This recipe for Chewy Oatmeal Cookies makes so many that I overflowed my little glass cookie jar. Is that a problem?

Blend first for about 3 minutes with an electric hand-mixer;
- 1/2 pound (1 cup) chilled margarine
- 1 cup firmly-packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla

Then make a well in center and blend in;
- 1 1/2 cups white flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon (I used2 teaspoons of the Poudre Douce again from Victorian Epicure)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups rolled quick oats

(Optional: 1 cup raisins.)

Blend all together, and drop by lovin spoonfuls onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, and transfer to a cooling rack. Eat until the book is done.

Here’s the recipe for the carrot cake that I pictured on Twitter last week. So many of you have asked for this, so I’ll just post it here. What does this have to do with self-publishing, podcasting, writing, online marketing, or anything else that I write about? Once you taste it, you’ll understand.

With thanks to Joan Craven of Craven Communications, my very generous friend in Calgary.

Karrott’s Cake, originally from Enjoy: More Recipes from the Best of Bridge (the yellow one).

1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup corn oil
3 eggs
1 + 1/2 cups flour
2 cups finely grated carrots (I actually put in closer to 3)
1/2 tsp salt
1 + 1/3 tsp baking soda (who wrote this crazy cookbook, anyway??!!??)
1 + 1/2 tsps cinnamon (I used the Poudre Douce from Victorian Epicure and put in a bit more than called for)

The “official” instructions:
Mix oil and sugar, beat well. Add eggs, one at a time and bet after each. Sift dry ingredients and add to egg mixture. Beat all together until well-blended. Fold in raw carrots. Bake one hour at 300~ in greased 9×13 pan.

What I actually did:
I wanted to set this up the night before so that I could throw it together in the AM, so I grated the carrots, and added them to a bowl with all of the other wet ingredients, excluding the sugar, which I put in the fridge overnight. I then put all the dry ingredients into a second bowl, and sifted them through a strainer as I added them. In the morning, I just added the dry to the wet, folded only as long as was necessary to get it wet, dumped it in a pyrex pan sprayed with pam, and went to take my morning shower. By the time I had dressed and made breakfast for our guests, it was time to remove it from the oven. I iced it with bought icing and nobody knew the difference. (Uh, well, at least they didn’t until now.)

Eat well = write well!

OK – this post has nothing to do with writing, publishing, eBooks, podcasting, social media, or marketing. But, this easy cake recipe is seriously good.

Years ago, my mother used to bake this cake every Easter. She would bake it in a pan shaped like a lamb, smother it in butter icing, and then pat coconut onto it to look like the lamb’s fur. My sister and I loved to pick off the jelly beans that she used for eyes, and my dad would eat the licorice nose. My mother recently gave me the pan, and now I use the pan to make “Kitty Cakes” for my own little girl.

This recipe exactly fills the lamb pan, which was designed to take a standard Betty Crocker cake mix. So, that must mean that this recipe will fit any of those specialty character or shaped pans put out by Wilton Cake products.

Jean’s Special Whipping Cream Cake

(Originally taken From Sphere Magazine March 1975)

1 cup chilled whipping cream
2 whole eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

- beat cream in chilled bowl until stiff
- in separate bowl, beat eggs and vanilla till light and fluffy
- fold egg mixture into cream
- fold in all remaining ingreds in turn
- pour into a greased bundt pan

Bake at 350~ for 50-60 minutes. Cool cake in pan for 5 minutes, then invert onto wire rack to finish cooling.

To decorate a bundt-style cake, simply sprinkle w/ powdered sugar.

The beauty of this recipe is that it’s so good, you don’t need to ice it. I figure if I put the effort into a special homemade cake, I don’t have to bother with elaborate decorations. I have made this cake a lemon flavour by adding a tiny amount of artificial lemon flavour and yellow colour. It also tints nicely, because the cake is a nice clear white – not a yellow colour – so it can easily be made an attractive petal pink with just a dot of red food colour.

Have fun blowing out the candles!

Let’s face it: writers don’t get a lot of exercise. I’ve discovered this recipe that makes a really crunchy and filling low-carb snack.

Low-Carb Crunchy Writer’s Snack Mix
(This makes enough to last at least a week or more.)
- 1 box Bran Buds
- 1 bag raisins
- 500g toasted sunflower seeds
- 500g toasted pumpkin seeds
- 250g toasted sesame seeds
- 1 Tablespoon sea salt

Toss in large airtight sealed jar, and spoon out when you feel munchy. Little goes a long way.

The raisins add some carbs, but they are more than offset by the bran, and seem to reduce cravings for sweet stuff. The seeds provide omegas and keep one from feeling hungry because they take a while to break down. If I eat about 3-4 Tablespoons of this before midday, I eat far less lunch.

Makes a nice snack with fried onions – just chop an onion, fry in EVOO, and add the mix to the pan. Can also add spices, curry powder mixes, other low-sugar dried fruit or nuts, chili flakes, bran flakes, flax seed, dried vegetable flakes, etc. Use it to top off soups or mix into tuna salad. Delish!