The Woman by the Lake (Misted Pines Series Book 3) IS LIVE!!! This sounds SO GOOD! Haunted house + a grumpy neighbor is totally my thing!!! And to celebrate this release, Kristen Ashley is sponsoring today’s newsletter and she’s sent over a recipe I’m dying to try!! You’ll love this!!
Kristen says:
“…Nadia and Riggs’s story is YOURS.
For a sleepy town in Washington State, Misted Pines has a lot going down (and a lotta hot guys living there…as every romantic fictional small town should, obvs).
THE WOMAN BY THE LAKE, the third in my thriller romance series, is coming your way. We got enemies to lovers. And we’ve got so much more (but I’m not gonna say, because I hate spoilers).”
and…
“What’s it like to move in to a cabin by a lake in a small town in the Pacific Northwest to escape a tragedy…only to find out the cabin you rented not only has a good-time, seriously-annoying hot guy living down the trail…and the cabin might be haunted?”
and…
“You get to meet Nadia and Riggs. More time with Bohannan and Delphine, the twins, Rus, Harry…and KIMMY!”
Nadia’s Guiness Cake from The Woman by the Lake
Kit Note to Start: This is a Nigella Lawson recipe from her awesome cookbook, Feast. Therefore, as the Brits measure ingredients differently, you’ll have to pay close attention to what you’re measuring (many liquid measuring cups have milliliters already on them, so that helps!), do some conversions and pull out ye ole cooking scale. Sadly, none of these strictly convert to any American measuring cup (except the teaspoons). And in baking, measuring is important.
But trust me, it’s worth it! Riggs and Ledger in The Woman by the Lake definitely thought so!
Ingredients
- 250 milliliters Guinness
- 250 grams unsalted butter
- 75 grams cocoa powder
- 400 grams sugar
- 150 milliliters sour cream
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 275 grams plain flour
- 2½ teaspoons baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
Frosting:
- 300 grams cream cheese
- 150 grams powdered (icing) sugar
- 2 teaspoons corn flour
- 125 milliliters whipping cream
How to do it
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF/180°C/160°C Fan, and butter and line a 9-inch/23cm springform cake pan. You just have to line the bottom of the pan.
- Measure sugar and cocoa in a bowl and whisk this a bit to incorporate.
- Pour the Guinness into a wide saucepan (grab a biggish ’un, all the ingredients are going in!) and turn on to medium heat. Add the butter gradually (I cut it in slices and plop it in). Heat this until the butter’s melted, then whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Take it off the heat.
- Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla together in a bowl. Then that gets poured into the butter/beer mixture.
- Yup, in the same saucepan, whisk in the flour and baking soda.
- Pour the batter into the greased and lined pan. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Do the toothpick test to make sure there isn’t anything gooey on the pick, just crumbles.
- When done, set out and let it cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack cake.
When the cake’s cold, run a knife around the edges and then spring this baby from its cage. Carefully turn it over on your full hand to pull off the bottom and the parchment paper. Flip it back and put it on whatever serving platter or stand you’re going to use. Then you can get started on the frosting.
- Now, you’re gonna either need two elements—a standing mixer and a handheld mixer—or you’re going to have to dump what’s in the bowl to another bowl to get on with the frosting. It’s not as annoying as you think, and totally worth it.
- First, lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the powdered sugar and corn flour and then beat to combine.
- Next mixer bit: whisk whipping cream to soft peaks, add a couple of spoonfuls into the cream cheese mixture and once this is combined, fold in the rest.
- In Nigella’s words: “Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.” My word: “Enjoy!”
KRISTEN ASHLEY’S LATEST ROMANCE THRILLER!!
The Woman by the Lake (Misted Pines Series #3) by Kristen Ashley
KRISTEN ASHLEY’S LATEST ROMANCE THRILLER!! HE’S HER GRUMPY NEIGHBOR & THERE’S LORE ABOUT HER CABIN…
“…Nadia Williams needs somewhere peaceful to sort through her grief after her mother is brutally murdered. She finds a cozy cabin at the side of a tranquil lake in the quaint town of Misted Pines in the Pacific Northwest. The minute she arrives, she knows it’s perfect.
The very night of her arrival, however, someone—or something—is scratching at her window.
The next morning, she meets her one and only neighbor, Doc Riggs. He’s a rough, good-time guy who rubs Nadia wrong immediately. They clash, and neither of them are happy to be sharing their lake.
But soon, Nadia learns the lore around her cabin, and how the townsfolk are certain it’s haunted by the ghost of the man who was murdered there fifteen years before...”
And here’s the entire series in order.
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