleasure to share a muffin recipe that will become a breakfast favorite with your family. Use room temperature ingredients for best results as they blend into the batter easily and produce amazing muffins and makes your life easier!

If you prefer not to use butter, then an equal amount of vegetable oil or applesauce works. You can also swap out sour cream for plain unsweetened Greek yogurt. Fresh strawberries are perfect in this recipe, but frozen berries can also be used. Thaw and drain the strawberries before adding them to the muffin mix. If your frozen strawberries are whole, dice them first.

Strawberry Sour Cream Muffins

2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

2 ¼ cups fresh strawberries

1 cup sugar

1 stick unsalted butter

2 lg. eggs

1 tbsp. vanilla extract¾ cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 375° F. 

Wash berries and remove stems. Dice the strawberries into bitesize pieces. 

Insert paper liners into a muffin pan or mist the pan with baking spray. 

Combine flour through salt in a medium size bowl. Fold in strawberries and set it aside.

In a different bowl, cream butter and sugar together using a hand or stand mixer. Once the mixture is light and fluffy, beat in eggs, vanilla, and sour cream. 

Thoroughly fold in the flour mixture to create a batter. 

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups to the top. 

Bake muffins 20 – 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. 

Cool for 5 minutes in the baking pan. Then remove them to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

Store your strawberry muffins in an airtight container. They will stay fresh at room temperature for 3 days and can also be stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Here is a little from my romantic suspense set in New Zealand where a young woman who witnesses the aftermath of a crime is sent to a supposedly safe house.

Inching along the wall, Célie reached the window. She held on to the door jamb, a little island of security in a sea of fear. Then she stretched across and peered out. A featureless face stared back at her.

She screamed and jumped back, bashing her elbow on the laundry tub. 

Peaches lumbered to his feet, shaky and confused. 

The face was still there. No eyes. No mouth. No nose. 

Peaches staggered over to the door and snuffled. 

Mesmerized, Célie kept staring at that distorted face as she backed into a corner. 

Then the face moved, and a hand spread across the glass. The forefinger and thumb rubbed together. 

Flashes of memory seared her mind. 

She gasped, remembering that fearful morning when she’d discovered poor Occy’s disemboweled body. Stunned, struggling not to vomit, she’d been hovering over what was left of Occy when she sensed she was being watched. For a few precious seconds she had stared back at the creepy figure silhouetted in the early morning gloom watching her—just watching her. 

Then he’d rubbed his thumb and forefinger together covetously, as if he were contemplating the best way to eat her alive. 

And she’d bolted. 

And done her best to bury those memories. 

Vonnie Hughes is a multi-published author in both Regency books and contemporary suspense. She loves the intricacies of the social rules of the Regency period and the far-ranging consequences of the Napoleonic Code. And with suspense she has free rein to explore forensic matters and the strong convolutions of the human mind. Like many writers, some days she hates the whole process, but somehow she just cannot let it go.

Vonnie was born in New Zealand, but she and her husband now live happily in Australia. If you visit Hamilton Gardens in New Zealand be sure to stroll through the Japanese Garden. These is a bronze plaque engraved with a haiku describing the peacefulness of that environment. The poem was written by Vonnie.

All of Vonnie’s books are available at The Wild Rose Press and Amazon.

Learn more about Vonnie Hughes on her website and blog. Stay connected on Facebook and Goodreads.

Recipe and a Read: Artist and Author Linda Lee Greene Shares the Fruits of her Labors...

HALLULAH! Cast-iron cooking is back on the burner of the world’s kitchens, its barbeque pits, and its campsite fires—and nothing fries up more delectably in the iconic cooker than green apples, or apples of any color, and even peaches. 

Dating back to the 18^th century, apple and peach orchards have been a constant feature of farm-life of my American ancestors, and of my European forebears, I imagine. Apples picked right off the tree or hauled topside from underground cellars and fried up in an iron skillet, a vessel that was passed down from mother to daughter, has been a staple of my family through those generations and to the present. Store-bought fruit will do, too, of course.  

Down-Home Fried Apples & Peaches

½ cup butter

6 medium unpeeled firm apples, sliced

4 very soft unpeeled peaches, sliced 

¾ cup cane, coconut, or brown sugar

¾ tsp. ground cinnamon (optional)

¼ cup apple juice, 100% juice

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Over low heat, melt butter in a large cast-iron or heavy ovenproof skillet. Add apples and ½ cup sugar. Mix well, cover, and cook 20 minutes or until apples are fork tender. Stir frequently. 

Add optional cinnamon), remaining sugar, apple juice, vanilla extract, and peach slices. Cover and cook for another 10 to 15 minutes over medium heat.   

Serve with iron-skillet gravy and country biscuits at main meals, or with vanilla ice cream for dessert. 

The following is an excerpt of GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS, my book of historical fiction blended with my family’s actual story. The selection depicts an amusing, true incident involving apples and my mother Roma before she was my mother. A delicious recipe for fried apples and peaches rounds out this posting. Enjoy! 

One of the most enchanting features of the farm was its peach and apple orchard. Disregarding the fact that green apples gave Roma the “runs,” and convincing herself that she would get away with it that time, in a fit of gluttony, she set about one hot summer morning to stuff her belly full of the sweet green teasers. Predictably, later in the day, she found herself in dire need of visiting the “path” as this family called their outhouse, whereupon she sat, for long intervals of time, for several visits in a row. 

This was back in the day before fluffy white “Charmin” or any other machine-perforated-roll-perfectly-into-your-hand toilet paper came on the scene; these were the days when pages from magazines, newspapers, and the Sears & Roebuck catalog were special favorites for cleaning the backside. And when paper products ran out, corncobs would do. 

This day, Sears & Roebuck were on duty, and Roma, having gone through a good portion of the catalog, pulled up her underpants, and confident her ordeal was finally behind her, pun intended, proceeded to walk to the back door of the house, the door opening onto the kitchen. She lighted into her piled-up kitchen chores, working away uninterrupted for an hour or more, enjoying that peculiar euphoria that comes to one with the release of all the toxins in one’s body, when she realized that the house was unusually quiet, a phenomenon never occurring in that filled-to-human-capacity household. Taking a mere glancing note of it, she continued to sweep away, when out of the distance she thought she heard what sounded like a snicker. She hesitated for a moment, listened, but when all was quiet again, she fell back into the rhythm of her swishing broom. But suddenly, there it was again – a snicker, then two, then three. She realized she had company in the room. She turned to look, and there they all were, all nine members of her family, snickering and pointing at her backside. Horrified, she realized what was the matter, and twisting her head to get a gander at her backside. 

Like a dog chasing its own tail, Roma took off spinning around and around in the middle of the kitchen, howling like a dog, and flapping her hand at the offending article protruding from her underpants. In her haste to vacate the outhouse, the tail of her dress had caught in the waistband of her bloomers, and with it, a page from the Sears & Roebuck catalog also had fastened itself there, the page waving like a flag flapping in the breeze and ironically hailing its vivid advertisement of women underpanties.

Available in paperback and in eBook on Amazon 

Multi-award-winning author and artist Linda Lee Greene describes her life as a telescope that when trained on her past reveals how each piece of it, whether good or bad or in-between, was necessary in the unfoldment of her fine art and literary paths.

Greene moved from farm-girl to city-girl; dance instructor to wife, mother, and homemaker; divorcee to single-working-mom and adult-college-student; and interior designer to multi-award-winning artist and author, essayist, and blogger. It was decades of challenging life experiences and debilitating, chronic illness that gave birth to her dormant flair for art and writing. Greene was three days shy of her fifty-seventh birthday when her creative spirit took a hold of her.

She found her way to her lonely easel soon thereafter. Since then Greene has accepted commissions and displayed her artwork in shows and galleries in and around the USA. She is also a member of artist and writer associations.

Visit Linda on her blog and join her on Facebook. Linda loves to hear from readers so feel free to email her.